Why 2007 will be the year of commodities

published 12 February 2007

Emerging markets look set to continue their meteoric rise in 2007 - and that means it will be another great year for commodities, says Puru Saxena. Find out which commodities are set to be the star players - and why right now could be the last cheap buying opportunity you when it comes to precious metals and mining stocks.

Capital markets powered ahead in 2006. As expected, the big winners were the emerging stock markets led by Peru, Vietnam, Venezuela, China and Russia. The laggards, however, were the stock markets of the 'developed' world - no surprises here. Over in the commodities arena, several base metals (zinc, copper and nickel), precious metals (silver, palladium and

During the past 12 months, the ongoing monetary- inflation, credit-growth and expanding liquidity environment drove up prices in various markets. Apart from rising interest rates and unrest in the Middle East, we did not get any major negative developments on the economic front, which also helped the global markets. Finally, the U.S. housing slowdown did not curb borrowing and affect consumer spending, thereby preventing a recession. So, what can we expect in 2007 from the various asset classes?

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This is a pre-election year, and history has shown that during pre-election years, American stocks have done well. Moreover, each mid-term election year in the United States since 1950 has provided investors with an opportunity to profit from a significant rally. The current rally began in June 2006 (prior to the mid-term elections) and if historical patterns remain intact, the Dow Jones should advance strongly over the coming year.

The U.S. economy is currently undergoing a mid-cycle slowdown, and the chances of a full-blown recession are slim. Over the coming months, I expect U.S. housing to deteriorate further, but a crash is highly unlikely. In other words, I anticipate a soft-landing in the U.S. economy. For sure, the world's largest economy has severe problems (record-high indebtedness and sky-high deficits), however other nations want to sell their merchandise to the United States and are willing to finance its deficits. As long as this continues, the U.S. economy should be able to live on borrowed time.

I am of the opinion that despite a slowing U.S. economy, growth in other parts of the world may remain unharmed. Asia is advancing at a blistering pace, Latin America has turned around and Eastern Europe is developing rapidly. In fact, the 'developing' world is expected to outperform the industrialized nations in the future. Accordingly, our managed-accounts are invested in the fastest-growing regions of the world. At present, my preferred stock markets are Brazil, China, Mexico and Russia.

As China and India continue to urbanize, it is estimated that more than 150 million surplus workers from rural areas will move to cities by 2020. It is interesting to note that roughly 60% of China's population and 70% of Indians still live in rural areas. These numbers are shockingly high when compared to a more developed Asian nation such as Korea, where over 80% of the population live in cities!

Once the millions of Asians move to urban centres and become wealthier over the coming years, they will demand a better quality of life and all the 'creature- comforts' you can possibly imagine. These people will want bigger homes, washing machines, televisions, refrigerators, motorcycles, cars and so forth. Now, unless you are a central banker and have the ability to create something out of thin air, it is safe to assume that the demand for all these goods will require an immense quantity of raw materials such as cement, steel, copper, rubber, zinc and energy.

Now that we have established the case for a sustainable rise in the demand for natural resources, let us examine the supply dynamics. Throughout the 1980's and 1990's, prices of commodities were caught in a vicious bear-market. The devastation was so severe that the majority of the commodity-producers did not invest in spare capacity. After all, there was no incentive to spend more money and increase supply when prices were falling sharply! So, when the demand for commodities suddenly began to rise 4-5 years ago, nobody was prepared for it. Even today, despite the surge in the prices of raw materials, spare capacity and stockpiles are extremely low.

These days there is a lot of noise about the copper 'bubble.' It is my observation that asset-bubbles are usually accompanied by an oversupply of the item in question and buildup of its inventories. Yet, if you take note of the copper inventories on the London Metals Exchange, you will quickly realize that the 'bubble-talk' is totally absurd! On the contrary, supply-shocks in the near future may cause inventories to diminish further as Bolivia plans to 'industrialize' a river that supplies water to Chile's Atacama Desert, thereby threatening the world's largest copper-mining district.

I suspect copper (like many other commodities) is simply consolidating within its ongoing bull-market and its price in real (inflation-adjusted) terms is still way below its all-time high recorded in the 1970's. Over the coming days, copper may decline somewhat more but once the correction is over, I anticipate copper to resume its uptrend. Utilize any weakness in the near future as an opportunity and consider investing in copper-mining companies that have huge reserves and cash flows.

Furthermore, it seems to me that the multi-month consolidation in precious metals is now almost complete and we are likely to see upward moves over the coming weeks. Both gold and silver have built a huge base and they have recently shown strength in the face of a strong U.S. dollar - impressive action. It is my belief that this maybe the final opportunity for investors to buy precious metals and quality mining stocks at these depressed levels - it always pays to buy when the sentiment is negative

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