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Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva:

Professor Philippe Chalmin, an economics and commodity expert from the University of Paris Dauphine, thinks that we are in the midst of a real commodity shock. "The tension within all the commodity markets is probably at its highest since the beginning of 2008, and also since the early seventies," he told the audience at yesterday's JetFin conference in Geneva.

According to his France-based research firm CyclOpe, commodity prices rose by 30% in 2010. This is an average of well-quoted commodity prices, in an index in U.S. dollars. "And the U.S. dollar itself is, by the way, a commodity," he added.

In 2010, world commodity prices were almost as high as those in 2008, and in January 2011, price levels were higher than they were in 2008. "And this is especially the case if we take out oil," Chalmin added, as the increases were mainly in food and metals. The crisis is over but we are still in a commodity shock, he stressed.

Oil prices look, in comparison to foods and metals, almost stable. Although he pointed out "today we don't know what the price of oil really is." Also, Brent (on the European markets) is in backwardation, and WTI (on the U.S. markets) in contango, "which is a bit of a problem at the moment."

Oil has been extraordinarily stable in the last 18 mont......................

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