The Wall Street Journal, looking at the S&P GSCI index that follows commodities, noted that raw materials on a whole were outperforming the S&P 500 stock index. The GSCI is up 12% to the S&P 500’s 8%. Much of that has been due to oil prices (up more than 17%), which have been increasing during the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and declining U.S. crude production. Some metals, like gold (up 13%) and copper (up 10%), have also been getting more expensive.
In other words, the stuff used to make your stuff is getting more expensive, and there’s a distinct possibility that it could go from being a corporation problem to being a you problem.
Sometimes, as in the chocolate industry, the skyrocketing cost of a commodity — cocoa prices are up 131% this year — outstrips the the ability of a company to hedge for volatility through futures markets.
“From a cocoa bean price point of view, it is an unprecedented price hike,” said Martin Hug, CFO of Lindt and Ghirardelli parent company Lindt & Sprüngli, during an earnings call last month.
But not all commodities are rising so bullishly. Corn, a major weight to the GSCI, is down 7% for the year. Natural gas, another important industrial input, is down nearly 28% in 2024. The producer price index for commodities, a gauge of how much the inputs for manufacturers and other companies, has been negative for nearly a year.
At a January press conference following yet another decision to keep interest rates where they were, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that he has been counting on the stuff that makes your stuff getting less expensive.
“We have six months of good inflation readings,” Powell said. “But you can look behind those numbers, and you can see that a lot of it’s been coming from goods inflation running significantly negative.”
He said he expects for goods inflation to eventually reach 0% after a steady decline, but if it were to go past that it could cause problems.