The CRB index is up 31.8% this year while gold and iron ore are both down. A mid-year read of what is actually working across the board, what it tells us about inflation, and where the interesting ideas sit.
In this report
- The Board at a Glance
- The Surprise of the Half: Sulphur
- The Widest Gas Dislocation on Record
- Products, Not Barrels
- Freight and the Inflation Loop
- Gold: A Correction, Not a Top
- Iron Ore Has a Demand Problem
- Copper's Structural Case
- Lithium: Real Demand, Fast Supply
- Tin, the AI Metal
- Uranium: An Unusual Set-Up
- Ideas That Interest Us
- Where a Fund Beats a Single Name
- Key Risk Factors
- What to Watch Next
- Appendix: The Full Board
- 📖 Glossary
The Board at a Glance
A war-driven energy shock has torn through commodity markets this year and dragged its second-order effects into fertiliser, freight and industrial feedstocks. The two positions most portfolios hold to express the commodity cycle, bullion and iron ore, have been left behind entirely.
New to commodity markets? Start here
Commodity performance is usually quoted two ways. YTD (year to date) measures the change since 1 January. YoY (year on year) measures the change over the trailing twelve months. The two can point in opposite directions, and in 2026 they frequently do. The CRB and GSCI are broad commodity indices, the equivalent of the ASX 200 for raw materials. Dotted-underlined terms below have hover definitions, and a full glossary sits at the bottom of this report.
The World Bank's April outlook gives the scale of what happened: energy prices up 24% in 2026 to their highest level since 2022, commodities overall up 16%, and Brent averaging US$86/bbl against US$69 in 2025. Prices throughout this report come from Trading Economics as at 30 July 2026, with futures priced intraday and physical assessments struck on 29 and 30 July. It remains our reference for cross-commodity work because it puts every market on a common YTD and YoY basis. Company and fund figures appear as reference points on how markets have priced these moves, not as recommendations.
The 2026 board, ranked by year-to-date move
Percentage change, 1 January to 30 July 2026. Benchmark indices shown in gold.
Key Takeaway
One shock explains most of the leaderboard. Refined products, gas and industrial feedstocks tied to Gulf refining dominate the top of the board, while the consensus commodity positions sit at the bottom. The most useful distinction this year is not bullish against bearish. It is whether supply can physically respond to a higher price. Where it cannot, as with sulphur and copper, the move has persisted. Where it can, as with lithium and urea, the move has already partly unwound.
The Surprise of the Half: Sulphur
Nothing on the board comes close. Sulphur is up 151% this year and 273% over twelve months, and the reason it happened explains why this cycle has confounded so many people.
Sulphur is not mined. It is recovered as a by-product of refining crude and processing sour gas, so when Gulf refineries stop, sulphur stops, and no price will conjure a supply response. The Persian Gulf normally supplies roughly 44% of seaborne sulphur. The Hormuz closure constrained about a quarter of traded volumes, Russian refinery outages compounded it, and China then banned sulphuric acid exports through August 2026 as the world's largest acid exporter (Kpler).
The fertiliser complex split cleanly as a result. Phosphate is up 28.4%. Urea is up only 13.5% and is down 4.7% year on year, having spiked above US$850/t in April before falling back to US$438/t as Gulf cargoes resumed transiting Hormuz in late June. Ammonia plants restarted. Refineries did not.
One fertiliser bull market, opposite equity outcomes
Year-to-date change. The difference is which input each producer buys.
The equity market priced that split with real precision. CF Industries (NYSE: CF) is up around 59% year to date, a nitrogen producer collecting higher urea prices while its feedstock cost fell 25%, because US natural gas is the worst-performing commodity on the board. Nutrien (NYSE: NTR) is up roughly 27%. Mosaic (NYSE: MOS) is down about 8%, because phosphate producers buy sulphur rather than gas, and Mosaic has cut roughly 2Mt of US phosphate output on elevated costs.
Why this matters well beyond fertiliser
Sulphuric acid is the leaching reagent for copper SX-EW and nickel HPAL operations. This shock lifts the cash cost of a meaningful slice of world copper and nickel supply, which supports the metal price while squeezing leach-weighted producers specifically. Very few models currently carry that distinction.
