| Commodities have underperformed all other asset classes for a third successive year and produced their lowest annual returns since the 2008 financial crisis. It is difficult to conceive of a much more challenging time for the commodity markets; most of the main commodities have collapsed in excess of 50% from their peaks, iron ore has crashed by 73%, crude oil has plunged by nearly two thirds, corn by 57%, copper by 53%, gold 45% and the main index, the UBS Bloomberg CMCI, 46%.
Indeed, many commodity prices are close to the lows of 2008/9 resulting in huge swathes of the gains from the commodity super-cycle now having been wiped out. In most instances, and particularly for industrial metals and bulks, the key factor generating another year of commodity price declines was excess supply, driven by slowing China and emerging market demand and rising production...............................................Full Article: Source
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