如果楼主能从下列引证的文章中能找出什么人在囤积，什么人会从中受益的话，或者就可以找到
其中的部分原因了：
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There is little doubt by now that China’s bank lending since last December is driving speculative inventory demand for commodities. Chinese banks lend for commodity purchases with the underlying commodities as collaterals. The lending is structured similar to mortgage. Banks usually need to be much more cautious about such lending as commodity prices fluctuate far more than property prices. Chinese banks are more lenient. As China is an industrializing economy, it is understandable that the country should support industrial activities like purchasing raw materials for industrial production. However, when buying commodities is for speculation, the lenders suffer high risk without benefiting the economy. In some cases it hurts banks and the economy at the same time.
The speculative demand for iron ore, for example, is gravely hurting China’s national interest. Rio Tinto was suffering bankruptcy risk due to its overpriced and debt financed takeover of Alcan. When iron ore price dropped by two thirds from the peak, the market became worried about its viability and its share price became very low. Chinalco then negotiated a $19 billion investment in the company to support its finance. However, as its share price has nearly tripled from the bottom, it has decided to cancel the Chinalco investment and issue new shares instead. Chinalco essentially gave Rio Tinto a free call option. It ditched Chinalco when a better option became available. The issue is why its share price has done so well.
International media has been reporting record amounts of China’s commodity imports. The surge is being portrayed as reflecting China’s recovering economy. Indeed, international financial market is portraying China’s perceived recovery at the harbinger for global recovery. It is a major factor in pushing up stock prices around the world. But China’s imports are mostly for speculative inventories. Bank loans were so cheap and easy to get that many commodity distributors used the financing for speculation. The first wave of purchases was to arbitrage the difference between spot and futures prices. That was smart. As the price curves have flattened for most commodities, the imports are for speculating in price increase. As there are so many Chinese speculators, their demand is driving up prices, making the expectation self-fulfilling in the short term.
One obvious cost for China is the failure of Chinalco’s investment in Rio Tinto. When it saw its share price tripling, it could raise money cheaper by issuing new shares to pay down its debt. The potential financial loss to Chinalco isn’t the point. Bigger cost would come from further monopolization of iron ore market. After scrapping the Chinalco deal, Rio entered into an iron ore JV with BHP. Even though the two will keep separate marketing channels, joint production allows them to collude on production levels, which would have significant impact on future ore price.
The iron ore market has been brutal for China, partly due to China’s own inefficient system. For four decades before 2003 fine ore price fluctuated between $20-30/ton. As iron ore was plentiful in the world, its price was driven by production cost. After 2003 Chinese demand drove it out of the range. The contract price quadrupled to nearly $100/ton. The spot price reached nearly $200/ton in 2008. China imports more ore than Europe and Japan combined. The skyrocketing ore price has cost China dearly.
The gradual concentration of major iron ore mines among the big three was a major reason for the price increase. The nature of the Chinese demand was a major reason too. China’s steel production capacity has skyrocketed while the capacity is fragmented. Chinese local governments have been obsessed with promoting the growth of steel industry, which is the reason for the industry’s fragmentation. Huge demand and numerous small players are a perfect setup for the big three to increase prices. They often cite high spot prices as the reason for jagging up the contract prices. But, the spot market is relatively small. They can easily manipulate it by decreasing supply into the market. On the other hand, numerous Chinese steel mills all want to buy ore to sustain production for their governments to report higher GDP, even though the GDP is money losing. China’s steel industry is structured to hurt China’s interest.
As steel demand collapsed in the fourth quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009, steel prices fell sharply. It should be led to a collapse in ore demand. The surge in bank lending armed Chinese ore distributors with money to stock up ore for speculation. It has strengthened the hand of the big three enormously. The tie-up of BHP and Rio Tinto has increased their monopoly power further. Even though China is the biggest buyer of ore by far, it has had no power in price setting. When the global recession should have benefited China, the lending surge has made it even worse for China by financing Chinese speculative demand.
China is a resource scarce economy. The need for imports will only increase. International suppliers are trying to take advantage of the situation by consolidating. But Chinese buyers are fragmented due to local government protection. Chinese lending surge has made it worse by creating excessive speculative demand.
What is happening in the commodity market is a glaring example that China’s lending surge is hurting itself. Even more serious is that it is leading Chinese companies away from real business and further towards asset speculation. The tough economy and easy credit condition have led many companies trying to profit from asset appreciation. They have borrowed money and put it into stock market. As China’s stock market has risen by 70% since last November, many businesses feel vindicated for focusing on asset market rather than real business. The speculation has spread to Hong Kong. Mainland Chinese money may have been the force between HIS moving up to 19,000 from 15,000 and have been driving the luxury property sales. One way or another the money came from China’s lending binge.
Borrowing money for asset market speculation is not restricted to private companies. State owned enterprises appear to be lending money to private companies at high interest rate, i.e., loan sharking, with the cheap loans from the state-owned banks. Of course, we can’t estimate the magnitude of such SoE lending. What it has done is to replace the high interest rate financing in the gray market. As the economy weakened in late 2008 private lenders began demanding money back from distressed private companies. The lending from the state-owned enterprises may have kept many private companies from going bankrupt. It has served to re-channel the bank lending into cash for individuals and businesses that were in the lending business. This money may have flowed into asset markets. It is part of the phenomenon of the private sector withdrawing from the real economy into the virtual one.
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以上引自 《放款热的黑暗一面》 / 謝國忠，详情请见
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