The Widest Gas Dislocation on Record
Asian LNG, priced off the JKM benchmark at US$21.43/MMBtu, is up 123.1% this year. European TTF is up 107.1%. US Henry Hub is down 25.1% at US$2.76. That puts JKM at 7.8 times the American benchmark, a spread near US$18.70/MMBtu.
Same molecule, two prices
US$/MMBtu, 30 July 2026
Asian LNG is trading at 7.8x the US price (US$/MMBtu)
This is not a shortage. It is a liquefaction and shipping bottleneck. The molecules exist, in Louisiana, and cannot physically reach the buyer, which means the equity leverage sits with whoever owns export capacity. Cheniere Energy (NYSE: LNG) lifted full-year 2026 EBITDA guidance to US$7.25 to 7.75bn from US$6.75 to 7.25bn. Locally, Woodside Energy (ASX: WDS) and Santos (ASX: STO) have rallied on firmer oil and LNG progress, with Woodside's Scarborough development 94 to 96% complete and first cargo targeted for the fourth quarter. It arrives into this pricing environment rather than the one it was sanctioned in.
European power followed the gas higher. Italian electricity is up 66%, the UK 49%, France 30%.
Products, Not Barrels
Gasoline is up 93.5% against Brent's 48.3%. Refined products ran at roughly double crude because processing capacity, rather than crude availability, is the binding constraint. Gulf refineries have been damaged or idled, and about a third of the region's capacity is export-oriented. Heating oil at 102% and naphtha at 60% tell the same story, and the widening crack spread is where the money has been made. Anyone holding flat-price oil this year captured half of the available move.
Two timing points sit underneath the annual figures. The complex re-accelerated hard over the past month, with Urals up 45%, JKM 34% and Brent 26% on renewed US strikes on Iran. Over the past week it faded, Brent giving back 10.4%. Escalation premium is being sold about as quickly as it is bought.
Both tails remain live
The World Bank's risk case has Brent averaging US$95 to 115 if disruption proves more protracted than assumed. A credible ceasefire, conversely, compresses the gas arbitrage and the crack spread faster than anything else discussed in this report. Position sizing in the energy complex should reflect a genuinely two-sided distribution rather than a directional view.
Freight and the Inflation Loop
The containerised freight index is up 84.9% this year and 92.3% over twelve months. Rerouting around Hormuz and the Red Sea has done to box rates what the refinery outages did to sulphur. We read it as the cleanest available signal on goods-price inflation with a three to six month lag, and the lag is the interesting part.
Freight and energy costs are feeding a war-driven inflation impulse. The Federal Reserve is no longer expected to cut in 2026 and is openly debating hikes. The dollar sits at a 13-month high. That machinery is precisely what has pressed on gold all year, which means the same shock produced both the top of this table and the bottom of it.
A slower transmission matters more for resource equities. Energy, freight and consumables inflation is landing in mine operating costs and, more painfully, in construction capital. Estimates struck in 2025 studies are now being tendered into 2026 input prices. Producers show it as AISC drift. Single-asset developers show it as a funding gap, where the equity raise rather than the commodity price becomes the binding constraint. In a year of broadly higher metal prices, cost inflation is doing more to decide which projects get built than the price deck is.
Gold: A Correction, Not a Top
Every precious metal is sharply negative year to date and firmly positive year on year. Gold is down 5.3% but up 24.3% over twelve months. Silver is down 18.4% and up 58.5%. Platinum is down 21.0%, palladium 22.3%. The move was made in 2025 and January 2026, and this year has been the giveback, deep enough from the January peak that Morningstar has characterised gold as having entered a bear market.
The giveback: year to date against year on year
Percentage change. The twelve-month column is a monument. The year-to-date column is the market.
We read a positioning correction inside an intact structural bull market, and the official sector is the reason. Central banks bought a record 289 tonnes in the second quarter, up 74% year on year, led by Poland and China (World Gold Council). First-half net purchases of 345 tonnes were a four-year low only because Türkiye, Russia and Azerbaijan sold into strength. Gross official buying never broke stride, 2026 still tracks toward roughly 850 tonnes, and a record 45% of central banks say they intend to add.
