“Thank you very much for the very interesting comments on China's steel imports in the last two daily comments. If China is indeed trying to prepare herself for war, wouldn't they be buying other commodities too? Are you or anybody in the collective aware of them buying other commodities? As far as I know they have been trying to reduce their strategic stocks of cotton since about 15 months. They might have changed that policy, but at least I am not aware of it. As always I enjoy your comments & audio-video very much. Thanks again. best rgds"

Eoin Treacy's view

Thank you for this educative email and for your kind words. It is my supposition that China at the very minimum is seeking to bolster is military capability in order to boost its conventional deterrent capability. 

The uptick in industrial metal prices is a combination of reduced supply from mining activities in response to lower prices as well as resilient demand from China and stronger economic growth globally.  China is the majority consumer of just about all industrial resources so I suspect it would difficult to ascertain just what their specific weighting is in various sectors. However if the Collective has additional information on this topic I would be very glad to share it via the site. 

I wonder if Chinese cotton destocking is a factor of low cost garment manufacturing migrating to lower cost countries? Cotton prices have held a mild upward trajectory for almost a year and a break in that progression of higher reaction lows would be required to question potential for additional higher to lateral ranging.