Roach and Rogers on "Comodities"

Stephen Roach used to be a favorite here back when he was talking about the housing bubble and Alan Greenspan's failings. Now that he's taken it upon himself to help deflate the so-called "commodities bubble", his words have lost some of their appeal.

His spelling was never in question ... until now.

He and Jim Rogers debate the future of commodity prices in "Can You Spell Commodity", an article appearing in the current issue of Forbes magazine. Here are some highlights:

In three months crude oil has fallen 20% to $60 a barrel. A price drop in natural gas severely wounded hedge fund Amaranth Advisors. Gold and sugar are in bear markets. In August the Goldman Sachs Commodities Index fell, breaking four years of month-on-month increases.

To Jim Rogers, the man who called the commodity boom seven years ago, those are mere blips. This is a great time to invest in commodities, and he's backed this up by investing more of his own money. Supply of things like base metals, oil and rubber is crimped after years of underinvestment in mines and oilfields and farms, he says, so prices are heading up. And they will go up, with some transitory hiccups, well into the next decade and perhaps even the one following. Copper, zinc and oil have all at least doubled in the past three years. You'll see more doublings in many more commodities.

That's the Rogers view. And then there's economist Stephen Roach, the Morgan Stanley bear every bull loves to gore. He thinks Rogers is dead wrong. Roach says commodity prices could fall another third from here, putting an end to silly notions of a so-called supercycle of commodity increases. The culprits: slowing growth in China, a voracious buyer of commodities, and a U.S. housing recession that, he says, will slash demand for building materials like copper and weigh down the global economy.

So, there you have it. Is the CRB Index headed toward 200 or 600? And what does that "C" stand for anyway?

Rogers says Roach "couldn't even spell 'commodities' two years ago." Roach wearily responds that, yes, he used to write "commodities" with one "m" before Rogers kindly set him straight.
...
The peripatetic Rogers, 63, who once set a Guinness World Record by riding his motorcycle around the world, brings a lot of credibility to the bull case. A founder with George Soros of the legendary Quantum Fund, he started a commodities index in 1998 when investors were caught up in the dot-com frenzy. The Rogers International Commodities Index has since returned 16.9% annually versus 13.9% and 11.8% for rivals from Goldman Sachs and Dow Jones-AIG, respectively. This year the gap has widened. Rogers' is up 7% through August. Goldman's is down 0.4%, and Dow Jones-AIG's up 3%.

Jeez, you'd think the author is siding with Rogers here. Quoting the performance of any commodity fund as of the end of August omits the largest portion of one of the biggest sell-offs in the history of trading commodities.

Surely there was more recent data available for these indexes - they managed to get the oil price right at $60 at the end of September.

Rogers, author of Hot Commodities, says his optimism comes right out of the history books. The shortest commodity boom, which began in 1966, was 15 years, he says. The longest: 23 years. The current one: 7 years (forget the slump we're in now). The long trend reflects this fact: Lots of commodities can't be produced quickly. By the time miners or drillers or farmers realize that demand has outstripped supply, it's too late.
...
Then there's China. Sure, the country's economic growth could slow, but over the long term Rogers is an unabashed bull. So much so that he's taught his 3-year-old daughter Mandarin and, in preparation for moving to a "Chinese-speaking" city with her, has put his Manhattan manse up for sale for $15 million.
Roach's response: China will be slowing, and that's a big problem. The country is responsible for half the growth in purchases of aluminum, copper and steel and more than 85% of the growth in tin and nickel. Roach says bank reserve requirements and rises in interest rates, combined with Beijing's recent "administrative edicts" to rein in investments, will throw cold water on the "China mania" gripping investors who blithely assume 11% growth every year. It could also kill off a few of the mania's side effects--like Mandarin lessons for kids and uprooting families to Asia--what Roach calls "Rogers' whole schtick."

Roach says crude oil prices are more likely to head down than up; Rogers says they will approach $100 a barrel before the commodity boom ends. Roach says cheap Chinese imports create "headwinds" against inflation and that rising U.S. bond prices wisely reflect that. Rogers says inflation, far from retreating, is rampant, and he is shorting U.S. Treasury bonds. Roach says the influx of money into commodities means trading "technicals" with no relation to fundamentals can cause investors to "overshoot." Rogers notes that there are fewer than 50 mutual funds worldwide dedicated to commodities versus 70,000 for stocks and bonds, though he too fears man's tendency to overshoot. It's Roach's timing that's off, he says.

"Call me in 2019," says Rogers, which he considers a more likely peak-price year than today. "I will say, 'Sell commodities.' And you will laugh and giggle and say, 'Commodities always go up. You are an old fool.'"

Roach might be thinking something along those lines right now. He apparently sees opportunity in the coming real estate crash. He jokes that he put in a bid of $1.5 million for Rogers' house (eight bedrooms, five baths). Roach says, "He hasn't gotten back to me yet."

Not surprisingly, the case made by Jim Rogers makes a lot more sense here (though it's possible that there could be some bias involved). The China slowdown story has been heard every year now for the last half-decade - is this the year? If so, how much of a slowdown will it be?

The impact of a drop in U.S. housing construction on copper prices has yet to be seen - that argument has gotten a lot of mileage this year in the mainstream financial media, but base metal prices have been firm after both the broad sell-off in May and then the energy related decline that started in August.

You have to wonder if Roach has ever been bullish on anything.