Expanding Surpluses Sees Commodities Suffer Poor Quarter

Corn futures tumbled to a five-year low, gold is the cheapest since January and copper extended this year’s decline as raw materials posted their worst quarter since 2008.

The Bloomberg Commodity Index fell as much as 1.5 percent today, the biggest intraday loss since June 2013. U.S. corn inventories before the start of this year’s harvest were bigger than analysts forecast, the government said today. Holdings in bullion-backed exchange-traded products are near the lowest in five years amid waning investor demand.

Expanding surpluses, a surging dollar and slowing growth in China helped send the Bloomberg Commodity Index to the lowest since 2009 this month, reversing first-half gains fueled by a polar vortex and dead pigs in the U.S., and escalating tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East. Global stockpiles of nickel are at an all-time high, while Americans are producing the most oil since 1986, compounding a global surplus. China, the largest consumer of grains, energy and metals, is poised for its slowest expansion in two decades, analysts forecast.

Bloomberg

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