On February 19, the website of Spain's "El Pais" published a report entitled "from nickel, oil to coffee, the shortage of supply has wings for bulk commodities". The full text is excerpted as follows: scarcity seems to have become a major ally of raw materials. Since this year, the price of raw materials has continued to show a strong growth trend, and the panic and fluctuation day after day have long disappeared. The S & P Goldman Sachs commodity index and Bloomberg commodity index soared 13% to record highs. Don't forget, this is after 2021, when the rise is equally brilliant. Brent crude oil prices rose 20%, and commodities such as aluminum (16.4%), nickel (15%), soybeans (20.5%) and coffee (8%) were the most bullish this year. Jeff curry, a raw materials expert at Goldman Sachs, recently said that he had never encountered a similar lack of inventory and products in the market in his 30-year career, which forced buyers to pay a very high premium for immediate supply. Daniel Sullivan, director of natural resources and portfolio manager of Henderson, an investment company in London, explained that ample global liquidity and massive supply disruptions (power cuts, transport bottlenecks, closure of production centers due to COVID-19, strike...) pushed prices of many commodities to a more than 10 year high. Will this trend continue? Goldman Sachs predicted in a recent report that it will enter the stage of raw material hoarding this summer. As the market believes that the supply of these raw materials does not reach sufficient quantity, it will seek to establish preventive inventory. Goldman Sachs believes that this indicates that the current upward trend in prices will continue. At present, it is still in the stage of supply scarcity since September 2021. Analysts' consensus shows that raw material prices will continue to rise this year, although factors such as Iran's return to the world oil market and the impact of sanctions caused by possible conflict between Russia and Ukraine on Russia, the world's major raw material supplier, should not be ignored. The trend of energy prices is also decisive in determining the price trend of other raw materials in the world, and is a key factor in the increase of the cost of these commodities in the process of production and transformation. "Production problems exist," said a recent analysis by the Bank of America. "European metallurgical companies have reduced production due to rising electricity prices and emissions." Analysts also highlighted the hoarding factor and concluded: "we estimate that replenishing inventory may increase the growth of raw material demand by 2% to 8% in the next few years." In addition, compared with some financial products, raw materials also win as investment assets. Goldman Sachs is even very optimistic about this: "we rarely see a better time than now to add commodities to the portfolio. Commodities can hedge against inflation, geopolitical risks and potentially adverse market environment. Unlike financial markets, the future 50 basis point or 100 basis point interest rate increase will not affect spot assets such as commodities." Goldman Sachs predicts that the Bloomberg commodity index will rise by about 11.5% in the next year, and the S & P Goldman Sachs commodity index will rise by about 14.4%. [source: reference information network]