What drove the drawdown was Western financial demand rather than official demand. Gold ETFs shed US$8.9bn in June, cutting holdings 74 tonnes to 4,047 tonnes, and holdings remain well below the pandemic peak. The de-crowding has already happened and positioning is not stretched.
The equity read-through is considerably better than the metal. Evolution Mining (ASX: EVN) set an all-time high of A$17.75 on 2 March and has retraced to around A$12.50 to 13, testing its year-to-date breakeven near A$12.68, so roughly flat on the year against bullion's 5.3% fall. Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST) traded around A$20.41 in late July with gold sales up 14%. Above US$4,000/oz, established producers generate substantial free cash flow almost regardless of a 5% drawdown, and reserve prices struck well below spot understate the assets. The pressure sits further down the market capitalisation scale, where capital cost inflation and financing conditions decide outcomes.
Iron Ore Has a Demand Problem
Iron ore is down 8.3% at US$98.27/t. Coking coal is exactly flat. In a year when the CRB gained 32%, Australia's two largest export earners contributed nothing at all, which is the most important fact in this report for a domestic portfolio.
The demand data is the uncomfortable part, because it does not look cyclical. Iron ore printed a yearly low of US$93.41 on 1 July. Chinese May crude steel output fell 2.7% year on year to 84.4Mt. Average daily hot metal output slid for a third consecutive week to 2.38Mt, the lowest since early April, while port inventories stayed high and mill stockpiles rose 8% week on week (GuruFocus). China is roughly 55% of global steel output and a larger share again of seaborne demand, so nothing else in the equation carries comparable weight. Supply is also moving the wrong way, with Simandou ramping new low-cost tonnage into a market that needs less of it.
Where diversification paid
Total return, twelve months to mid-2026
Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) returned about 65% and BHP (ASX: BHP) 63% over the twelve months to mid-2026, against Fortescue's (ASX: FMG) 45%. The gap is copper and a broader book set against concentrated iron ore exposure. Fortescue fell 4.2% in June alone as the price slid from US$108 to US$100. All three remain highly cash-generative at US$98/t, so this is margin compression rather than distress. But iron ore leverage has been the wrong way to own 2026, and consensus earnings that assume a Chinese stimulus rescue look brave against the hot metal trend.
One split that misleads people
US HRC steel is up 27.2% at US$1,190/t while Chinese rebar is down 3.4%. That is tariff protection rather than steel demand, and it should not be read as a bullish iron ore signal.
Copper's Structural Case Got Stronger
Copper is up 13.0% at US$6.43/lb, around US$14,170/t, and up 45.8% over twelve months. It sits within a few percent of January's record, and it got there without a Chinese construction impulse. The marginal buyer has changed to grid build-out, data centres and defence rather than apartments, which is demand considerably less sensitive to Chinese property than the market's mental model assumes.
The supply case remains the clearest on the board. The IEA's July assessment has primary copper facing a 25% deficit by 2035, with its Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026 framing the same project pipeline as a 30% shortfall. The mechanism is physical: ore grades have fallen 40% since 1991, and only 5% of known deposits were discovered in the last decade. Ten-year deficits driven by geology and permitting do not answer a price signal the way two-year deficits do.
Layer on the sulphur effect and the cost curve steepens further, which favours concentrate producers over leach-weighted ones. We expect that distinction to surface in September-quarter reporting. Copper's first-quarter strength already showed up in the diversified miners' returns above. Among ASX pure-plays, Sandfire Resources (ASX: SFR) is the primary producer reference point and FireFly Metals (ASX: FFM) the developer, with its Green Bay restart study due in August.
Lithium: Real Demand, Fast Supply
Lithium is up 23.2% this year and 102.8% over twelve months at CNY 146,000/t, yet it is down 8.8% over the past month. The round trip is a masterclass in what a short development cycle does to a commodity.
CATL (SZSE: 300750) suspended its Jianxiawo mine in Jiangxi in August 2025 when the licence expired. At 150,000tpa LCE nameplate it is one of the largest single lithium assets on earth, the market priced its absence, and carbonate doubled off the lows. CATL restarted it in late June 2026, returning roughly 46,000tpa or about 3% of global output, and Chinese futures fell nearly 10% across two sessions to a five-month low (MINING.COM).
