Brownish Tinged Cervical Mucus

Information, noise, and investment choices

One of the insidious paradoxes with which investors, large and small, have to make is that the abundance of information complicate rather than facilitate financial investment choices.

thought I was back to mind watching the progress of Bags in the two final sessions of last week, when the indices have been driven - according to the news - before rising sharply and then fall even more heavily on a series Data on 'American occupation apparently conflicting.

Let us determine the facts before proceeding with some reflections on the value of information.

A look at a guide as the index ' S & P 500 (see chart below, by StockCharts) is known as the last two weeks, after a failed attempt to rig the 200-day moving average at an altitude of around 1430, prices have retraced and then enter a pause for consolidation between 1375 (at the 50-day moving average) and 1400.




For seven sessions in a row the movements were of little significance, before rising slightly to touch the resistance in 1400, then with a slight fall to retest support at 1375.

The market, in short, has crushed in a mortar water for almost two weeks and docks reason was simple: everyone was attesa delle statistiche mensili sull’ occupazione Usa , il dato macroeconomico più seguito dagli operatori perché più in grado di condizionare, almeno nel breve termine, l’andamento delle Borse.

Cronaca di un caotico epilogo di settimana borsistica

Giovedì, alla vigilia del rapporto sull’occupazione, è poi accaduto qualcosa di inatteso. Gli indici Usa hanno fatto segnare rialzi superiori al 2% tra volumi sostenuti, registrando in alcuni casi (Nasdaq 100 e Russell 2000) dei nuovi massimi. Il dado sembrava tratto a favore di una ripresa del trend rialzista. I motivi?

A leggere le cronache della grandi agenzie finanziarie as Bloomberg or Reuters , then picked up by newspapers, the reasons were two: the retail sales figures exceeded expectations by two discount chains like Wal-Mart and Costco and " surprising decline "of 17 000 units in weekly unemployment claims.

One investment strategist said with a particular focus on Bloomberg, James Lowell, goes on to say that the data unemployment, which fell last week to 357 thousand units, had been the real catalyst for the rally. It concluded: "If the employment report Tomorrow's surprising even slightly positive, continue to gain strength the idea that maybe the economy (U.S.), instead of being in a phase of deceleration, is stabilizing. "

Friday, however, dreams of stabilization have broken and all the Wall Street stock indices flops have more than 3%. To "understand" why we try again in light of market comment proposed by Bloomberg .

There are two "causes" of the mini-crash that the article highlights: the new highs and crude oil, especially the unexpected leap in the unemployment rate , In the past one month from 5.0% to 5.5% . Combined, the two factors came back to feed the fears of recession .

The consensus of analysts had taken into account an increase in the unemployment rate only 5.1%. Why the macroscopic forecast error ? Always

Bloomberg allows us to understand that the analysts in estimating the size of the workforce was not taken into account the large influx of market students hunting for summer jobs. The phenomenon has come to affect this year in May - not, as usual, to June - for the early closure of many scuole.

In un periodo di incertezza e difficoltà economica per molte imprese, questa nuova offerta di lavoro non è stata assorbita, andando a gonfiare il numero dei disoccupati .

Per il resto, il saldo tra posti di lavoro creati e distrutti (il dato di solito più seguito nel rapporto sull’occupazione), negativo a maggio per il quinto mese di fila, la leggera decelerazione della dinamica dei redditi e l’andamento stazionario delle ore lavorate si sono rivelati “in linea con le attese.”

Dati incompleti e confusi, vale a dire rumore

Se mi dilungo un po’ con i dettagli it is because I want to give an idea of \u200b\u200bhow confused were the interpretations that have been pursued in the markets in recent days. I would comfort the reader that at this point you feel overwhelmed by a sense of growing concern. He has good reason.

And 'it may never be enough a slight decline in weekly applications for unemployment benefits for an end to fears of a recession? Or, can satisfy an abnormal increase in the unemployment rate to turn? (Some people think that the unusual effect in May, applications for employment of students, not included in the method of seasonal adjustment, influenced at least half in the increased 0.5 points as of Friday). All this has

little sense, as it seems unreasonable that the market will embark, for these reasons, in a 2% rally on Thursday in a crash and 3% on Friday. The

confusion, of course, creates confusion and other evidence, among many others, had the player who has left Saturday to read page 5 of Sole 24 Ore . Under the dramatic title

"market tensions - The collapse of financial markets," the paper presented yesterday two antithetical readings of the event's key financial week.

