We wanted to give a quick preview of our upcoming Quarterly Economic Review Newsletter, this time focusing in on one of the biggest stories we’ve got at the moment: commodity returns in the 2nd quarter. We’ve become accustomed to the cyclical drawdown in commodity prices. This has been rough on Emerging Markets and the Developing World, as many countries in developing markets rely on the export of as few as one main commodity as the basis of their national economy. For example, Chile is known for its reliance on its copper export industry.
United States Commodity Index Fund (NYSE:USCI) is our favorite gauge of broad market behavior of commodities. It’s been on a steady decline, as the 5 year average of -8.34% annually shows. The 6.85% increase this quarter shows that some of that decline in commodity prices has reversed to a very small extent. Precious metals are a large part of this current rally, with gold returning 25.5% year to date and silver 45.9%.
We look forward to bringing you our full Newsletter in the coming days. We hope you enjoy our research, and as always, let us know what you’d like to see more of in coming newsletters and reports!