Three per cent of supply, ten per cent of price
That is what happens in a market with no inventory buffer and little cost-curve discipline. Lithium demand is genuine and improving, with grid-scale storage now doing real work alongside EVs. But supply responds in quarters rather than decades, making lithium the structural opposite of copper. It argues for treating lithium as a cyclical trade, sized for 10% two-day moves, and for testing the 2027 glut forecasts now being written rather than assuming first-quarter pricing returns.
The equity move exceeded the commodity's in both directions. Pilbara Minerals (ASX: PLS) has more than tripled from its June low near A$1.15, trading around A$2.74 in early July, with first-half revenue of A$624m, up 47%, and a return to profit. Corporate activity confirmed the re-rate when POSCO (NYSE: PKX) agreed to pay US$765m for 30% of Mineral Resources' (ASX: MIN) lithium business, roughly 45% above consensus valuation. Australia is now adding supply, with Mineral Resources restarting Bald Hill, Core Lithium (ASX: CXO) restarting Finniss and a A$490m Mt Marion expansion approved. Each was underwritten at first-quarter pricing. CATL, meanwhile, is pushing sodium-ion cells into production as a hedge against its own exposure.
Tin, the AI Metal Hiding in Plain Sight
Tin is up 32.9% at US$53,882/t and 61.5% over twelve months, after a nominal record near US$59,000/t in early June. It deserves considerably more attention than it gets, because the demand driver is unusually inelastic.
Solder accounts for more than half of global tin consumption, and it is the irreplaceable metallic connection in every server, GPU and circuit board inside an AI data centre. There is no thrifting story here and no substitution pathway. You cannot value-engineer solder out of a motherboard.
Supply is where it becomes interesting. The International Tin Association has refined production growing just 3% in 2026 against demand growth of 3.5%, pushing the market into deficit for the first time since 2021, widening toward 13,000 tonnes by 2030 with demand up 25% by 2035 on historic underinvestment (ITA). Add Myanmar's Wa State restrictions and constrained Indonesian exports. ASX exposure is narrow, with Metals X (ASX: MLX) via Renison the main reference point. The size of the market is what makes it interesting and what makes it dangerous.
The administered-price basket
Several of the board's strongest performers have prices set by policy rather than by a demand curve. Germanium is up 75.9%, molybdenum 36.5%, neodymium 30.9%, alongside indium's move on Chinese export licensing. Then look at gallium, up only 10.6%, largely because China has been granting export licences. Same list, same rhetoric, opposite outcome. These are administered prices, reversible by administrative decision, and the physical balance and licence regime matter far more than the designation.
Uranium: An Unusual Set-Up
Uranium spot is up 6.1% at US$86.60/lb while the Nuclear Energy Index is down 9.2% this year. The metal ground higher and the levered complex de-rated, and that divergence interests us.
The metal, the equities, and the gap between them
Year-to-date percentage change
The more informative price sits in the term market. Long-term contract prices reached a 14-year high of US$90 to 91.50/lb in June, above spot. Utilities paying up for future delivery while spot lags is unusual, and it tends to reflect buyers who can see the arithmetic. The mid-case production shortfall runs to roughly 67 million pounds across 2025 and 2026, with contracting below replacement levels, which defers the problem rather than solving it.
The enrichment picture reinforces it. The Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act bans Russian low-enriched uranium from 1 January 2028. Rosatom controls roughly 44% of global enrichment capacity and has supplied about 25% of the enriched uranium used by US utilities. That supply disappears in eighteen months, against Western capacity that cannot replace it.
Equity dispersion is worth noting, because the index headline flatters the damage. Cameco (NYSE: CCJ) is up over 18% on the year at around US$94.73 for a US$41.3bn market capitalisation, while smaller names have fared far worse. Uranium Energy Corp (NYSE: UEC) is up roughly 16% but sits about 50% below its early-year peak. The de-rating has concentrated in the speculative tail rather than in the producers.
