Commodity Compass Newsletter Weeks 42–43, 2025

Commodity Compass Newsletter Weeks 42–43, 2025

Commodities worldwide in Weeks 42 and 43 showed a mixture of both volatility and stabilization, this being largely due to the changes in macroeconomic and regional demand factors.

Food and agriculture sector prices were somewhat inconsistent in their movement. Beef in the US price reduced from $420.9/lb to $416.8/lb, while chicken was nearly $107.1/lb and remained stable. Cocoa in the UK went up quite significantly, from £4,151/MT to £4,388/MT, while coconut oil in Europe experienced a drop from $2,538/MT to $2,502/MT. Coffee in the UK increased from $4,468/MT to $4,562/MT. Maize in the US moved up from 418.0 to 423.5 cents/bushel, while palm oil in China was down $1,316/MT to $1,292/MT. Rice in the US dropped from $10.67/CWT to $10.32/CWT, and the soybean meal went up quite a bit from $273.5/MT to $289.7/MT. The soybean oil price was very similar at 50.6 cents/lb, and soybeans were increased slightly from 1,010 to 1,037 cents/bushel. Global sugar was just a bit less strong and the price change from 15.70 to 15.26 cents/lb was very minimal, which is a clear sign of quite stable fundamentals.

In metals and minerals, the pricing became more directional and less ambiguous. Wheat was up from 500.4 to 506.9 cents/bushel and UK copper was up from $10,657/MT to $10,753/MT. Aluminium continued its upward trend and was very close to $3,000 a ton as it went from $2,767/MT to $2,818/MT. The biggest drop was in the case of Nickel that went down from $16,155/MT to $15,241/MT. Iron ore in China had a small increase to $105.51/MT, but lead changed its way and dropped from $2,048/MT to $2,003/MT. Tin went down from $36,388/MT to $35,540/MT, while zinc was getting stronger and went up from $2,965/MT to $3,008/MT.

The chemicals portion took a breather from its mixed ventures and showed a little of each trend: ammonia went up from $310.1/MT to $311.1/MT, benzene was down from $774/MT to $744/MT, and caustic soda was nearly $119/MT and remained unchanged. Ethylene went down from $773/MT to $762/MT, and Methanol was a little easier at $316.8/MT. Propylene was very steeply down from $894/MT to $866/MT, and soda ash was more or less the same at $166/MT.

In the precious metals market, gold did not stop its ascent, going from $4,028/oz to $4,146/oz, whereas platinum was down at $1,612/oz, and silver also went down from $52.62/oz to $49.25/oz.

The energy markets were in a fine shape to go on rising, if only moderately. Netherlands coal was up from $91.0/MT to $93.0/MT, European crude was up from $62.0/bbl to $63.4/bbl, and US natural gas had an impressive uptrend from $3.02 to $4.04/MMBtu.

On the whole, the issues during Weeks 42–43 can be viewed as a transition stage with factors like selective firmness, corrective dips, and evolving demand signals paving the way for the global commodity market.