Armada Intelligence » Raw Materials

Global Steel Prices Continue to Dip $

karen — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:44:49 +0000

This isn’t a perfect science, but one can take a look at the global composite carbon steel price index and see what’s happening to the broadest measure of industrial metals demand.

Wheat Crop “Worsens” $

karen — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:43:18 +0000

The USDA issued a preliminary report on the wheat crop condition in the United States. The report showed that the quality and condition of the wheat crop has worsened as a cold snap is hitting the Midwest. Conditions in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas have worsened of late as a result of this cold snap. A late season freeze warning is out for much of the upper Midwest for the latter part of this week – and based on the timing it could hit at a bad time.

Wheat quality conditions have a big impact on the market for those grains. Only the highest grade of wheat can make it into human-consumption products. Lesser grades of wheat are typically used in cattle feed and other types of non-human uses. A full report on

Brent Settling Downward $

karen — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:16:24 +0000

Brent North Sea Crude continues to fall, nearing the $100 per barrel mark. That seems like a significant drop, and it is. But we wanted to put it into perspective for you. The chart at right from CNBC shows the price of the Brent contract (per barrel) since April of 2010. What we see is that the current price of Brent is still elevated generally against a five year view, but hitting a critical point at which we could “break through” the $100 mark and see rates much lower if current trends continue.

The period of May and June in 2012 signaled a relaxing of tensions in Iran at the time and we got a drop to near $90 a barrel. That would happen again if the geopolitical risk premium were to be pulled off of Brent. We hint of the prospects of this happening in the Iranian earthquake story below. We are still quite a ways from the low $90 levels for Brent hit last year – but it is trading

Cement Prices Volatile and Unpredictable $

karen — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:58:00 +0000

Cement might as well be gold in places like Saudi Arabia and across many sectors in Asia. The Saudi King will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in creating new cement production facilities in what they are calling a “crisis” of supply in the country. The King has also authorized the importation of more than 10 million tons of cement to allow current construction projects to continue uninterrupted in the meantime.

In the United States, cement prices are varied across various regions. In the Midwest for instance, there are some

Bottom Falls Out of Brent $

karen — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:26:16 +0000

Brent North Sea Crude is just behaving so oddly of late. Last week we saw a number of indicators that would suggest that it could be headed back up. But this week, despite the geopolitical tensions around the world, we are seeing investors

Update on Industrial Metals $

karen — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:49:02 +0000

The S&P GSCI commodities indexes show us the relative strength or weakness of the industrial metals trade around the world. Looking at the performance of industrial metals since the beginning of the year, we can quickly see that the entire complex is struggling under the global economic uncertainty around the world. Every metric in this chart is negative for the year with Lead, zinc, and aluminum posting double-digit losses. Even the strength of copper has been weak YTD, down 7.25% on the year.

We still have to see what happens with the global trade of commodities with the currency wars currently ongoing. Some companies

Crude Oil Dropping and the Fed Impact on Commodities $

karen — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 16:31:22 +0000

The threat of global economic weakness has pushed crude oil prices down. West Texas Intermediate as fallen to 92.48 a barrel, not quite the drop that we have seen in Brent North Sea Crude, which was trading at $105.69 earlier today. This is the narrowest gap in the WTI/Brent trade in well over a couple of years. A couple of things are at work.

When the Bank of Japan devalued its currency last night, many analysts speculated that there would be a follow-on currency war of sorts that would break out. Knowing that the US Fed has already

Concrete Canvas Field Shelter $

karen — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:23:20 +0000

Now that we are seeing some interesting investment by businesses in technology and new innovative products, we may run some of them from time to time. A source of ours made us aware of the item in the picture to the right, the Concrete Canvas Shelter. A short 2:30 video gives you an idea of what this thing can do – it is pretty amazing http://www.wimp.com/concretetents/. Unfortunately, if you have kids like I do, you may have been in a situation where the canvas plaster cast was used to set a broken bone. They wrap the area of the body needing the splint, then wet it and allow it to quickly cure. It hardens quickly, is lightweight prior to wetting, and flexible enough to bend around curves and rounded areas prior to hardening. This building construction takes that concept, using concrete instead of plaster, and applies it to a structured shell that is easily transported, fairly lightweight, and compact (a number of these would fit inside a semi-trailer.

Here is how it works: A canvas form is delivered on a pallet to a location. An air compressor/blower inflates the “tent” to its full size and once inflated, a worker takes a hose and

Grain Prices “Plummet” $

karen — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 19:17:14 +0000

In the farming community, a daily drop that hits the Chicago Board of Trade’s daily limit is considered to be a “plummet”. We reported to you last week that acres planted by farmers for corn and soybeans are going to hit some highs not seen since the bumper plantings in the 1930′s. Following up on the plantings report, we also got a USDA report that showed that there was a bit more inventory in national grain stores than previously expected. The reason why corn prices have dropped so much today after the report was released is that

World Food Prices Remain Flat $

karen — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 19:13:48 +0000

We keep tabs on the global situation for food prices. The US military believes that the price of food on a global basis can be one of the greatest sources of unrest and conflict. From an economic perspective, US consumers spend about 13% of their household income on food (including eating out). Other countries that we count on for growing global consumerism (such as the emerging markets in China, India, Brazil, etc.) have food costs that can run as high as 40% of total household income. Therefore, when global food prices are higher, we see more pressure on