A spread more likely to close than widen
A commodity with term above spot, a persistent deficit, an AI-driven demand upgrade and a hard regulatory deadline, trading alongside a 9% equity decline, is an unusual configuration. We would track monthly contracting volumes above all else, then SWU and conversion pricing, then any producer guidance downgrade.
Ideas That Interest Us
CopperASX: SFRASX: FFM
The cleanest structural exposure available. A 25 to 30% supply gap by 2035 that geology prevents price from closing, demand rotated toward grid and data centres, and a near-record price achieved without China's property sector. Concentrate producers screen better than leach-weighted ones on the acid dynamic.
Gold producersASX: NSTASX: EVN
Better than the 5.3% headline decline implies. Free cash flow at US$4,000-plus, reserve prices understating assets, record official-sector buying through the drawdown, and equities that held roughly flat while bullion fell. We are more cautious further down the scale, where capital cost inflation and financing decide outcomes rather than the metal price.
The gas arbitrage, not the gas priceASX: WDSASX: STONYSE: LNG
Henry Hub cost 25% this year while Asian LNG gained 123%. Value sits with the businesses closing that gap through liquefaction, shipping and JKM-linked contract books. A credible ceasefire compresses this faster than anything else in this report.
UraniumNYSE: CCJTSX: U.UN
The most interesting dislocation we can see, if not the most comfortable. Term above spot, a structural deficit, an enrichment cliff in eighteen months, and equities down while the metal is up, with the de-rating concentrated in the tail rather than in the producers.
Refining margins over crudeASX: ALDASX: VEA
Worth holding while capacity rather than barrels is short. This is the most mean-reverting idea here, because crack spreads can normalise well before Gulf capacity returns.
Tin, in deliberate sizeASX: MLX
Structural deficit from 2026, solder demand tied directly to AI build rates, no substitution pathway and minimal analytical coverage. The liquidity that makes it interesting also makes it dangerous.
Where a Fund Beats a Single Name
Several of these themes are about a commodity rather than a company, and a listed fund expresses them more honestly than stock selection does.
Uranium is the clearest case. The thesis is the term market and the physical deficit, not any particular orebody, and the de-rating has concentrated in the speculative tail, which is exactly the risk a fund diversifies away. The Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (TSX: U.UN) is the closest thing to owning pounds directly. The Sprott Uranium Miners ETF (NYSE: URNM) holds that trust alongside pure-play miners, so it tracks spot more tightly. The Global X Uranium ETF (NYSE: URA) is broader, taking in reactor and component manufacturers. Australian investors have the Global X Uranium ETF (ASX: ATOM).
Copper can be held through the Global X Copper Miners ETF (NYSE: COPX, or ASX: WIRE locally), with one caveat worth naming. A basket owns concentrate and leach producers alike, so it blunts precisely the cost-curve distinction the sulphur shock created. If that distinction is the point, single names do it better.
Gold producers are well captured by the VanEck Gold Miners ETF (NYSE: GDX, or ASX: GDX), whose top weightings of Newmont around 11.9%, Agnico Eagle 10.3% and Barrick 6.7%, with Northern Star at 2.2% and Evolution 1.8%, are the free-cash-flow cohort rather than the funding-risk cohort. The junior equivalent carries the developer capital and financing exposure we would treat more cautiously.
For the index-level move, the Global X Bloomberg Commodity Complex ETF (ASX: BCOM) offers broad futures-based exposure, though its weightings skew to energy and agriculture and will not capture sulphur, tin or germanium at all. Which is the useful footnote on this entire half-year. There is no tin ETF, no sulphur vehicle and no germanium fund, part of why those markets stayed under-owned and under-modelled while they ran.
Key Risk Factors
Rapid de-escalation
A credible ceasefire and reopening of Hormuz compresses the gas arbitrage, crack spreads and the sulphur squeeze simultaneously. This is the single largest risk to most of the constructive views here.
Chinese steel demand
Hot metal output at the lowest since early April, with Simandou tonnage still to arrive. Further deterioration takes iron ore below the yearly low without a price-driven supply response available.
Cost inflation
Energy, freight and consumables are landing in AISC and construction capital. Higher metal prices can be entirely offset at the margin level, particularly for leach and HPAL operators facing the acid shock.