Mario Platero , the New York correspondent, wrote that "maybe he really the recession is going to make his way regardless of the accommodative Federal Reserve policy." the data on employment, he said, "worry."

Riolfi Walter, on the other hand, in an analysis published alongside, complained of the irrationality of a market, the report on Friday - in his opinion, less faults, better than expected - "If anything should go up." Even?

The benefits of a wider vision of

breath at the end I will try to draw some lessons from this cacophony of voices. But before you get there, it will be useful to say what I think the statistics on Thursday and Friday. Looking at them from afar more, more in the context, it is easy to give them a meaning clear enough.

My view is in tune, as often happens to me, with what analysts Northern Trust, led by the excellent Paul Kasriel . And I will explain using a couple of their charts.

The first, below, shows the trend of the unemployment rate dal 1989 a oggi, in parallelo all’andamento del tasso a breve manovrato dalla Federal Reserve, i Fed funds .


Uno sguardo di lungo periodo consente subito di capire che la disputa sulle anomalie statistiche del dato di venerdì (così enfatizzate, ad esempio, da Riolfi) ha una rilevanza marginale.

Se il tasso di disoccupazione, a maggio, fosse salito al 5,3% anziché al 5,5% non sarebbe infatti cambiato granché. Il profilo di fondo resta quello di un ciclo in marcato deterioramento, in forme analoghe a quelle che hanno accompagnato l’instaurarsi delle passate recessioni (evidenziate nel grafico dalle bande grigie).

Detto per inciso, il grafico di Northern Trust consente anche di percepire una “costante” nella condotta di politica monetaria della Federal Reserve . E cioè il fatto che i Fed funds (nel grafico, la linea rossa), non hanno mai imboccato un ciclo di rialzi prima che il tasso di disoccupazione iniziasse a scendere.

Le attese di rialzi dei tassi a breve entro fine anno, che i mercati a termine avevano di recente preso a scontare, vengono liquidate, alla luce dei precedenti storici e del perdurante deterioramento del mercato del lavoro, come un abbaglio.

Il secondo grafico riguarda la serie storica delle domande di unemployment since 1984, reported with care to smooth out the excessive volatility of weekly data by using a moving average of four weeks.


Again all the "noise" on the details of the dispute was pretty much futile. The unexpected decrease of 17 000 units, on Thursday, according to many, would have triggered the short-lived rally of the grant is reduced to the status of a detail of little significance.

The substance is the fact that the average four weeks - to 368.500 units - fits the past three months beyond the threshold of 356 000 (indicated by horizontal line) than in last two cycles has accompanied the start of a recession . The interpretation of

Northern Trust, which subscribe to its rationality and adherence to data very significant because they placed in a context of long-term economic statistics is that this week are not only compatible each other, but also consistent with most of the evidence in recent months, from the most different areas of the U.S. economy.

Together, they make a framework that allows you to say - for now in a statistical certainty and without definitive - that a recession , negli Usa, è già in corso da qualche mese.

Rumore e informazione

A coniare il termine di noise ( rumore ) applicato all’andamento dell’economia e dei mercati finanziari fu, nel 1986, l’economista Fischer Black .

Intendeva così indicare tutti quei dati o quelle interpretazioni che sono l’opposto della vera informazione : idee non accurate, dati erronei, perturbazioni che confondono in quanto espressioni dell’ inefficienza dei mercati e che finiscono per incentivare l’agitarsi convulso di un’attività purely speculative.

distinguish between information and noise is not easy. It is not easy to learn to "filter" the noise in order to really obtain content information, a process that, graphically, can be exemplified by the two figures below, taken from the excellent Fooled by Randomness (Fooled by case) Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

In the first picture signal and noise are still mixed together. In the second, we applied a filter that has eliminated the noise makes the signal clearer.



