Price fluctuations on the commodity market are completely normal. Commodities are traditionally extremely volatile, as supply and demand can fluctuate greatly. In the past trading week, some stocks moved particularly strongly up and down.
The losers of the past week
In view of heat waves, floods and other natural disasters, as well as shrinking acreages, grain prices are fundamentally subject to strong fluctuations. In the 35th calendar week of 2021, corn was clearly one of the week’s big losers on the commodity market, down 7.71 percent.
Prices for soybeans, wheat, rice and oats also declined. Oats experienced the smallest price drop with minus 0.77 percent. While rapeseed rose by 0.13 percent and coffee by 0.53 percent only slightly, cocoa is clearly one of the winners of the week with a plus of 3.12 percent.
Lead, copper and zinc also performed weakly with minus 1.48, minus 0.63 and minus 0.14 percent, respectively.
The winners of the week
The 4th place on last week’s list of winners was achieved by silver. The price of the precious metal rose by a total of 3 percent, confirming the reputation of precious metals as crisis winners among investments. If we look at the price development of silver since the beginning of the Corona pandemic in March 2020, we see that the silver price has almost doubled since then.
Cocoa came third among the commodity gainers with a gain of 3.12 percent. At times, cocoa was indeed among the worst commodity investments. However, if we look at the price development over the last 2 years, we see that cocoa has been able to more or less maintain its price level since then.
Cocoa is an indispensable raw material for many different products, the price of which is determined by supply and demand. However, weather influences, stock levels, political unrest and government crises in the main cocoa-growing countries also have a major impact on the price of cocoa. Therefore, the price development within the last two years has also been characterized by strong peaks and dips.
With a gain of 7.09 percent last week, natural gas ranked second among commodity gainers. Like the oil price, the price of natural gas is currently benefiting strongly from the Corona crisis. While the post-crisis global economy is expected to be greener than ever, fossil fuel prices have nevertheless gone up sharply since the pandemic began.
Meanwhile, the price of lumber went up another strong 10.88 percent last week. Wood thus achieved the highest price gain and is the winner of the past week on the commodity exchanges. The main reasons for the almost explosive rise in lumber prices are the rapid and unexpected recovery of the global economy and the increase in construction activity, particularly in the USA, China and Europe.
