In today’s briefing:
- Commodities & Metals – August 2025
- EA: Re-Balance Of Payments
- Asian Equities: FIIs Selling Asia in August; Only Taiwan Still Being Bought
- CX Daily: China’s Top Court Reaffirms Worker Rights in Social Insurance Disputes
- Americas/EMEA base oils demand outlook: Week of 18 August
- Global base oils margins outlook: Week of 18 August
- Americas/EMEA base oils supply outlook: Week of 18 August
- Asia base oils supply outlook: Week of 18 August
- Global base oils arb outlook: Week of 18 August
Commodities & Metals – August 2025
- Key Trends: Precious metals, cobalt, and rare earths sustain leadership, while uranium equities face a short-term correction despite strong structural drivers.
- Key Idea: Markets reward miners with policy support, scale, and cost efficiency, while penalizing those exposed to cyclical weakness or geopolitical uncertainty.
- Key News: China tightened rare earth quotas, India moved forward on steel safeguard duties, and uranium equities corrected even as nuclear fundamentals remain robust
EA: Re-Balance Of Payments
- An end to the Euro’s bullish trend is now revealed to have coincided with a reversal of two critical supports. Frontloaded export levels have normalised without payback.
- International portfolio investment into the EA during April fully unwound between May and June, revealing no investor appetite to hold higher allocations to EA assets.
- The Euro is not benefiting from a structural shift towards it, so we doubt the bullish trend will resume. Belated payback in goods inventories could also eventually weigh.
Asian Equities: FIIs Selling Asia in August; Only Taiwan Still Being Bought
- After buying Asian equities for three months, FIIs sold Asia in the three weeks of August: notably India (-$2.53bn) and Korea (-$298m). Taiwan (+1.6bn) was the only large market bought.
- It’s too early to call a trend change. Our FII gauge of 6-month cumulative buying as percentage of the market’s capitalization indicates that most markets are neither overbought nor oversold.
- Even though FIIs have bought the large Asian markets lately, none of them are overbought. Taiwan’s FII gauge is relatively closer to the upper limit. Indonesia is unequivocally oversold.
CX Daily: China’s Top Court Reaffirms Worker Rights in Social Insurance Disputes
- Welfare / Cover Story: China’s top court reaffirms worker rights in social insurance disputes
- Bonds: /Overseas investors drawn to stability of Chinese bonds
- EVs /: XPeng’s EV tech to power Volkswagen’s gas and hybrid lineup in China
Americas/EMEA base oils demand outlook: Week of 18 August
- US base oils demand likely to stay lower as seasonally-slower consumption adds to caution about outlook.
- Expectations of healthy availability of supply give buyers flexibility to maintain lower stocks and top up with smaller volumes more frequently.
- Lower crude oil prices could add to downward pressure on prices that already face pressure from weaker fundamentals and lower export prices.
Global base oils margins outlook: Week of 18 August
- Global base oils prices hold firm or rise vs feedstock/competing fuel prices.
- Base oils margins hold firm at time of year when supply-demand fundamentals are typically weaker.
- Firm base oils margins instead point to stronger-than-usual fundamentals for time of year.
Americas/EMEA base oils supply outlook: Week of 18 August
- US Group II domestic base oils price-premium to feedstock prices holds steady in narrow range, even if down from year-earlier levels.
- Steady margins could get additional support from any further drop in crude oil prices.
- Steadier margins curb incentive for refiners to trim output.
Asia base oils supply outlook: Week of 18 August
- Asia’s heavy-grade base oils price-premium to Singapore gasoil holds firm, especially for Group I base oils.
- Group II heavy-grade margins stay high despite lower outright prices.
- High margins point to supply-demand fundamentals that are sufficiently strong to incentivize refiners to maintain high output.
Global base oils arb outlook: Week of 18 August
- US Group II base oils export prices weaken versus FOB Asia Group II prices in Q3 2025.
- Prices weaken at time of year when FOB Asia Group II prices typically fall versus US prices.
- Asia prices typically fall to help to avoid or to clear surplus volumes at time of year when regional demand faces seasonal slowdown.
💡 Before it’s here, it’s on Smartkarma
Sign Up for Free
The Smartkarma Preview Pass is your entry to the Independent Investment Research Network
- ✓ Unlimited Research Summaries
- ✓ Personalised Alerts
- ✓ Custom Watchlists
- ✓ Company Data and News
- ✓ Events & Webinars
