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The Periodic Table of Commodity Returns

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The Periodic Table of Commodity Returns

The Periodic Table of Commodity Returns

If for some reason, you still think that the commodity markets are predictable, today’s chart provides a nice piece of humble pie.

The Periodic Table of Commodity Returns, which comes to us annually from our friends at U.S. Global Investors, shows the returns of commodities over each year of the past decade.

As you may have guessed, commodities are a volatile asset class – and as a result, their respective rankings fluctuate wildly each year, making things really interesting for any observer.

The Year in Review

In 2017, we experienced the second full year of recovery from the collapse of commodities that plagued the dreaded stretch from 2011 to 2015.

Aside from natural gas (-20.7%), commodities were basically up across the board. The graphic, which focuses mostly on major commodity markets, has palladium (56.3%), aluminum (32.4%), coal (31.2%), copper (30.5%), and zinc (30.5%) as the big winners over the last year.

It’s worth mentioning that some smaller markets are not included on the table – and battery metals like cobalt (133%) also did exceptionally well in 2017.

Deeper Digging

If you are not yet thoroughly geeked out, there is an interactive version of this graphic as well. It allows you to sort by category, performance, or volatility.

Surprisingly, the least volatile substance on the table is gold:

Gold volatility

While the gold market has been eerily quiet as of late, this is unexpected. That’s because, at least compared to other financial assets like bonds or stocks, gold has quite the reputation for being volatile and risky.

But, when compared to other commodities, gold actually appears relatively tame.

What Real Volatility Looks Like

Here are the charts for natural gas and coal, each which much better represent a Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde relationship.

Natural gas volatility

Natural gas is in weird place.

It’s a better alternative than coal or oil for emissions, but it’s still a fossil fuel. This, along with the natural ebbs and flows of the oil and gas markets, have made gas particularly volatile over the last few years.

Coal volatility

Of course, coal is falling out of favor in the long-term global energy mix – but that doesn’t mean it can’t get a shot in the arm from Chinese or Indian demand in the short term.

As a result, coal is all over the map on the Periodic Table of Commodity Returns, as well.

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Energy

How Much Does the U.S. Depend on Russian Uranium?

Currently, Russia is the largest foreign supplier of nuclear power fuel to the U.S.

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Voronoi graphic visualizing U.S. reliance on Russian uranium

How Much Does the U.S. Depend on Russian Uranium?

This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on natural resource megatrends in your email.

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a ban on imports of Russian uranium. The bill must pass the Senate before becoming law.

In this graphic, we visualize how much the U.S. relies on Russian uranium, based on data from the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA).

U.S. Suppliers of Enriched Uranium

After Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russian-produced oil and gas—yet Russian-enriched uranium is still being imported.

Currently, Russia is the largest foreign supplier of nuclear power fuel to the United States. In 2022, Russia supplied almost a quarter of the enriched uranium used to fuel America’s fleet of more than 90 commercial reactors.

Country of enrichment serviceSWU%
🇺🇸 United States3,87627.34%
🇷🇺 Russia3,40924.04%
🇩🇪 Germany1,76312.40%
🇬🇧 United Kingdom1,59311.23%
🇳🇱 Netherlands1,3039.20%
Other2,23215.79%
Total14,176100%

SWU stands for “Separative Work Unit” in the uranium industry. It is a measure of the amount of work required to separate isotopes of uranium during the enrichment process. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

Most of the remaining uranium is imported from European countries, while another portion is produced by a British-Dutch-German consortium operating in the United States called Urenco.

Similarly, nearly a dozen countries around the world depend on Russia for more than half of their enriched uranium—and many of them are NATO-allied members and allies of Ukraine.

In 2023 alone, the U.S. nuclear industry paid over $800 million to Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, and its fuel subsidiaries.

It is important to note that 19% of electricity in the U.S. is powered by nuclear plants.

The dependency on Russian fuels dates back to the 1990s when the United States turned away from its own enrichment capabilities in favor of using down-blended stocks of Soviet-era weapons-grade uranium.

As part of the new uranium-ban bill, the Biden administration plans to allocate $2.2 billion for the expansion of uranium enrichment facilities in the United States.

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