Deteriorating
Commodity prices are weak and getting weaker
interactive.wsj.com (sub req)
By Cheryl Strauss Einhorn
Eroding. that's what commodity prices have been doing lately. And the pace of their decline has been accelerating, bringing prices to their lowest level of the year. Indeed, the three major commodity gauges -- the Bridge-CRB Index, which has a large agriculture component, the Dow Jones-AIG Index, which is geared more toward industrial items, and the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index, which is heavy with energy products -- are all trading at their 2001 lows. And it's likely that prices will go still lower before rebounding at the beginning of next year.
And it isn't just industrial commodity prices that are suffering. Cotton is near 15-year lows, at just 39 cents per pound. Prices in the softs markets, which include coffee, cocoa and sugar, are off 15% for the year. In fact, coffee is trading just barely above its all-time low of 56 cents And the grains are weak as well. For instance, corn prices are down 15% this year, with a bushel commanding only $1.78. |
