Commodities Corner: Volatile prices to persistCommodities Corner: Volatile prices to persist

John T.

Last year started on an upswing for commodities, driven by global economic optimism. Then a pair of shocks hit. First, oil prices surged with the “Arab Spring” revolts. Then, in March, Japan was hit by an earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear disaster. Global economic optimism faded fast, leading to a summer economic “soft patch.” If things weren’t gloomy enough by mid-year, the partisan Congress took the country to the brink of default in August, precipitating Standard & Poor’s first downgrade of the United States’ credit rating in history. 


Meanwhile, Greece flirted with default. Now, just about the entire European Union is in need of a German bailout. How will it affect the United States? No one really knows how intertwined Ameri...