The exactions of Hamas and the Israeli reaction have taken the world's political class hostage: the American Democrats are fracturing, the left-wing camp is camping on positions far from neutral, not to mention the "very borderline" positions of a former French Prime Minister. In the Muslim world and the Jewish community, discomfort is palpable and the subject incandescent. The collateral victims are many and varied. The Ivy League is tearing itself apart on every campus, and Greta Thunberg's blindness is causing serious friction in her own camp.
85 years after "Kristallnacht", swastikas are back on building pediments, factional militias take to the streets to howl their hatred of Muslims, while the far right continues to gain ground in all the latest elections, whether in Europe or South America.
War is taking hold on every continent, and nothing can stem the tide of international insecurity. Under these conditions, it is difficult for commodities to escape the uncertainty and depressed mood. OPEC is trying to channel the desire of African states to pump more oil. Although more cotton will be needed to produce trellis, it's not certain that this will be enough to maintain prices on our market.
US export figures published last week remain encouraging. Only shipments are problematic, with cotton selling but not shipping. This is undoubtedly due to the various rate hikes introduced by central banks to curb inflation, which have reduced the available foreign exchange reserves of consumer countries.
The fall in production and the rise in cost prices are not enough to bring prices back to a more acceptable level. It has to be said that consumption continues to lag far behind previous years.
An interesting trend is the significant rise in luxury goods, in other words, people are buying less but at a higher price. This anachronistic trend finds its limit in the impoverishment of the middle classes.
El Nino continues to wreak havoc, while casting doubt on final production, particularly in India and China. But the cotton world agrees that consumption projections are too optimistic.
The decline on the ICE has led to a strengthening of the basis, which is now tending to rise again, without prices collapsing for the time being. Against this backdrop, ICE traders are understandably sceptical.
Commodity markets often act as a watchdog for what may happen in the months ahead. For the time being, however, we can see that many markets are stunned and, in some cases, like metals, totally disoriented.
Those hoping for a solution in artificial intelligence will be disappointed. The sequence that Open AI went through, when its founder and main promoter was dismissed and then reinstated a few days later in view of the extent of the damage, reminds us that before "artificializing" intelligence, you need to have some in stock!
Source: Mambo