Energy

Commodities: Silver Skyrockets Post-Brexit, Energy is Back!

Published

8 years ago

July 5, 2016

Jeff Desjardins

Commodities: Silver Skyrockets Post-Brexit, Energy is Back!

Commodities are back!

While commodity performance in Q1 was promising, it was mainly precious metals and zinc that buoyed everything else. Energy and base metals were relatively flat on the quarter, with uranium and natural gas having the biggest declines.

However, the game changed considerably in Q2. We now live in a post-Brexit world, where the real risk of further contagion in Europe is prompting investors to seek insurance policies. Silver is hovering near the $20 mark, which makes it the best performing commodity of the first half of 2016 with a 43.6% return.

Best performing commodities 2016

But it’s not just precious metals that are back in vogue.

Energy had an impressive comeback in Q2, with natural gas and oil being the best performing commodities of the quarter. Base metals were up, and even the TSX Venture, a Canadian index tracking many of the world’s junior mining and energy stocks, was the best performing benchmark. This is meaningful, because it wasn’t long ago that the TSX Venture was in a mind-boggling 1,000+ day bear market.

Q2 Commodities by Subsector

Precious Metals
Gold, silver, and platinum all received a significant boost post-Brexit. In the week following the June 23 referendum, they were up 6.8%, 14.3%, and 9.7% respectively. Billionaire voices envisioning a potential bull market for precious metals include Stanley Druckenmiller, George Soros, and Ray Dalio.

Base Metals
Base metals, which did not receive a lot of fanfare in 2015, may have finally stopped the bleeding. Copper was virtually flat in Q1, while gaining 3.9% in Q2. Meanwhile, nickel and zinc both had double-digit quarters with 13.9% and 13.1% returns respectively. Zinc is up an impressive 35.7% YTD.

Energy
The energy sector came back with a vengeance. Brent and WTI had their best quarters in years with 35.1% and 37.3% increases. Natural gas was the top performing commodity in Q2, jumping up 53.3% to just short of $3/MMbtu because of unanticipated summer demand. On the other side of the energy spectrum, coal had another poor quarter, dropping -9.3% in price. (In a recent set of charts, we covered the decline in coal in depth.)

Food
The world’s agricultural commodities had a mixed bag for performance. Wheat was the worst performer, down -9.4% on the quarter. Corn was relatively flat, and soybeans jumped up 28.6%.

Chart presented by: Sierra Metals

Related Topics:silver oil zinc commodities brexit

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Energy

The World’s Biggest Nuclear Energy Producers

China has grown its nuclear capacity over the last decade, now ranking second on the list of top nuclear energy producers.

Published

3 days ago

April 17, 2024

Pallavi Rao

A cropped chart breaking down the biggest nuclear energy producers, by country, in 2022.

The World’s Biggest Nuclear Energy Producers

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on Apple or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Scientists in South Korea recently broke a record in a nuclear fusion experiment. For 48 seconds, they sustained a temperature seven times that of the sun’s core.

But generating commercially viable energy from nuclear fusion still remains more science fiction than reality. Meanwhile, its more reliable sibling, nuclear fission, has been powering our world for many decades.

In this graphic, we visualized the top producers of nuclear energy by their share of the global total, measured in terawatt hours (TWh). Data for this was sourced from the Nuclear Energy Institute, last updated in August 2022.

Which Country Generates the Most Nuclear Energy?

Nuclear energy production in the U.S. is more than twice the amount produced by China (ranked second) and France (ranked third) put together. In total, the U.S. accounts for nearly 30% of global nuclear energy output.

However, nuclear power only accounts for one-fifth of America’s electricity supply. This is in contrast to France, which generates 60% of its electricity from nuclear plants.

Rank	Country	Nuclear Energy Produced (TWh)	% of Total
1	🇺🇸 U.S.	772	29%
2	🇨🇳 China	383	14%
3	🇫🇷 France	363	14%
4	🇷🇺 Russia	208	8%
5	🇰🇷 South Korea	150	6%
6	🇨🇦 Canada	87	3%
7	🇺🇦 Ukraine	81	3%
8	🇩🇪 Germany	65	2%
9	🇯🇵 Japan	61	2%
10	🇪🇸 Spain	54	2%
11	🇸🇪 Sweden	51	2%
12	🇧🇪 Belgium	48	2%
13	🇬🇧 UK	42	2%
14	🇮🇳 India	40	2%
15	🇨🇿 Czech Republic	29	1%
N/A	🌐 Other	219	8%
N/A	🌍 Total	2,653	100%

Another highlight is how China has rapidly grown its nuclear energy capabilities in the last decade. Between 2016 and 2021, for example, it increased its share of global nuclear energy output from less than 10% to more than 14%, overtaking France for second place.

On the opposite end, the UK’s share has slipped to 2% over the same time period.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has heavily relied on nuclear energy to power its grid. In March 2022, it lost access to its key Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station after Russian forces wrested control of the facility. With six 1,000 MW reactors, the plant is one of the largest in Europe. It is currently not producing any power, and has been the site of recent drone attacks.