At the beginning of the year western commodity traders knew China, the world’s biggest consumer of raw materials, would play a decisive role in the direction of markets. What they did not know was that it would be Chinese investors as much as the country’s economic prospects driving prices.
In the past month a near-mania has gripped the country’s commodity futures markets, as an army of day traders and yield-hungry wealth managers have poured into the lightly regulated sector, often with astonishing results.
Daily trading volumes in some commodity futures contracts such as iron ore have been so large that sometimes they have exceeded China’s annual imports. Turnover in Shanghai steel futures one day last week eclipsed all
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