【英语中国】短线观点：中国囤积铜

Behind the wild swings of stock markets this year lie the swings of the inventory cycle. Faced with a generational shock last year, many managers made instant decisions that are now proving to have been mistakes.

Investors have profited by exploiting those mistakes.

The clearest example is in manufacturing. The 50.7 per cent rise in the S&P 500 since its March nadir is in large part predicated on the belief that managers cut back inventories too much last year, and will now need to re-stock.

Meanwhile, the strongest gains for stocks have been driven by a deliberate decision to build inventories. The best-performing stock market for the year so far has been Peru. Its Lima general index is up 117 per cent.

Peru is a big copper exporter, and this gain is linked to the 90 per cent rise in copper prices over the same period. Its stock market functions effectively as a leveraged play on the copper price.

Meanwhile, that rise in the copper price has been driven to a great extent by the huge inventory of copper that China appears to be compiling. The last figures, for June, showed Chinese copper imports running at almost quadruple their rate of a year earlier.

So, a strategy of watching the flow of material into China and finding the greatest beneficiaries would have been a great way to make money this year.

The critical questions now are whether western manufacturers' cuts in inventory really do prove to have been excessive; and whether we are about to witness another turn in the inventory cycle for copper and the other materials stockpiled by China. If it finds its inventories are now too large, the implications would be unpleasant for the producers that have benefited to date.

今年全球股市大幅振荡的背后，是库存周期的波动。去年，面对几代人一遇的冲击，许多经理人迅速作出了现在看来是错误的决定。

投资者通过利用这些错误已经获利。

最明显的例子是制造业。标普500指数从3月份的谷底上升50.7%，在很大程度上是因为投资者相信，经理人去年削减库存的力度过大，现在会需要补充库存。

与此同时，涨幅最大的股票，其推动因素都源自构建库存的慎重决定。今年迄今表现最佳的当属秘鲁股市。利马指数(Lima general index)上涨了117%。

秘鲁是一个铜出口大国，其股市今年的涨势与同期铜价上涨90%密切相关。实际上，秘鲁股市的功能相当于铜价的杠杆投资工具。

与此同时，铜价的上涨，在很大程度上是由于中国似乎正在囤积大量铜库存。最新数据显示，今年6月，中国铜进口量几乎是去年同期的4倍。

因此，观察流向中国的材料，从中找出最大受益者，这个战略是今年迄今一种很好的赚钱方法。

现在的关键问题是，西方制造商削减库存之举，是否真的证明是过了头？还有，我们是否就要见证中国囤积的铜和其它材料的库存周期再度转向？如果中国发现自己现在的库存量过高，将会对迄今受益的生产商带来令人不快的影响。

译者/和风