The Chinese Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for May remained in the expansionary zone of higher than 50%, although it moderated to 53.1% from 53.5% in April, according to Li & Fung Research Centre. Although eight of the 11 sub-indices were slightly lower than their respective levels in the previous month, it is noteworthy that the new export orders index returned to the expansionary territory for the first time since June 2008. “Strong domestic demand, together with an improving export situation, has helped resume the expansion of the manufacturing sector in China, “said the report.

China’s PMI seems to indicate that the country might have seen the worst of the GDP growth statistics. (The Hong Kong PMI is used as a proxy of the Chinese PMI prior to 2004.)

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Source: Plexus Asset Management (based on data from I-Net Bridge)

Importantly, China’s PMI for new export orders shows the Index again expanding (i.e. above the 50 level) and, based on the close relationship with the Metals Index, should provide further support for commodity prices.

outlook-pic2

Source: Plexus Asset Management (based on data from I-Net Bridge)

David Rosenberg, the closely followed chief economist and strategist of Gluskin Sheff, argues in a newsletter on Monday that the Asian economic revival, with strength spreading across the continent, may be for real. This is, needless to say, bullish for the commodity complex, with gold, copper and oil all having broken above their 200-day moving averages just as the US dollar has cracked below its key support level.

“The US is still the largest economy in the world by far, but it is losing its dominance each year and the fact of the matter is that it is a mature service-driven economy. Emerging Asia in general, and China in particular, are still the marginal buyer of basic materials, and their economic success is more critical to the outlook for commodities,” said Rosenberg.

He highlights that the world has just endured the steepest world economic setback in 70 years and yet commodity prices across a broad front – gold, oil, copper, soybeans -managed to bottom at their highest “recession levels” of all time. “This attests to the supply discipline by today’s resource companies compared to their predecessors, and affirms our belief that what we experienced last year was a severe cyclical correction in what is still a secular bull market – you can connect the dots on the chart and see that the CRB looks a lot like what the S&P 500 looked like in the months following the sharp 1987 collapse,” said Rosenberg. It seemed like the end of the world in October of that year, and yet in retrospect it was just the fifth year in what proved to be an 18-year secular bull phase.

My research concurs with Rosenberg’s conclusion that commodities still seem to be in a supercycle that was only temporarily interrupted by the global economic malaise. As inflation money finds its way into commodities, it is still not too late to purchase these, but only on price corrections that are bound to occur from time to time.

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