One and a half years after the Chinese government violently burst the stock market bubble, leading the massive losses among retail investors, and months after China’s third housing bubble since the financial crisis appeared to have peaked, also China has found itself with yet another hot-money funded bubble: commodities. And perhaps in hopes of intercepting this latest mania before it gets too big, overnight China’s top economic planner, the National Development & Reform Commission – not a market regulator, but the core agency behind China’s goalseeked economic data – announced it is investigating whether speculation has “distorted” commodity futures prices, due to concerns that the recent rally will drive inflation higher, according to Bloomberg.
In recent weeks, the NDRC has questioned futures brokers whether “price distortion” had occurred, which is a polite way of saying the buying mania has gone too far. The agency is worried over the potential impact on producer and consumer prices. China’s worries are understandable: with commodity prices surging, whether due to speculators or simply tight supply and rising demand, China’s producer prices soared in January by 6.9%, the highest level since the inflationary scare of 2011.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on Feb 27, 2017.
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