I have been asked a few times why I do not invest in commodities. As a value investor, it is really hard to wrap my mind around the notion that commodities might be considered an investment. Here is why.
Commodities have no intrinsic value.
They have price. But the price is not the same as the intrinsic value.
This price is discovered in the market as the intersection of the demand and supply curves. “Investing” in the future movement of price is speculation. True investing lies in the potential that the intrinsic value of the underlying business will be enhanced. The price of the security eventually converges to the intrinsic value of the business. This is how investors can partake in the shareholder value that the business creates.
Reproducibility and Repeatability
In the latest shareholder missive, Warren Buffett talks about the concept of reproducibility. A pile of gold does not create additional value over time. Whereas a farm land or a business will continue to create value year after year with additional production. Investments are those that keep generating new value.
But how is this value created? Aren’t commodities produced by real businesses?
It is always a human endeavor. Designing, organizing, planning, manufacturing, servicing, scrapping, tilling, mining, distributing, etc are some of the ways the value is created or added to make a product. As you trace the lifecycle of production of any given product, you will see many different steps (see company life cycle). There are also many different entities of stake holders at each step. These may be businesses or individuals. They all add something of the value towards making the product a reality. Each of these stakeholders are rewarded for the value they add. This is how businesses generate revenues.
When the product reaches the market, it is a commodity and has a price based on demand and supply. If the price is sufficiently higher than the input costs of the product, there are profits to be had, which are shared across the value chain of the product. Smaller the gap between the price and the cost, smaller the profits and less investment worthy are the businesses on the value chain (assuming the stock is fairly priced).
Sometimes, the gap between price and the cost is small, many times it may even be inverted. These occur in the industries where the pricing power is very low. These are your typical commodity businesses.
The trick is to find industries and businesses that throw off profits to the shareholders thereby creating shareholder value. It can happen in the commodity businesses, but only in some special scenarios where the business in question has some level of competitive advantage.
Investing in the product, or the commodity, on the other hand always leaves you at the whim and fancy of the market forces. No one has any special advantage, and ultimately it becomes a zero sum game.
Read more: how to get started in the stock market
A Commodity Business can be a Good Investment in Certain Cases
In many industries, scale gives certain economies that are not available to smaller players and where the barriers to entry are high enough to make new entry unprofitable. While smaller companies may have very small margins, larger producers might enjoy significant profits. Such is the case with Exxon or a Grainger. Or a South Korean or Chinese steel manufacturer might enjoy significantly lower employee costs. In other cases, branding may command a premium price, for example, for cereal manufacturers.
Any business may be a good investment if it is undervalued enough. For commodity businesses, and most businesses are commodity businesses since over time there is no competitive advantage, the undervaluation comes from the assets of the business. This is why most value investors start their analysis with the balance sheet first.
Read: how to analyze a balance sheet
Valuing Business Assets – Are they not Commodities?
Value investors pay special attention to the tangible assets of the business. One can perhaps argue that plant, machinery, etc are all commodities because they are end products, and therefore assigning a value to them runs counter to my arguments above.
Not true. These assets are valued, or priced, based on the utility and the return on assets they provide. Take away the utility, and a perfectly good piece of machinery is worth just the scrap value. Many times, an equipment is worth significantly more when in production, then it is in the market place.
A piece of gold, in most cases, does not provide any utility (there are some industrial uses, but by and large, gold is priced based on demand which is mostly driven by the “fear” or the “safety” factor). Same goes for oil and any other commodity.
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Sorry but this is just quite idiotic! To say that commodities like oil, natural gas, basic metal, rice, corn, cocoa, etc. HAS NO UTILITY VALUE! The commodities exists since the human society started to organize and trade. Without them we would be living in cave and the global population would be no more than few hundred millions. GOLD IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ANIMAL and it has been considered special since immemorial times by all royalties, tyrant and the 1%. IT IS THE ULTIMATE CURRENCY to our recent days! Central Banks understand that although the paper money currency for now is predominant; but as the tide will reverse, they are pilling up gold.
The other idiotic statement is that commodities has no intrinsic value! If so, why USA pennies changed from 95% copper to 97.5% zinc during Reagan era? Or why Canadian coins are now made of IRON? Simple because the paper money is losing its value in reference to the value of GOLD. Marx was an astute stooge of the bankers – his closed relative Nathan was the owners of the Bank of England – and he called the gold “THE UNIVERSAL EQUIVALENT” where the price of all other commodities and products are derived! This is why the gold price is fixed twice a day in London since late 1800s! Marx also promoted the private central banking so they can squeeze at will the industrialist – depicted as the new rich – with tight and easy monetary policies!
I think the writer missed Economy 101.
Bernardo
Bernardo,
What would be the intrinsic value of oil be given that we pay close to $4/gallon (gas) while in Venezuela it costs 4 cents/gallon to fill up? Feel free to make adjustments for taxes, subsidies, etc. The question will still remain.
Commodities are called commodities because it is pure demand and supply curve. There is no added value in terms of brand (for example). Companies who do add value to commodities can be a good investment. Commodities by themselves are speculative.
You are making the same mistake that most newbies make. Confusing the price of something with the value of that thing. If you haven’t noticed, the discrepancy between price and value exists all around us. Investors invest to close the gap between price and value. Speculators do not care about value – they just want to make a buck when the price moves in the direction of their bets.
Everything under the sun has utility value. Just because something exists and someone uses it, does not automatically make it a great investment.
Regards,
Shailesh
Ummm…
You do realize that buffett bought silver in 1966~1967 & 1996~1997 ? His words below…
—
Our second non-traditional commitment is in silver. Last year, we purchased 111.2 million ounces. Marked to market, that position produced a pre-tax gain of $97.4 million for us in 1997. In a way, this is a return to the past for me: Thirty years ago, I bought silver because I anticipated its demonetization by the U.S. Government. Ever since, I have followed the metal’s fundamentals but not owned it. In recent years, bullion inventories have fallen materially, and last summer Charlie and I concluded that a higher price would be needed to establish equilibrium between supply and demand.
—
via:http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1997.html
And yet, he came out firmly against buying gold. References to his comments on gold over the years
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-buffet-thinks-investing-in-gold-is-stupid-2013-04-18
Surely investors will buy and sell commodities for many reasons. Short term price arbitrage and speculation is one such reason. Does this make it a value investment? I would say no. Even if Buffett does it, it is not a value investment.