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The Economist Guide to Commodities 2nd edition: Producers, players and prices; markets, consumers and trends
The latest comprehensive overview of the forces at work in the world of commodities.
From aluminium and platinum to zinc and gold, oil and gas to cocoa and wheat, our lives are full of products derived or made from commodities - the world's natural resources.
We often take them for granted - but at our peril, given the pivotal role these resources play in what we consume and produce. Price volatility, changing patterns of global demand and geopolitical instability regularly expose how unpredictable availability of and trade in commodities can be.
This revised edition offers a concise and indispensable guide to commodities, including the latest trends in consumption, production, trade, markets and prices, as well as invaluable insights into future developments.
Whether as raw materials or financial assets to be traded, commodities matter. This book shows us why.
From aluminium and platinum to zinc and gold, oil and gas to cocoa and wheat, our lives are full of products derived or made from commodities - the world's natural resources.
We often take them for granted - but at our peril, given the pivotal role these resources play in what we consume and produce. Price volatility, changing patterns of global demand and geopolitical instability regularly expose how unpredictable availability of and trade in commodities can be.
This revised edition offers a concise and indispensable guide to commodities, including the latest trends in consumption, production, trade, markets and prices, as well as invaluable insights into future developments.
Whether as raw materials or financial assets to be traded, commodities matter. This book shows us why.
288 pages, Paperback
Published December 30, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 23, 2024
Very informative book and an extremely enjoyable read! Read in autumn 2023, following Kingsman's The New Merchants of Grain, as part of my revived interest in commodities. I was most interested in copper, and the hydrocarbons that had already occupied me in the past: crude oil and natural gas, and here for the first time ... coal.
It was particularly interesting to see what this new book, published just two years ago, did and did not reflect. This showed once again how fast-moving our times are! "The world is a very different place now; so much so that when we talk about "peak oil" now we mean peak oil demand, not supply." (11) The energy transition was mostly well presented and its further possible developments anticipated. At times the author's work was a little sloppy, which surprised me given the expected standard of The Economist. She did not always follow the same systematic structure. In the case of coffee, she says nothing about the harvest cycle, which she had explained very well in the case of cocoa, but she talks about "trees" (instead of bushes) when discussing coffee cultivation. She does not mention the most important global companies involved in the value chain for all raw materials.
Sometimes she confuses the units tonne and ounce in the case of platinum. And in the glossary you come across the well-explained term "quantitative easing", which never appears in the text. A relic from the first edition of the book (2013)? But then there are also miscalculations, such as the discrepancy between the claimed global confirmed reserves of cobalt of 7,000 tonnes and an annual consumption of over 120,000 tonnes in 2019 - how is that possible? It's probably more like 7,000 million tonnes. However, such glitches are an involuntary tribute to our fast-moving times and they in no way reduce the usefulness of this reading.
It was particularly interesting to see what this new book, published just two years ago, did and did not reflect. This showed once again how fast-moving our times are! "The world is a very different place now; so much so that when we talk about "peak oil" now we mean peak oil demand, not supply." (11) The energy transition was mostly well presented and its further possible developments anticipated. At times the author's work was a little sloppy, which surprised me given the expected standard of The Economist. She did not always follow the same systematic structure. In the case of coffee, she says nothing about the harvest cycle, which she had explained very well in the case of cocoa, but she talks about "trees" (instead of bushes) when discussing coffee cultivation. She does not mention the most important global companies involved in the value chain for all raw materials.
Sometimes she confuses the units tonne and ounce in the case of platinum. And in the glossary you come across the well-explained term "quantitative easing", which never appears in the text. A relic from the first edition of the book (2013)? But then there are also miscalculations, such as the discrepancy between the claimed global confirmed reserves of cobalt of 7,000 tonnes and an annual consumption of over 120,000 tonnes in 2019 - how is that possible? It's probably more like 7,000 million tonnes. However, such glitches are an involuntary tribute to our fast-moving times and they in no way reduce the usefulness of this reading.
March 27, 2024
An excellent introduction to the commodities market. It gave an easy to read insight into commodities.
June 16, 2025
A bit outdated
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews