Agcapita

Steel, Coal and Agriculture Plays Turning Over

On the issue of rotation we need to take a longer view. The equity and bond markets have benefited from a long period of low inflation, but ongoing and massive central bank liquidity injections point to a far less benign environment of elevated inflation ahead. Research by Agcapita Farmland Investment Partnership (Calgary based agriculture private equity firm) shows investors must be prepared to rotate into asset classes with different characteristics.

During the last commodity bull market & high inflation period in the 1970’s, equities materially underperformed farmland. Western Canadian farmland went from around $100/acre to $550/acre (550% total return and 176% in inflation adjusted terms), cash held in a money market account barely kept ahead of inflation (6% inflation adjusted return) and the S&P 500 index returned less than 2% per year (a loss of almost 50% in inflation in adjusted terms)

I believe the world is still in the early stages of this current commodity bull market. When agriculture commodities prices are compared against their previous inflation adjusted highs they are significantly discounted implying scope for further increases:
 Corn is US$ 5/bushel currently compared to US$16/bushel in 1974,
 Wheat is US$ 7/bushel currently compared to US$27/bushel in 1974
 Canadian farmland is C$ 660/acre currently compared to C$1,100/acre in 1981