Taleb, in his book, he gets angry in particular with giornalisti , che, spinti da una professionale vocazione a raccontare storie, caricano di significato qualsiasi manifestazione di “rumore” e ricorrono continuamente a spiegazioni causali anche quando all’opera ci sono o solo il caso o nessi troppo complicati per prestarsi a facili semplificazioni.

I mercati finanziari sono creature complesse e instabili – popolate da milioni di attori animati dalle strategie più diverse. L’idea che in ogni istante siano isolabili delle cause precise per le oscillazioni dei prezzi è, a rifletterci un attimo, una sciocchezza.

Che fare, dunque? Come la mia ricostruzione degli eventi della scorsa settimana lascia intuire, to "filter" the noise the first step is to move away abundance of (pseudo) information.

Much of the data, collected with great frequency, they give an 'illusion of knowledge not help but understand. On the contrary, confused. Forced to invest an enormous amount of time just trying to discriminate between meaningful data from meaningless. And an incentive to continue to react with surface decisions and, therefore, high risk of error.

If the noise is so counterproductive, because there is so much in financial news?

Come osserva Richard Bernstein , chief investment strategist di Merrill Lynch , nel libro Navigate the noise, investing in the new age of media and hype , il motivo è che il rumore, in verità, a molti risulta gradito.

Per gli investitori “ è divertente ed eccitante ” a tal punto da essere una sorta di "droga" o di “canto delle sirene”. Per gli intermediari finanziari e per i media è redditizio dal momento che aumenta la domanda per i loro servizi. E’ per questo che, alla fine, “la gran parte dei flussi d’informazione è rivolta al trading di breve periodo”.

But what use can have the worry of short period for the prudent investor? None.

real investor's interest is to observe the markets and make choices in a long time horizon , as I tried to explain in my post The benefits of long-term . As far as I argued there, I would just add a short probabilistic analysis conducted by Taleb Fooled by Randomness in .

Imagine, writes Taleb, a particularly gifted investor who can put together a portfolio whose expected returns are 15% higher than the short-term government bonds with a volatility of 10% (results, the other one, well above the average for a portfolio that can have a total return of 10% with volatility of 20%).

The probability that such a portfolio records is positive, for different time intervals, as summarized in the following table:


Within every second, every minute or every hour the probability of success will be just over 50%. But within a year will rise to 93%.

imagine yet, adds Taleb, apprehensive that our investor controls - through the use of modern technology - the development of its portfolio every minute for eight hours a day. Each day will undergo a 'grueling alternation of 241 positive surprises and 239 negative surprises - in a year will become 60,688 60,271 moments of pleasure and moments of disappointment.

If we consider that the negative experiences, as demonstrated by studies psychology and behavioral finance, they weigh more than positive ones, our investor - exposing themselves to an examination to of its high frequency performance - end to condemn the suffering and dissatisfaction.

If, however, the same investor decides instead to check the results of its portfolio only once a year, would procure 19 positive experiences every 20 years!

Bernstein writes in his book : "People are often surprised to discover that I do not read newspapers regularly certain financial [...] the fact is that I will not necessarily keep pace with the markets. The more one tries to do this and to be aware of everything that happens, the more at risk of doing trading based on the noise [...]. I prefer to see the forest rather than each individual tree. "

The council, I think it should be clear. The prudent investor is aware of what there is noise in financial markets, is concerned to ensure quality of its information sources and decision-making process. Find more information but less value, but agrees less well-considered decisions.

Live Cam Netsnap Server Feed

Commodities, the bull market is still in China? The

am convinced, as Warren Buffett teaches , that financial markets are not really predictable though as we shall now see about the raw materials, there are links that are not random and whose understanding may be helpful to an investor.

who thinks but can make precise predictions is either a naive or a barker. When I read, as it happened to me these days, that Morgan Stanley sees oil to $ 150 a barrel or the analyst Arjun Murti of Goldman Sachs estimated it likely to rise to 150-200 dollars in a period between 6 and 24 months, my reaction is a smile.

Commodities are the only market that continues to give satisfaction to investment banks. You can tell they do not want them to be put out the fire of speculation .

that in recent years to the physical demand for raw materials has added to that for investment purposes (Facilitated by the spread of products such as ETFs and encouraged by the weak U.S. dollar ), and that this will then be appended to the purely speculative is not in doubt.

