Goldman's Fanciful Call on Commodities
By Jim Cramer
RealMoney Columnist
5/24/2011 6:28 AM EDT
"Which comes first, the chicken or the dollar? That's what I am trying to figure out about the Goldman Sachs call this morning that talks about actual commodity demand and not just some sort of dollar-commodity trade.
Goldman's call is that there is innate demand here and commodities should stop going down; that commodities are needed by actual users, not traders. That's enough to get things going, at least this morning. But it begs the question: When people see the commodities higher do they then sell off the dollar because commodities are only supposed to go up because the dollar's down?
Yeah, it has become that stupid.
Last night I was trying to explain to a "Mad Money" viewer why a strong dollar sends down stocks and I felt like saying, "Listen Bub, it is because stocks are commodities and commodities go down when the dollar goes up." Yeah, we are in that ridiculous zone for certain.
I have always seen justifications for every major move in the markets. There are the justifications for the boom in Internet plays as there were in 1998-2000. Justifications for the commodity trades, as there has been since the coming of age of China. Justifications for the oil rally like we had in 2008. They always sound good. They fit in a box with a nice ribbon, just like this current perceived wisdom: Commodities are down because the dollar's higher.
But, in truth, the answer is always more difficult. The dot-coms rallied because too much retail money chased too many slivers of stocks, just like the way the underwriters hurt the process with the LinkedIn (LNKD - commentary - Trade Now) sliver deal. Oil rallied big in 2008 because a couple of hedge funds were caught short, not because of demand. There was no demand from $110 to $147, just short-covering. In the great Chinese commodity bubble leading up to the pricking of 2008, some of the commodities got too expensive because non-users got in front of the Chinese and bought the commodities the Chinese needed.
So, that's why I find the "commodities are cheap" call by Goldman so fanciful. Commodities aren't trading on supply and demand. They are trading on trader demand, or political demand, as is the case with the grains and our ethanol policy. In fact, the only commodity that is actually trading on supply and demand isn't a commodity at all, it's a currency: gold.
So, when someone says the commodities are up and we hear that it is because the dollar is down let's asterisk it and add "but Goldman Sachs says there is actual demand here." That ought to throw every pundit for a loop!
One day there will be enough money in this market that stocks will stop trading in unison other than when they are taken over or are making an ETF-inspired sector move.
Until then, we will hear nothing but the rationalizations: Stocks are up because the dollar's down, commodities are down because the dollar's up. The explanations are just facile enough to confuse all, including those who spout them but pretend that they actually know what they are doing.
Too bad. It obscures everything including the very values that this nonsense creates. "
(in
www.realmoney.com)