China has become a world-famous "world factory" in recent years. The rapid development of processing and manufacturing industry has driven the strong growth of domestic industrial sectors' demand for various industrial raw materials. This is called the "China factor" by traders all over the world:
▲ China is the largest soybean importer in the world. In 2003/04 alone, the import volume reached16.5 million tons, and the annual demand for soybean for pressing reached 22 million tons. Almost all imported soybeans are used for oil extraction, and two-thirds of domestic crushing enterprises use raw materials supplied from abroad.
▲ China's copper consumption accounts for 20% of the world, ranking second in the world. Domestic copper production can only meet 35% of domestic demand, while 65% of copper needs to be imported, and the monthly copper consumption is about 250,000 tons.
▲ China is the second largest oil consumer after the United States. The increase in oil demand accounts for 4 1% of the world total, while the increase in oil imports exceeds 1/3. It is estimated that China's crude oil imports will reach 1. 1 100 million tons this year, and the dependence on imports is about 40%.
The import of raw materials plays an important role in China's economy. Different from general commodity trade, in international trade, the pricing of bulk commodities such as soybeans, copper and petroleum products as raw materials for processing and manufacturing is calculated according to the convention of "benchmark futures contract price+various discounts". In developed countries, the futures market evolved from the commodity spot market. After long-term development, the futures market and spot trade are closely combined. In the United States, spot trading is basis trading.
The futures market has the function of price discovery. In reality, due to spot trade, the world's major futures exchanges are closely linked. Due to the existence of the above commodity pricing model, China futures market bears the heavy responsibility of participating in the international competition of pricing power of raw materials commodities. Competing for "pricing power"-this is the meaning of "China price".
Can "China price" truly reflect China's "pricing power"?
After years of silence, China futures market has made great progress this year. Especially with the listing of three new varieties of cotton, corn and fuel oil, the futures market has been constantly deducing a wave of hot prices, and the transaction volume has increased significantly compared with previous years. "Pricing power" has become a hot topic, and many media optimistically declared that the era of "China price" has arrived.
However, that is, this year, domestic spot enterprises did not gain much, but were repeatedly forced to take orders at a high level at the peak of international commodity prices, and the huge losses suffered were still fresh in people's minds:
▲ Since 2002, CBOT soybean prices have continued to rise. From the end of 2003 to the beginning of this year, domestic enterprises signed a large number of high-priced purchase contracts with foreign soybean exporters. On April 5th this year, the monthly soybean contract of cents reached a maximum of 1.064 cents per bushel (1 ton is equal to 36.7 bushels), a record high of 1.5 years, and the price began to fall in May. For more than ten days, the price of imported soybeans plummeted 1 1,000 yuan. At that time, this situation was called "soybean earthquake". Coupled with the credit crunch caused by macro-control, many crushing enterprises have to "wash their ships" (default return). Quite a few enterprises are in a state of suspension of production, and almost the whole industry is losing money.
▲ Since May this year, the international and domestic copper markets have set off a round of skyrocketing momentum. Especially since September, the copper price has experienced ups and downs at the historical high of $3,000, and correspondingly, the domestic spot price is more than 30,000 yuan. This has prevented many copper processing enterprises from stopping production to reduce losses. At the same time, the comparison of low prices at home and abroad makes cross-market arbitrage unprecedented in scale and lasting for a long time, which not only makes domestic speculators suffer heavy losses, but also causes abnormal tension in inventory and imports.
▲ Since 2003, the world crude oil price has experienced a sharp rise. By mid-June 2004, 5438+ 10, the US crude oil futures price soared above $55 per barrel, and then fell back, but it was still above $40. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, from June to September this year, China paid an extra $654.38+03 billion due to the increase in international crude oil prices. According to the Asian Development Bank's forecast, if the oil price remains at 40 USD from the second quarter of 2004 to the end of 2005, China's GDP will drop by 0.8% in 2005. Yang Ji, the last R&D center, believes that human factors have played a decisive role in recent oil price fluctuations. International oil giants and speculative funds use oil pricing power to jointly speculate on oil prices.
In fact, China has never had a say in the pricing of these commodities!
