Hi David,
It was a volatile and net tough time for the miners over the last few days, before Friday! But if you had returned last Wednesday, it would have felt like very different story with BHP Group (ASX: BHP) trading above $65 for the first time, up more than +40% year-to-date. We see a few reasons coming together to cause the current pullback across the sector:
- A strong US Jobs Report last week saw markets start to price in Fed rate hikes, weighing on commodities, and especially those correlated to global growth and a weak $US.
- Geopolitical tensions have again escalated between the US & Iran, pushing up the oil price, further weighing on commodities, and again those correlated to interest rates and global growth.
- The market was long and bullish towards copper names in particular as the AI build out and global electrification gathers momentum making a minor washout hardly surprising.
We remain bullish towards commodities and primarily copper in the coming years but 10-20% pullbacks are commonplace in all bull markets:
- The high-flying US tech-based NASDAQ has surged more than +250% since the start of 2020 yet it’s also corrected 30%, 38%, and 26%, along the way illustrating the strongest of bull markets experience pullbacks.
Importantly, investors shouldn’t underestimate the liquidity in financial markets looking for a home, considering the US-Iran conflict has been dragging on for more than 100-days the performance by global equities has been impressive – the path of least resistance is up in our opinion, and recent volatility across commodities does not shake our conviction.