大宗商品暴跌行情正接近一个难看的新的里程碑，彭博大宗商品指数(Bloomberg Commodity Index)中，价格下跌的大宗商品种类超过自金融危机以来的任何年份。
今年迄今，在彭博大宗商品指数的22种期货合约中，有21种合约价格下跌，跌幅从蔗糖的6%，到天然气的惊人50%。上一次出现如此多的大宗商品价格下跌是在2008年。
在截至上周五的一年里，彭博大宗商品指数已累计下跌26%，即将进入连续5年下跌的最糟糕行情。
多种大宗商品价格纷纷下跌突显出，从粮食种植者到巴西和沙特阿拉伯等大宗商品出口国，生产者的痛苦正在蔓延。
价格继续下跌可能会传导至消费者价格，并阻碍美联储(Fed)明年继续加息的计划。
彭博大宗商品指数是使用最普遍的两个大宗商品指数之一，数百亿美元的资产跟踪这一指数。根据加拿大皇家银行资本市场(RBC Capital Markets)的数据，今年10月，大宗商品投资者持有2195亿美元资产，而峰值时曾超过4000亿美元。
全球最大大宗商品交易商之一Trafigura首席财务官克里斯托弗萨尔蒙(Christophe Salmon)表示：“我们看到投资者对于大宗商品这一资产类别的态度发生了根本变化。”该公司旗下的Galena Asset Management决定在今年结束后逐步终止其旗舰金属对冲基金。
上月，美国期货监管机构宣布，由于“关注度较低”，将停止公布有关大宗商品指数投资的数据。这一迹象表明，大宗商品不再受到青睐。
众多大宗商品期货合约价格下跌的一个原因是中国经济放缓，中国是从铜到大豆等多种大宗商品需求增长的推动力。美元升值令彭博指数涵盖的大宗商品价格承压，因为它们是以美元计价的。
特殊因素也起到了一定作用，瘦肉猪价格下跌是因为生猪产量增加所致，天然气价格则因美国城市天气暖和而下跌。
棉花是彭博指数中唯一一个今年价格出现上涨的品种，由于全球产量减少1540万包，棉花期货价格温和上涨3.6%。一些人认为这是其他大宗商品的一个先兆，表明长期价格下跌已导致供应缩减。
美国大宗商品投资机构Logic Advisors的罗恩劳森(Ron Lawson)表示：“我们认为，2016年第一季度将成为大宗商品市场的底部。棉花价格正传达出这一讯息。”
今年初，分析人士曾认为，大宗商品价格再次表现出相互独立性，这给那些能够发掘单个市场特性的专业投资者提供了机会。
结果几乎所有大宗商品期货价格都是一个走势：下跌。
大宗商品投资管理公司SummerHaven合伙人库尔特纳尔逊(Kurt Nelson)表示：“如果你5年前曾对大宗商品怀有疑虑的话，那么你现在可能还没有找到证据来说服你改变想法。”（中国进出口网）
The commodity rout is approaching an ugly new milestone, with losses across more members of a leading benchmark than in any year since the financial crisis.
All but one of the 22 futures contracts in the Bloomberg Commodity Index are now lower in the year to date, with negative returns ranging from minus 6 per cent for sugar to a staggering 50 per cent plunge for natural gas. The last year so many constituents fell was 2008.
Down 26 per cent in the year to last Friday, the index is headed for the worst of five straight years of declines.
The breadth of the washout across a varied basket of commodities highlights how pain has spread for producers from grain farmers to commodity exporting nations such as Brazil and Saudi Arabia.
Continuing declines could feed into consumer prices and jar the Federal Reserve’s plans to raise US interest rates further next year.
The Bloomberg index is one of the two most widely used commodity indices, tracked by tens of billions in assets. Commodity investors held $219.5bn as of October, according to RBC Capital Markets, down from more than $400bn at their peak.
“We have seen a fundamental change in investor attitude towards commodities as an asset class,” said Christophe Salmon, chief financial officer of Trafigura, one of the world’s biggest commodity traders. Trafigura’s Galena Asset Management division has decided to wind down its flagship metals hedge fund after year-end.
In a sign of commodities’ disfavour, last month the US futures regulator declared it would stop publishing data on commodity index investment due to “a low level of interest”.
One reason why many futures have dropped is the slowdown in China, the motor of demand growth for commodities from copper to soyabeans. A stronger dollar has pressured commodities in the index as they are priced in the US currency.
Unique factors have also played a part, with lean hogs softening due to expanding pork production and natural gas suffering from warm weather in US cities.
Cotton is the only Bloomberg index member that is up this year, gaining a modest 3.6 per cent as the world harvest shrank by 15.4m bales. Some see it as a harbinger for other commodities as the prolonged price slide begins to cut into supplies.
“We believe we will look back at the first quarter of 2016 as the bottom for commodity markets. Cotton is telegraphing that,” said Ron Lawson of Logic Advisors, commodities investment firm.
Analysts early this year made a case that commodities were again trading independently of one another, presenting an opportunity for specialist investors able to exploit the idiosyncrasies of individual markets.
Almost all commodity futures instead moved in one direction: down.
“If you were sceptical about commodities five years ago, you probably haven’t gotten evidence to convince you to change your mind,” said Kurt Nelson, partner at SummerHaven, a commodities investment manager.