(1) First of all, on the basis of the market, although the specific circumstances of the above-mentioned cases are different, the reasons for forcing China buyers to "pay at a high price" are also quite different, but there are * * * similarities in essence: although some commodities have all corresponding contracts in domestic futures trading, the domestic market has not participated in the whole price formation process of these commodities imported from foreign markets. Price formation mechanism is the core of pricing power. Because the domestic and international futures markets are artificially divided, domestic investors cannot directly participate in the price formation process of the other market through normal channels, and almost stay out of it. So far, with the approval of the CSRC, there are 26 domestic companies that can engage in overseas futures trading, most of which are "national" group companies or industry leaders. It is difficult for ordinary enterprises to participate in the hedging business of overseas futures markets through normal channels. Mei Xinyu, a research institute of the Ministry of Commerce, believes that only by forming a market with world influence can international pricing power be formed. The reason why we have not formed a market with world influence is that our policy conditions are not available.
On the other hand, although it has made great progress compared with previous years, China's futures market is still in the "primary stage" and its development is not sufficient. Compared with foreign futures exchanges with a history of more than 100 years, the varieties of contracts introduced by domestic exchanges are unmatched in quantity, scale and coverage. Wang Weijun, director of the research department of Dashang Institute, said: "The trading volume of soybean futures in China only accounts for 1/4 of CBOT, and it is still a market with a scale to be expanded. Most of the pricing power of soybeans is still in the hands of American exchanges. "
In terms of varieties, professionals introduced that at present, there are more than 100 global commodity futures transactions, with a total of 93 varieties. However, with the addition of three new varieties in China, there are only nine varieties, which is not commensurate with China's industrial status. For many spot enterprises, the domestic market lacks suitable varieties. For example, for crushers, the prices of soybean meal and soybean oil are more closely linked, while the domestic futures market does not have the latter; Before the launch of No.2 soybean contract; The soybean contract of Dashangsuo 1 is limited to non-GMO soybean varieties, which is also inconsistent with the reality of the vast number of oil plants. The lack of related varieties can not form a perfect price system, which is also the realistic reason why people in the industry keep calling on China to launch more varieties of commodity futures contracts as soon as possible.
In addition, there are no options and other derivatives listed in the domestic futures market, and the market system is not perfect. In fact, all three domestic futures exchanges said that the research and preparation of futures options such as copper, soybean and wheat had started several years ago, but it was delayed, probably because the market capacity was not large enough and there were also considerations of risk management by the regulatory authorities.
(2) From the perspective of risk management, there are many differences between domestic and foreign futures trading systems, and there are many places worth learning from in foreign markets. A typical example of this is that the international copper market experienced a historic plunge on June 38, 2003+10/October 38+,and the LME copper price fell by more than 10%, while the domestic Shanghai copper price fell by 4% in one day and 8% in three days. Some media have come to the conclusion that Shanghai copper is more resistant to falling than London copper, and the "Shanghai price" has been fully exerted here. This difference is actually due to the fact that there is no stop loss system abroad but there is one in China, which makes it take several trading days for the price relationship between the internal and external markets to recover after the plunge. But as Bi Sheng, an analyst in the copper industry, said, this just shows that "Shanghai price" is still the "shadow price" of "London price" to a great extent. For the sake of risk control, after issuing risk warnings for many times and increasing the ratio of trading margin, at the end of last month, the institute solicited the opinions of member units in the last issue, and planned to expand the price limit of copper-aluminum futures contracts when there was a unilateral market.
In addition to the risk control of the exchange in trading, the recent exposure of huge speculative losses of CAO options has sounded a big alarm for domestic enterprises. Reasons for loss: How risky it is to speculate against the trend, and any beginner who has just entered the futures market will not be unclear. Then why didn't the loss be discovered until I lost all my money and applied to the court for bankruptcy protection? Ironically, two days after the Cao incident was exposed, Wu, director of the Asia-Pacific region of the European Futures Exchange, also made a suggestion to the China futures market: "Launch options trading as soon as possible to better avoid market risks." Li Lei, an expert on Derunlin Futures in Beijing, believes that the turmoil of CAO shows the failure of the regulatory system. "How effective our futures supervision system can be, we really should reflect on it."
Facts have proved that even if domestic enterprises have corresponding channels to enter the international market and lack risk management, they will inevitably be attacked by international institutions and end up in a bleak situation. Indulge in speculation, in the rules of the international market game, not only can not win the right to bargain, but will ruin the right to speak.
(3) Participants: There is also a huge gap between domestic and foreign countries. Wang Fei, an analyst of Southwest Futures, said that there are great defects in the domestic futures market in terms of market access system, market cultivation and investor education. Large institutional investors (such as funds and investment banks) have not yet obtained institutional permission to enter the futures market, which leads to the situation that the investment structure of the domestic futures market is dominated by small and medium investors. According to statistics, in the domestic futures market, 84.77% of investors have funds below 6.5438+0 million, while only 4.75% have funds above 3 million yuan. In most mature futures markets, except for some enterprises with spot background, most of them participate in the form of investment funds, and the market participation share of futures investment funds accounts for more than 60% of the total market trading volume.
