China and US leading the trend for infrastructure development

By building up demand, government stimulus packages focusing on infrastructure are continuing to play a significant role for commodities around the world. China and the US are leading this trend.

Aside from higher demand, there is a lot of speculative capital on the sidelines that can change commodity prices quickly. This speculative capital has two main driving forces. One is short-term deals, initiated by hedge funds and similar investors, while the other driving force is the strong belief that global demographic effects will play a major role in the future, for better or worse. World population is still growing almost explosively, while many people in Asia, for example, are achieving improvements in living standards, resulting in new consumption patterns. The desire of individ...