Lithium oversupply
Restarts at Jianxiawo, Bald Hill and Finniss were underwritten at first-quarter pricing. 2027 glut forecasts are being written now, and a 3% supply addition already moved price 10%.
Administered price reversal
Germanium, gallium, indium and neodymium are set by Chinese licensing decisions. Gallium's underperformance shows how quickly a licence grant can undo a squeeze.
Uranium contracting stalls
Term pricing above spot only matters if utilities convert intent into volume. Contracting has been running below replacement levels, and continued inertia defers the re-rate.
Fed policy
A hawkish Fed and 13-month-high dollar have driven the precious metals drawdown. Actual hikes would extend it regardless of central bank buying.
Thin market liquidity
Tin, germanium, indium and molybdenum are small enough that a single announcement moves them 20%. Position sizing matters more than the thesis in these markets.
What to Watch Next
The first half was decided by a supply shock in a single region. The second half will be decided by whether that shock persists, and by whether cost inflation eats the higher prices it created. Four variables carry the most information.
01Hormuz transit rates
The rate at which commercial vessels resume transit sets the sulphur, gas, crack spread and freight complex simultaneously. The highest-impact single variable.
02Chinese hot metal output
The highest-frequency read on real iron ore demand. Three consecutive weekly declines to the lowest level since early April is the trend to monitor.
03Uranium contracting volumes
Monthly term volumes rather than spot price. This is where utility intent becomes visible, and where the equity de-rating either resolves or extends.
04September-quarter costs
Acid pricing and consumption commentary from leach and HPAL operators, and AISC guidance across the producer cohort. Where cost inflation becomes measurable.
The commodity cycle is genuinely working in 2026. The difficulty is that it has been working in places most portfolios are not positioned, and the two most widely held resource exposures have delivered nothing. Distinguishing between deficits supply can answer and deficits it cannot remains the most useful analytical filter we have.
Appendix: The Full Board
| Commodity | Price | YTD | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sulphur | CNY 9,186/t | +150.9% | +273.3% |
| LNG (JKM) | US$21.43/MMBtu | +123.1% | +78.0% |
| EU gas (TTF) | EUR 58.38/MWh | +107.1% | +65.3% |
| Gasoline | US$3.33/gal | +93.5% | +52.5% |
| Containerised freight | 3,063 pts | +84.9% | +92.3% |
| Germanium | CNY 23,750/kg | +75.9% | +61.0% |
| Brent | US$90.05/bbl | +48.3% | +25.9% |
| Molybdenum | CNY 618/kg | +36.5% | +24.0% |
| Tin | US$53,882/t | +32.9% | +61.5% |
| CRB Index | 493.6 pts | +31.8% | +31.2% |
| Neodymium | CNY 985,000/t | +30.9% | +52.1% |
| DAP phosphate | US$802.50/t | +28.4% | 0.0% |
| HRC steel (US) | US$1,190/t | +27.2% | +41.2% |
| GSCI Index | 684.6 pts | +24.9% | +23.7% |
| Lithium | CNY 146,000/t | +23.2% | +102.8% |
| Thermal coal | US$130.20/t | +21.1% | +13.2% |
| Zinc | US$3,624/t | +15.9% | +30.8% |
| Urea | US$438.50/t | +13.5% | −4.7% |
| Copper | US$6.43/lb | +13.0% | +45.8% |
| Gallium | CNY 1,825/kg | +10.6% | +12.3% |
| Aluminium | US$3,196/t | +6.7% | +24.7% |
| Uranium | US$86.60/lb | +6.1% | +21.5% |
| Cobalt | US$56,290/t | +5.5% | +68.9% |
| Nickel | US$17,290/t | +3.1% | +15.6% |
| Coking coal | US$218.50/t | 0.0% | +12.3% |
| Gold | US$4,099/oz | −5.3% | +24.3% |
| Iron ore | US$98.27/t | −8.3% | −0.8% |
| Nuclear Energy Index | 39.17 | −9.2% | −0.1% |
| Silver | US$58.47/oz | −18.4% | +58.5% |
| Platinum | US$1,645/oz | −21.0% | +26.7% |
| Palladium | US$1,290/oz | −22.3% | +6.6% |
| US natural gas | US$2.76/MMBtu | −25.1% | −11.1% |
Source: Trading Economics, 30 July 2026. Copper US$/t and the JKM to Henry Hub spread are Cashu Research conversions from quoted units.
