宏观思考：基础金属效应

Thinking Macro Base (metal)effects We find that a persistent 10% metal price shock tends to raiseheadline/core CPI by 0.3/0.2pp, respectively, over two years.The dichotomy between metals and crude complicates themacro narrative. The inflation market appears to be Commodities Amarpreet Singh+1 212 526 1672amarpreet.x.singh@barclays.com US Rates Jonathan Hill, CFA+1 212 526 3497jonathan.hill@barclays.comBCI, US Key findings: •Prices for industrial and precious metals have risen sharply in recent months, leading tospeculation that the price action may presage increased inflation risk. We find that the direct passthrough from base metals into US inflation is rather modest, butindirecteffectsare potentially meaningful. As a rule of thumb, a persistent 10% metal priceshock tends to raise headline CPI by 0.3pp over two years, while core CPI would rise by about • US Economics Pooja Sriram+1 212 526 0713pooja.sriram@barclays.com •Within the commodity complex, there is a clear dichotomy between sharp increases inindustrial metals and declines in crude oil, complicating the macro interpretation andimplying that the metals rally is not necessarily a dollar-debasement story. The increase in •Inflation markets have not fully incorporated this impulse, in our opinion, both in the front-end based on our estimated passthrough, and in forwards via the risk premium channel,though the relationship in the latter is unstable. In essence, while the metals rally does not 2026 has started with a clang Since the beginning of 2025, both base and precious metals have staged a sharp and broad-based rally, pushing several complexes toward, or through, record highs. For context, sinceJanuary 1, 2025, silver is up more than 150% (evenafterthe recent sharpselloff),tin 60%, gold80%, copper 50%, and aluminum 20%(Figure 1). The move has occurred against a backdrop ofshiftingpreferences for foreign reserve managers, easing financial conditions, concerns This repricing of base and precious metals couldbe consequential for realized inflation and FIGURE 1. Both base and precious metals have rallied sharply since the beginning of 2025 Source: LME, LBMA, Macrobond, Barclays Research In this report, we consider the inflationary implications of the industrial metalsrally specifically. First, we estimate how the strength in base metals prices might propagatethrough US CPI, PPI, and PCE inflation. Second,we consider the durability of the repricingandnote directionally divergent signals from other core commodity markets (namely crude oil) that Exploring how metal markets could spark US inflation Pooja Sriram BCI, US Projecting the inflationary consequence of the rally in base metals To start, it is worth attempting to quantify what the passthrough to US inflation from the ramp-up in base metals prices from an economic lens. Indeed, commodity prices are usually watchedas leading indicators of inflation trends, as they tend to adjust quickly to demand and supply, How dependent is the US economy on base metals? Taking a step back, the share of direct spending by US households on primary metals isnegligible (less than 0.01%), as opposed to energy commodities like gasoline (2.0%) and electricity (1.6%)1. However, industrial and base metals (such as copper, aluminum, steel) arecritical upstream inputs for manufactured goods and construction, meaning their price swingscan propagate widely through costs of durable goods, and eventually services. Although they While the share of direct household spending onindustrial metals is negligible (<0.01%), thesemetals are critical upstream inputs formanufacturing and construction, accounting for Industries like electrical equipment and machinery have more than 10% direct exposure toprimary metals in the form of intermediate inputs and, including indirect exposure throughother supply-chain interlinkages, have 25-35% total exposure to metals as share of gross Therefore, price swings in primary metals are likely toaffectcosts for these industries mostnoticeably. Indeed, we find that PPI for metals has historically closely tracked global industrialmetal prices (Figure 3). However, the correlation with overall PPI for final demand is quite weak, Metal exposure in the PCE and CPI price indices: Small, but not zero In order to estimate how metal price inflation couldaffectconsumer prices, we first determinethe exposure of the PCE (and CPI) basket to primary metals, across various subcategories.Again, we turn to the BEA's input-output tables to estimate metal exposure in each industry, anduse the PCE bridge table to align those estimates with the PCE categories. We find that totalexposure of the PCE price index to primary metals, including direct and indirect exposure withineach spending category, is about 2.2%, about half that of oil and gas (Figure 4). Unsurprisingly, Total exposure of the PCE price index to primarymetals is about 2.2%, primarily through indirect Surprisingly, services account