PRESS ROOM
Industrial metals experience a cyclical recovery
Thursday 26th January '23
Industrial metals are like the growth stocks of commodities. They are cyclical but promise long-term growth. For most of last year, they faced headwinds from aggressive monetary policy tightening in the same way as growth stocks. Since November, however, sentiment in markets started to change and consensus expectations are for policy tightening to moderate in the first half of this year given declining inflation numbers, particularly in the US. This is helping lift industrial metals once again. Naturally, industrial metals also have a correlation with manufacturing activity in China. While it remains to be seen if, and by how much, manufacturing activity improves in China in the coming months, easing lockdown rules are expected to move the needle in the positive direction.