A look at the data is impressive: the nominal value of derivatives circulating on commodities has increased more than eightfold in four years, from one thousand to 8 thousand and $ 400 billion between early 2004 and the end of 2007. The

commodity rally, which began quietly in 1999, however, is primarily fueled by fundamental reasons. E 'was born from a growing imbalance between demand effervescent, due to rapid growth of emerging , and a 'bid stagnant after a long cycle of low prices and lack of investment.

The applicants commodity cycles

In its duration and its massive size - the oil, for example, started from levels below $ 20 a barrel over the past 16 months has increased from less than $ 60 to a maximum of 135 - there is also nothing unusual.

I cycles of are like commodities because supply and demand in this market are inelastic to changes in the price. Delle materie prime non possiamo fare a meno. Quando scarseggiano, non sono facili da sostituire e occorre molto tempo prima che si ristabilisca un equilibrio per effetto o di aumenti della produzione o di modifiche negli stili di vita e nei consumi.

Come già scrivevo nel post Petrolio e materie prime, analisi del bull market (a cui rinvio per una serie di considerazioni introduttive a quanto andrò ora aggiungendo), il greggio del Mare del Nord fu scoperto nel 1969 ma fu commercializzato a partire solo dal 1977, otto anni dopo. Un giacimento petrolifero o una miniera non si scoprono e non si sfruttano in un giorno. Spesso occorre un decennio.

La natura di questo mercato è ben rappresentata nel chart below, taken from a famous 2002 study signed by Barry Bannister, then an analyst with Legg Mason .


The graph shows how the current cycle (in 2002 more than anticipated by Bannister) and during the twentieth century was preceded by three other periods of dramatic price increases of raw materials: bull market of 1906-1923 , 1933-1953 and 1968-1982.

feature of these cycles (which already had appeared in similar form in the nineteenth century) was being pronounced , lasting and simultaneous among the different commodities. Commodities agricultural (green line), industrial (blue line) and energy (black line) that have always moved, writes Bannister, Unison ".

The inverse relationship with the actions

A look at the dates, however, has already done to catch those who know a little 'history of the Stock Exchange last but important feature: the bull market of raw materials have more or less coincided with the bear market of equity markets.

The inverse relationship stands out in another chart from the study of Bannister, the following:


In 130 years from 1870 to 2000 it is evident the clear succession of seven cycles the average duration of 18 years each, with the alternation of ' outperformance of the shares (green line on the rise shown by the red bar) and commodities (green line in fall shown by the blue bar).

(In the chart, the green line rises when the relationship between growth in the U.S. stock market and rising commodity prices is positive, and vice versa). Just as happened

start of the twentieth century, the twenty-first century opened with the raw materials of new shares in an unstable environment on winning that, as noted by Bannister, has historically been characterized also by inflation of consumer prices (see chart below, where price rises of raw materials - red line - always accompanied, in the last 200 years, consumer price inflation - blue line) and by rising geopolitical tensions often degenerated into wars .

assuming that this "rhythm" to be respected (a reasonable assumption but no less uncertain than others), we would now more or less in the middle of a new cycle.


Ignoring for the moment considerations of context, for which I would only express the hope that humanity abbia la forza e il buon senso di evitare le guerre, resta la domanda: davvero è pensabile che questo bull market abbia ancora diversi anni di vita?

Le materie prime alla prova dei fondamentali

E’ noto il detto di Mark Twain secondo cui “ la storia non si ripete ma fa rima.” E se facesse anche uso di licenze poetiche?

Fuor di metafora, sulla durata del bull market mi sembra vano azzardare previsioni. Anche perché, quando prende piede un clima speculativo, i comportamenti degli investitori diventano ancora più imitativi e irrazionali del solito. Come osservava John Maynard Keynes , " the market can remain irrational longer than one can remain liquid."

