** AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES **

As developments in the agricultural markets are not on top of the popular media’s news feeds, it might be hard to see the fundamental rationale behind the starting long-term bull markets in most agricultural commodities. I believe these trends can be explained by three dominant macro themes. Firstly, there is an increasing global demand to produce most of these commodities without the slightest setback while the global supply is decreasing to stable at best not at least because of the depressed prices during the last decade(s). Secondly, the rise in oil and natural gas prices has the potential to make certain crop inputs very expensive and/or reduce their supply. Finally there is a rapidly increasing use of sugar, corn and edible oils in the energy chain. For more fundamentals on these commodities we recommend the work of Hartfield Management (www.futures-research.com).