Word: demande
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What a difference a financial crisis makes. After the worldwide economic boom went bust, demand abruptly evaporated for many commodities that go into the production of houses, cars, computers, and all kinds of durable goods. The Dow Jones-AIG commodity price index has shed more than half its value since mid-2008. Due to falling metal prices, BHP Billiton in January announced the mothballing of an Australian nickel mine only eight months after it officially opened. The most visible turnaround has been in oil. A year ago, Western governments were pleading with Persian Gulf oil states to ramp up production...
...prices rising for some commodities now, in the middle of the worst recession in decades? The answer: demand is recovering, slightly, for some raw materials. In the case of oil, supplies have been reduced by OPEC cutbacks. And commodities traders are bidding up market prices in general on expectations that supply shortages will return with just a modest improvement in demand...
...there is every reason to believe that emerging markets such as China and India will continue to be ever more voracious consumers of iron ore, oil and food as their economies get bigger and their citizens richer. Palm oil prices, for example, have been rising of late partly because demand from India, with its population of 1 billion, is holding up. In March, China imported a record amount of iron ore and coal, while imports of crude oil hit a 12-month high. The binge is being fueled in part by optimism that Beijing's $565 billion stimulus program will...
...course, different types of commodities will react differently as the global economy improves, based on their own specific supply and demand conditions. This makes timing a turnaround complicated. Rogers says he expects commodities prices to be among the first to rise, out of all asset classes, when economic growth begins to return. Other experts argue against a rapid rebound, because inventories are high for commodities such as oil, and because demand for natural resources has been so thoroughly squelched in some industries that it may not fully recover anytime soon. Francisco Blanch, head of commodities research for Merrill Lynch...
...April 8, the U.S. steel industry filed an antidumping suit with American authorities against Beijing, alleging that $2.7 billion of pipe steel was unfairly dumped onto the American market last year. Eurofer General Director Gordon Moffat calls it a "perfect storm" for a trade war. "Demand has fallen off a cliff since October," Moffat says. "We know China is simply waiting for demand to return before flooding the markets...