📖 Glossary — Plain-English Reference
Every dotted-underlined term in this report also has a hover tooltip. This glossary groups them for quick reference.
Performance Measures
YTD — Year to date. The percentage change from 1 January to today.
YoY — Year on year. The percentage change over the trailing twelve months. Can point the opposite way to YTD.
CRB Index — A broad commodity benchmark covering energy, metals and agriculture. The commodity equivalent of a share market index.
GSCI — The S&P Goldman Sachs Commodity Index. Another broad benchmark, more heavily weighted to energy than the CRB.
Units & Benchmarks
bbl — One barrel of oil, equal to 159 litres. The universal unit oil is priced in.
MMBtu — Million British thermal units. The unit gas and LNG are priced in internationally.
JKM — Japan Korea Marker. The benchmark spot price for LNG delivered into North East Asia.
TTF — Title Transfer Facility. The benchmark European gas price, based at a Dutch virtual hub.
Henry Hub — The US benchmark gas price. American gas is landlocked, so it trades independently of world prices.
tpa / LCE — Tonnes per annum of lithium carbonate equivalent. The standard way of comparing lithium supply across chemical products.
SWU — Separative work unit. The measure of effort required to enrich uranium.
Processing & Production
SX-EW — Solvent extraction and electrowinning. Producing copper by dissolving it out of ore with sulphuric acid rather than smelting.
HPAL — High pressure acid leach. The dominant process for turning low-grade nickel laterite into battery-grade material. Very acid-intensive.
Concentrate — Crushed and floated ore sold to a smelter. Concentrate producers avoid the acid cost exposure that leach producers carry.
Hot metal — Molten iron from a blast furnace, the direct input to steel. Daily output is the best high-frequency read on Chinese iron ore demand.
HRC — Hot rolled coil, the benchmark flat steel product used in autos, appliances and construction.
Sulphuric acid — Made from sulphur. Used in fertiliser manufacture and as the leaching agent for copper and nickel.
DAP — Di-ammonium phosphate. A major global fertiliser whose manufacture consumes large volumes of sulphuric acid.
Market Concepts
Crack spread — The margin a refinery earns turning crude into petrol, diesel and jet fuel. Expands when product prices rise faster than crude.
Term market — The multi-year contract market where utilities buy uranium for future delivery. A better supply and demand signal than thin spot.
AISC — All-in sustaining cost. The industry measure of what it costs a miner to produce, including sustaining capital.
Reserve price — The conservative commodity price a miner uses to calculate economic reserves. When spot sits well above it, reserves understate the asset.
Thrifting — Redesigning a product to use less of an expensive input. Effectively impossible with tin solder.
ETF — Exchange-traded fund. A listed fund holding an underlying asset or basket, giving exposure without direct ownership.
Administered price — A price set primarily by government licensing or export policy rather than by supply and demand.
Sources
Commodity prices and year-to-date changes throughout: Trading Economics, Commodities, 30 July 2026 | World Bank Commodity Markets Outlook, April 2026 | World Gold Council, Gold Demand Trends Q2 2026 | International Tin Association | IEA Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026 | Kpler | MINING.COM | GuruFocus | Investing.com | Morningstar | Sprott | VanEck | Global X
A note on company and fund references
Companies and exchange-traded funds are named to illustrate exposure to the themes discussed and as reference points for how markets have priced these commodity moves. They are not recommendations. Company performance figures are drawn from the sources cited and measured over the periods stated, which differ between names. Exchange-traded products carry their own risks, including tracking error, management fees, futures roll costs and concentration.
Disclaimer: This report is a thematic research publication produced by Cashu Research, a division of Cashu Technologies Pty Ltd. The information contained herein is general in nature and does not constitute personal financial advice. It has been prepared without reference to your objectives, financial situation, or needs. Forward-looking statements, estimates, and projections are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Cashu Research, its affiliates, directors, and employees may hold positions in securities or commodities discussed in this report.