In the United States, 60% of the participants in the agricultural futures market are spot traders engaged in production, circulation, trade and processing, and the pricing of all aspects of the agricultural spot market is also inseparable from the futures market. It can be said that the spot price and futures price are truly integrated, and the economic function of the futures market has been fully exerted and utilized. However, in the domestic production and circulation of products related to the national economy and people's livelihood, the penetration rate of the futures market is far from this level. This makes the spot price in the domestic market often deviate greatly, and the futures price cannot play its due guiding role.
There are still many things to be done to adapt to the rules of the game and participate in the global pricing power competition.
The soybean No.2 contract of Dashang Company, which will be listed on the 22nd of this month, is a great progress for China to enter the international pricing system. But in the final analysis, the expansion of the delivery scope of contract varieties is only a link in the whole "pricing power" system. When talking about this issue, Han Qizhi, an expert on COFCO futures, said that there are still many things to make the "China price" really work, such as the degree of market openness, the economic awareness of producers, the structure and rules of market participants, and the mechanism to prevent risks. ....
Related:
Basis pricing in spot market;
Basis pricing in the spot market refers to buying and selling spot in a certain amount higher or lower than the futures price in a certain month with the consent of buyers and sellers, and trading directly on the basis of the agreed basis.
At present, when American traders export soybeans to foreign oil plants, most of them use the basis pricing method, that is, the soybean import price on a certain day during the delivery period =CNF premium price +CBOT soybean futures price. CNF (freight including price) premium is quoted by American Trade Daily, which is the basis between foreign arrival port price and CBOT futures price. The basis depends on the tension of the spot purchasing market in the United States, sea freight, traders' operating profits and other factors.
Import cost of domestic soybeans =(CBOT soybean price+comprehensive basis) * exchange rate *( 1+ VAT rate) *( 1+ tariff rate)+miscellaneous fees.
Domestic refined copper import cost =(LME three-month price+/-spot premium+onshore premium) * exchange rate *( 1+ VAT rate) *( 1+ tariff rate)+miscellaneous fees.
Brief introduction of CBOT, LME and the New York Mercantile Exchange;
CBOT: The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) is the largest and most representative agricultural product exchange in the world. /kloc-At the beginning of the 9th century, Chicago was the largest grain distribution center in the United States. With the continuous concentration of grain trading and the development of forward trading methods, the Chicago Board of Trade was established on 1848 by 82 grain traders. After the establishment of the exchange, the trading rules have been continuously improved. 1865 forward contract was replaced by standard futures contract, and the deposit system was implemented. The Chicago Board of Trade not only provides futures trading for agricultural products such as corn, soybeans and wheat, but also provides futures trading markets for medium and long-term US Treasury bonds, stock indexes, municipal bond indexes, gold and silver, and provides options trading for agricultural products, finance and metals. The futures prices of corn, soybean, wheat and other varieties on the Chicago Board of Trade have not only become important reference prices for American agricultural production and Canada, but also become authoritative prices in international agricultural trade.
LME London Metal Exchange (LME) is the largest nonferrous metal exchange in the world. The price and inventory of LME have an important influence on the global production and sales of non-ferrous metals. /kloc-In the middle of 0/9th century, Britain was the largest producer of tin and copper in the world. With the passage of time, the industrial demand is increasing, and Britain urgently needs to import a large number of industrial raw materials from foreign mines. At that time, due to the irregular arrival time of freighters crossing the ocean to transport ore, metal prices fluctuated greatly, and metal traders and consumers were faced with great risks. 1877, some metal traders established the London metal exchange and established standardized trading methods. Since the beginning of this century, the London Metal Exchange has publicly released its trading price, which is widely used as the quasi-price of world metal trade. At present, 70% of the world's total copper production is traded according to the official quotation published by LME. Its annual transaction volume exceeds 2 trillion US dollars, and its annual capital turnover exceeds 2 trillion US dollars.
NYMEX: NYMEX (the New York Mercantile Exchange) is the largest physical commodity futures exchange in the world, providing trading of energy and metal futures options contracts, as well as clearing services for OTC energy products trading. Through the combination of open manual bidding and electronic matching trading system, a series of contracts such as crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas, coal, electricity, gold, silver, copper, aluminum and platinum can be traded within 24 hours. WTI (West Texas Intermediate) futures contract price listed and traded in the New York Mercantile Exchange is the benchmark price of global oil.