The global supply-chain crisis has been one of the biggest drivers of consumer prices in the last year. While central banks around the world are shifting policy to try to cool the rise in inflation, there are signs from shipping companies and corporate results that the bottlenecks may start easing. A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, which handles almost one-fifth of global sea-borne container traffic, signaled disruptions may be just months from ending with consumer staple and luxury goods makers seeing improvements throughout 2022.
Commodities
The other side of the equation feeding into rising prices is the multi-year highs in a range of commodities. Futures contracts show the highest number trading in backwardation — a market structure that indicates scarcity — since at least 1997. “We’re out of everything,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst Jeff Currie said in a Bloomberg Television interview. While oil, threatening to hit $100 a barrel, has been the poster-child for the rise, everything from base metals to agricultural products are soaring. China’s government has recently stepped up efforts to control the price of coal and iron amid the surge
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