More useful is to analyze the fundamental and try to understand if the imbalances between supply and demand whether or not the point to be filled.

energy market have already discussed in my post oil and raw materials, analysis of the bull market , analysis, and those I invite the reader to return. Here I would only add three points

a) The following chart is taken from a recent article the International Monetary Fund , shows how the application di petrolio (linea blu) abbia nettamente superato nel 2007 la capacità produttiva (linea rossa) mentre la capacità di riserva ( spare capacity ) resta a livelli storicamente troppo bassi. La causa di fondo delle tensioni sui prezzi è qui evidente.


L’ultimo Energy report dell’ International Energy Agency ci dice che, dal lato dell’offerta, la situazione è migliorata a partire dall’ultimo trimestre del 2007 grazie a un sensibile aumento della produzione nei paesi OPEC .

Ma perché allora i prezzi hanno continuato a salire?
The IEA
suspicion, based on a series of clues, is that official statistics on fuel reserves emerging are not reliable and vitiated by default. The race to the accumulation of crude oil, particularly from the China, in a context of severe shortage of stocks, would be the real fundamental reason to the root of the recent gains.

addition, the 2.3 million barrels per day of spare capacity - almost entirely in the hands of all ' Saudi Arabia, consisting of low-quality crude and hard to refine - provide the market with very little insurance on continuity of supply, also saw a repeat of strikes, sabotage or damage to infrastructure, which suffered from decades of inadequate investment.

b) Looking ahead, the ' IEA expects a healthy increase of production in non-OPEC countries from the end of 2008 with the entry of new wells in operation. Of great importance is the potential of Santos Basin in Brazil , which may contain over 30 billion barrels (equivalent to a full year of world consumption), but the exploitation of which will be fully operational only during the middle of next decade.

source of disappointment to the IEA, it is instead the orientation OPEC and Saudi Arabia in particular, which does not seem willing to further increase their supplies in the belief that the supply of oil is "adequate."

Recently, it was the Saudi King Abdullah , in an obvious symbolic gesture, to invite the public state oil company Aramco to neglect the development of some wells, leaving the exploitation "to future generations."

In the presence of limited spare capacity and higher stocks low total is understandable that many market participants have come to the conclusion that the cartel dei paesi esportatori è soddisfatto degli alti prezzi attuali.

Anzi, c’è chi, come Jeffrey Frankel dell’ Università di Harvard , si è spinto a dire che gli alti prezzi delle materie prime e i concomitanti bassi rendimenti attesi di bond e azioni stanno incoraggiando i paesi produttori a tesaurizzare il greggio, conservandolo nelle sue naturali casseforti, sotto terra.

c) Se dal lato dell’offerta resta difficile prevedere un superamento degli squilibri nel prossimo futuro, il necessario adattamento verrà forse dal lato della domanda .

E’, dopo tutto, quello che accadde a cavallo tra gli anni ’70 and 80s. The embargo by exporting countries ran the first world economy into a prolonged recession and medium term generated a greater focus on energy saving policies . Oil prices, more immediately, remained high despite the decline in consumption, but in 1986 ended up collapsing.

This is a scenario that, in the opinion of Daniel Yergin and James Burkhard , respectively chairman and managing director of CERA , could now be repeated.

Economic growth is more than any other factor that helps to determine the demand for oil.

After a long period of booming world economy, 2008 will be a year fraught with uncertainties. The U.S. are on the brink of recession, ' Europe is rapidly slowing down and even from China (which I'll discuss in more detail towards the end) are signs of cooling.

High energy costs are certainly helping to depress economic activity. He calculated the CERA that, in view of improved energy efficiency, in 2008 it would take an average price of crude oil to $ 110 a barrel (the current one is 125) to have the same impact recessive that higher oil prices had on the world economy in 1980 .

The report made it clear in the chart below, where we see how, at current prices, the cost of supply of crude oil has already passed its peak of 7% of GDP touched since.


The repercussions of reduced economic activity on the other hand begin to manifest in U.S., where consumption of crude oil, that at the start of 2008, were down 2.3% from a year ago.

the lower use of oil will help more and more factors such as the development of alternative sources (l ' ethanol, for now, the United States, the biodiesel in Europe and so-called coal-to-liquids in China) and the energy saving .

