Monday, June 15, 2009

Commodities and sunspots


Plantings are off in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Could this be the result of global warming? Empirically this effect is very hard to measure; however, we do know the world becomes cooler if there are fewer sunspots. More sunspots mean there is more energy disturbances on the surface of the sun which leads to more radiance sent out into space which eventually warms the atmosphere. When the earth is cooler, there is a decline in crop yields which leads to higher prices. This relationship between sunspots and grain prices was first found by William Hershel in the 1800's.

Agricultural crops are a weather play. Corn and wheat are still down for the year -2.7% and -9.46% but soybean meal is up 44% YTD and soybeans up 27% YTD. This may not be enough to say that we should become astronomers, but we still have to realize that the driving factors in grains may not have as much to do with global recession as we may imagine.

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