13-Jul-12 1 Comment
Here’s an interesting chart (showing ytd commodity returns) originally published by DB and being tagged around by bloggers. Metals, crude and shipping are down. Shipping is down big time really. Is this chart positive for India? Looks like it if you look at the increasing demand for thermal coal from India in the second chart on the right. The heat wave continues here in the US and I wonder if this may inject the much needed inflation in the US economy?
08-May-12 Leave a comment
The $CRB index gives global price levels of a basket of commodities and is an important indicator that is watched to get clues on whats happening. The index has been declining of late and this would certainly seem to benefit countries like India that have a whopping oil (and gold!) import bill. However, the INR seems to be playing spoilsport. Any gains from a drop in global commodity prices seems to be getting undone by a concomitant drop in the INR. I constructed the below chart to figure out the relative movement of the $CRB and the INR:USD exchange rate. The correlation comes to a high -0.75.
The Third I 
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