In the U.S., the trend of truck and SUV is at sunset and is today the announcement that General Motors , as he did Ford, will close a number of facilities specializing in the production of these high consumption patterns to concentrate instead on developing hybrid cars and small. The conclusion of

CERA is that, at current prices, the world has gone to a " Point Break" or point breaking, where changing paradigms . The development of new liquid fuels and energy saving policies in the pipeline could lead, in the U.S., a "significant reduction" consumption of gasoline by the middle of next decade.

The bull market in agricultural commodity

The commodity bull market is not made of just oil or energy sources - although that represented approximately 40% in ' CRB index, the most famous indicator of market price of commodities .

Equally important, in recent times has become the world prices for agricultural commodities , which account for another in the CRB about 40% of the basket.

The reasons for the race to the top of basic necessities such as wheat , rice and maize - where prices have doubled over the past year - have been well analyzed in a recent article of Niels Jensen , chief executive of Absolute Return Partners .

The contributing factors, according to Jensen, are varied and include policies to support the production of biofuels in the U.S. and Europe, bullish speculation derivatives on commodity indices, soil erosion and lack of ' water, the rapid process of urbanization of poor farmers of developing countries, the high cost of fertilizers due to increases in energy and finally the evolution of eating habits of a growing, middle class in the newly industrialized countries.

Some of the examples cited by Jensen give an idea of \u200b\u200bhow deep the changes taking place. The U.S.

, traditional major exporters of maize this year will use the 20% of their crop to produce ethanol for transportation home. The inefficiency of this choice gives rise. A barrel of ethanol produced from corn costs $ 80 , more than twice that in Brazil ethanol is produced with sugar cane at a cost of $ 35 a barrel. The

China, until not long ago, was another major exporter of maize. Now, however, is expected in 2010 will need to import the 40% of U.S. exports.

A terrible water shortage (estimated at 40 billion cubic meters), erosion of soils and low yields are among the reasons for such an activity. In addition, three million hectares of land planted with rice have been lost over the past decade, "cemented" by the processes of urbanization .

Mass migration from the countryside to cities are not just a Chinese phenomenon. Have accompanied the last decade, the processes of rapid economic growth in many developing countries. The loss of workforce in the primary sector, in theory, could be offset by improved agricultural yields . But this is not happening.

In aggregate, developing countries yields are now lower than in the 90s. The increases in fertilizer tied to energy prices and become too expensive for many farmers, are a problem.

With economic growth in many emerging countries have been swelling the ranks of a middle class whose eating habits, as happened in his time in the West are changing.

The Japanese consume about today ten times the amount of protein that used 50 years ago. The idea that the Chinese can now do just as creepy. The production of one kilogram of pork requires three pounds of corn, and even eight pounds of corn are needed to produce one pound of beef or calf. In Saudi Arabia

, the estimated reserves of 'water cover less than 10 years of consumption and are in rapid decline. For this reason, the Saudis have decided to close its doors for agro-food industry that had so far ensured their self-sufficiency. The forecast is that by 2016 the country will import 100% of its food needs.

Obsessed perhaps the technological and industrial competition, governments have ignored in recent years the problems of food security .

The result is that in the U.S., for example, stocks of wheat are at their lowest since 1947, when the U.S. population was half that today. Globally, stocks of rice - the staple food for three billion Asians and Africans - the lowest since 1976.

The reaction of several governments - in India, Thailand, Vietnam, Argentina, Cambodia, China and Egypt - has been to impose controls on exports to ensure domestic security. The problems of food shortages have spread to such an extent that the World Bank considers it likely the outbreak of violence and riots in over 30 countries.

This string of critical - often linked to a long term process - leaves the impression that market tensions commodity foods are far from being overcome.

And 'This is also the assessment of FAO in its latest Food Outlook , it provides for the continuation, for all of 2008, of "serious imbalances" between supply and demand globally, particularly of rice in the markets and maize , while only for wheat is expected to improve after the extreme hardships experienced last season due to drought in several regions.

In the case of maize , the impact of the U.S. choice to provide an incentive use for the production of ethanol domestic use is expected to grow over time. It is estimated that the proportion spent on ethanol could rise from 20% in 2008 to 45% in 2015.

E 'soon to say goodbye to the Taurus

Summing than analyzed so far, it seems premature to say the requiem of this bull market .

