GEOPOLITICAL UNCERTAINTY AND ITS IMPACT ON GLOBAL COMMODITY MARKETS

Abstract

Modern world politics is characterized by diverse and often changing trends and conditions that create the danger of instability of its functional development. Each new state of international relations is reflected in the main global financial markets, causing their growth, decline, stagnation, and the latter, in turn, affect the socio-economic processes in society. In this context, the issue of identifying the directions, forms and nature of the impact of geopolitical uncertainty on commodity markets becomes relevant. Purpose: to reveal the causal relationships between the state of geopolitical uncertainty and the price dynamics of the most liquid nine commodities: oil, gas, coal, gold, copper, zinc, sugar, soybean, wheat; and on this basis to identify general patterns in the reaction of participants in commodity markets to changes in the state of geopolitical uncertainty. Research methodology analysis of the current format of geopolitical uncertainty as a source of impact on global futures trading platforms through observation, comparison and generalization within the framework of the situational approach. As a result, a classification of the states of geopolitical uncertainty consisting of five classes was substantiated, the nature of the impact on price fluctuations of exchange commodities of each of these classes of uncertainty separately was revealed. A number of geopolitical and military-political factors have been determined, which find their direct expression in reassessing the value of quotations of spot and futures contracts for energy resources, precious and industrial metals, agricultural products; as well as a number of factors that find only indirect expression in the change in the value of these commodities.