News

January 05, 2009

Commodities Outlook For 2009: The Developing World Is Still In Growth Mode, Just

By Rob Davies

If we learnt one thing from 2008 it was that making forecasts is a mug’s game. Even the most bearish bears did not predict the mayhem that infected the financial markets in 2008 and clobbered the base metals in the process. On the basis that what catches you out is the thing you didn’t expect there are grounds for optimism in that no one is predicting a bull market in any asset class in 2009. It seems insolvency lawyers and pawnbrokers are the only people looking forward to a good year.

Yet this prevailing and all-pervading atmosphere of gloom, largely pedalled by the press who are among the hardest hit, is not entirely in accord with all the data. It is true that the OECD is forecasting that the economies of its member nations will collectively shrink by 0.4 per cent in 2009. But this economic cycle has never really been about growth in the developed world. It is the developing world that was the major story and, although now under stress, it still is. French bank Société...