Soft commodities set for hard sell

In a paper entitled ‘Feast or Famine? Latin America and the soft commodity cycle’, Nudgem Richyal, manager of the Baring Latin America fund, says the commodity sector works in very specific phases. Richyal says: “It seems clear that the commodity cycle has finally turned. We have seen strong performance from the energy sector, and history shows that soft commodities, such as soybeans, wheat, sugar and oats, tend to be the next area to see inflows of capital in each commodity cycle. “Secondly, against the backdrop of concern about global warming, demand for soft commodities such as biofuel...