High prices, of course, are playing their role in the production incentive and disincentive to consumption, not only in the energy sector but also in food. Symptomatic is the news that even the producers of opium 's Afghanistan they started to sow grain. But

imbalances remain for now and may have to wait for the next decade to find a new balance after "Break Point" reached recently. No

bull market, on the other hand, proceeds uninterrupted by pauses and temporary reversal of the trend.

The occasion for such a movement begins, perhaps in contrast to horizon. Originates from the U.S. housing bubble, which is imposing its costs in terms of reduced growth around the globe. But China is developing in .

Beware the China The

China, in the commodities market, has taken in recent years unparalleled influence, summarized in the chart below, prepared by the International Monetary Fund .


The bar shows the contribution to growth in demand metals, oil and food as the main raw materials developed countries (OECD, in blue), the emerging (green) and from China (red) in the last three decades. As you can see the importance of China has grown to become dominant everywhere in metals.

If the period 2001-2007, how does the graph of IMF, we consider only the last year, China's role expands further, so as to be decisive in setting the price in many commodity markets.

It 's the result of GDP growth rates since 1978, when Deng Xiaoping to reform the economic system, have been on average the' 8% annually, reaching double-digit rates during the most close to us.

Since 2003, China was responsible for 64% of increased demand for copper, 70% of increased demand for aluminum, 82% of della maggiore domanda di zinco e del 31% dell’addizionale domanda di greggio .

E’ ovvio che un repentino rallentamento del gigante asiatico scuoterebbe dalle fondamenta i mercati delle commodities . I rischi che questo accada nei prossimi trimestri, come non è mai accaduto nell’ultimo decennio, non sono affatto trascurabili.

Un mini rallentamento è già stato orchestrato dalle autorità cinesi allo scopo di moderare le pressioni sui prezzi fattesi intense. L’ inflazione al consumo ha toccato l’ 8,5% e sembra destinata ad aumentare ancora nonostante i generosi sussidi elargiti dallo stato per contenere the cost of petroleum products.

The problem is that China, as well as most of East Asia is particularly vulnerable to the impact of the high price of energy commodities and food, which is great import.

to these charges is added to a country still dependent on exports , the risk of a sharp cooling in external demand, now that the American crisis seems to infect Europe. Two

sensitive barometers of increased dangers for the Chinese economy are Shanghai Stock Exchange, who made a splash by 50% between October last year e l’aprile di quest’anno e il superindice economico ( China leading index ) dell’ Ocse , rappresentato nel grafico qui sotto con un anticipo di sei mesi rispetto all’andamento del Pil.


Come osserva Liz Ann Sonders , chief investment strategist di Schwab , il leading index cinese dell’Ocse non solo si è dimostrato affidabile nel prevedere l’evoluzione del Pil ma tende in genere ad anticipare correttamente anche i punti di svolta dell’ indice CRB , come risulta chiaro dal grafico che segue:


The insistence with which the newly Chinese authorities have sought to exclude any risk of hard landing for the economy only adds to suspicions. The Beijing Olympics are imminent, and it is obvious that all the levers of government are designed to ensure that this appointment is a great country in bloom.

now beyond the Olympic deadline looming on the horizon, however, a quite dense clouds - for China and the commodities market . As he wrote in 2004

Jim Rogers (pictured at the opening of article) in a book - Hot Commodities - which so far has proved prophetic, the commodity bull market is characterized by big rallies and big drops. In the bull market of 1968-1982, for example, the CRB index at one point fell by 53% before resuming the final stage of his ascent.

Where will, according to Rogers, the threats to investors in the current bull market ? From China that "was the cause of many gains and will also cause suffering."

Rogers wrote:

"Let me be clear: when China will sneeze the rest of the world will race in search of aspirin. The prices of raw materials, in particular, fall and a lot of investors will panic. You and I, however, then buy more raw materials supply and demand have conspired to create a larger secular bull market, which means that prices would continue rising until at least 2015 billion and that ... three hundred million Chinese are certainly not about to disappear. "

The date of 2015 will not do betting. But the scenario outlined four years ago by Rogers still deserves careful consideration.