Development banks seek to revive world’s biggest power project
The planned Grand Inga hydropower complex in the DRC has been stalled for decades.
Undoubtedly, 2015 will go down in the history books as one of the worst years on record for mining companies, hit by record-low commodities prices that forced them to axe jobs, dividends, production and sell assets.
The main question for next year is whether miners will see the beginning of a recovery phase or they will have to get used to what some describe as the “new normal”, characterized by oversupply and weak markets.
While the jury is still out on the issue, most analysts believe that commodities will continue to “bump along the bottom” until there is a pick-up in global economic growth.
Follow the slides to see what the consensus seems to be for some of the most watched commodities:
[meteor_slideshow slideshow=”What-to-expect-for-2016″ metadata=”timeout: 150000, speed: 150000 “]
10 Comments
Altaf
All these years, the miners kept increasing capacity based on just one factor-Chinese demand. When Chinese demand slowed, the miners cant keep the mines idle. They kept producing hoping the weaker will be eliminated. Every miner want to be the last surviving, so they stepped up pace of production. As long as they try to outrun each other, commodity prices come down. If they stop, call for meeting and take capacity idling proportionately, the down trend will stop. otherwise they keep pushing the weaker miner out of business. All is not doom and gloom in commodity markets. Where the doom and gloom is for miners, there is bloom for consumers like India. India being resource importing nation, suffered for long silently due to increasing commodity prices. Now its time for a relief. The fiscal deficit will come down drastically.
Mark Harder
“Gloom and doom” and “breathless breakthrough” are the favorite headline topics here and elsewhere. Often price crashes and rallies are really changes of 10% or less. The glass is 90% full and 10% empty, in other words. I’ve learned to accept that model of journalism from mining.com. There’s still a lot here that interests me.
You make a good point regarding the market’s dependence on the Chinese economy. However, China’s economic health depends on the rest of the world’s economies. Once the industrialized world outsourced so much of it’s production to China, the latter’s demand for industrial commodities became dependent on their customer’s demands and these have been sliding in past years. Economic planners in China’s government are concerned about their nation’s dependence on exports. They want to create more internal demand. If that happens, I expect that Chinese demand for commodities will increasingly depend on internal conditions, and less on international demand for their goods.
Honest Misanthrope
How to predict like a pro, a.k.a an analyst: 1- draw a trend line of the last 2 to 5 years and stretch it straight into the future. That’s your prediction. And then, 2- when your prediction is almost inevitably proven wrong later, just say that some unexpected events or change of trends happened along the way, otherwise you would have been right on.
Siva kumar
Undoubtedly, 2016 will go down in the history books …………………”next year news”
Evans Lisomona
Thanks for all the insight into the future of the commodity prices over the next coming years.However, i would love to see some in depth technical backup and thorough explanation in your price predications basing on the following benchmarks.
Show the behavior of the commodity price curves, e.g for crude,copper,Gold,Iron Ore,Coal from the times in the seventies,nineties,2009 and more recent 2015 with respect to supply and demand, for the general public to understand why we are having such economic slumps.This will also help the mining companies to plan well for project expansion and new project commissioning during boom times and also to map up survival strategies during sluggish times.
In your commodity price predictions for the next few years, you must state precisely how much world wide yearly supply of each item would be available and anticipated consumption to clearly gauge the supply-demand behavioral pattern and ultimate pricing.
For the technology driven new era raw materials, e.g lithium,graphite and Cobalt, I strongly conquer with you on your price predictions.Demand due to the need
for technological advancement will continue keeping prices favorable.
John Youhanes
Next Year 2016, would be full of challenges but better than outgoing year 2015.
David Egerton
What about Zinc and lead?
rayban
Commodities you say ? Man wake up , all commodities do not trade in tandem . Some are better than others . They may slightly mimic each other at times due to the brainless greed mongering piles of pewtrid moron capital . (Power money makes it own ways ) . Some commodities become scarce enough to overcome manipulation and wanton overt shorting by power piles of cash . Let us be deeper analysts and see what is rare and getting rarer and what is common and headed for capitulation .
We being smarter traders and investors is not going to be a problem for you blimps is it ?
Spudly
They say precious metals will go down as interest rates go up because they do not produce a return. Neither does any stock that doesn’t have a dividend. So if investments leave non returning assets when interest rates go up and the majority of stocks do not have dividends what might happen in those markets?
Mark Harder
Oooops. Just noticed the left-right arrows in the slide show. Other commodities are indeed discussed.