Events
Living records of past shocks — what happened, what everyone expected, what actually happened, and the lesson.
Stories
El Niño
Every few years the trade winds across the equatorial Pacific weaken, and a pool of warm water normally held near Asia sloshes back toward South America. That warm pool rewires atmospheric circulation worldwide: Southeast Asia and Australia turn drier and hotter, southern South America turns wetter, coastal Peru floods, and the Indian monsoon weakens. Climate scientists track it with the Oceanic Niño Index; NOAA declares an episode when the index stays at least half a degree above normal for five consecutive overlapping seasons.
For commodity markets the mechanism matters more than the label. Drought in Southeast Asia hits palm oil, rice and sugar through yields; drought in Australia hits wheat; a weak Indian monsoon threatens sugarcane, cotton and rice; Vietnam's dry season threatens robusta coffee. But El Niño also brings generous rain to Argentina and southern Brazil — often good news for soybeans and corn. And none of it is destiny: stocks, other producers, and demand decide whether a weather event becomes a price event.
No direct channel established in the evidence reviewed here: Orange juice, Lumber.
Full El Niño record — episodes, feared impacts, measured outcomes →How it reaches our commodities
| Commodity | Region | Channel | Typical pressure | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palm oil | Indonesia, Malaysia | Drought cuts yields, with a lag into the following year | Upward | FAO, Nov 2015 |
| Rice | Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, India | Drought | Upward | FAO, Nov 2015 |
| Sugar | India, Thailand; Brazil | Weak monsoon (drought); excess rain delaying harvest in Brazil | Upward | FAO, Nov 2015; Rabobank, Jun 2015 |
| Coffee | Vietnam, Indonesia (robusta); Brazil, Colombia (arabica) | Drought and heat (robusta); warmer, less frost (arabica) | Upward for robusta; neutral-to-downward for arabica | USDA via FERN, 2016; Rabobank, Jun 2015 |
| Wheat | Australia | Drought and heat | Upward | Rabobank, Jun 2015 |
| Soybeans | Argentina, southern Brazil | Above-normal rainfall, reduced drought risk | Downward/neutral — often supply-favorable | Rabobank, Jun 2015 |
| Corn | Argentina, southern Brazil; India | Favorable rain in South America; weak-monsoon planting risk in India | Downward/neutral in South America; upward risk in India | Rabobank, Jun 2015 |
| Cotton | India | Deficient monsoon | Upward | Reuters, May 2015 (rainfed cotton under El Niño watch); Assocham via Hindu BusinessLine, 2014 (deficient monsoon could hit cotton) |
| Rubber | Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines | Drier-than-normal conditions | Upward | Indonesian Rubber Association via Tireworld, Nov 2015 (El Niño plus haze disturbed photosynthesis — secondary report, treat cautiously) |
| Cocoa | Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria | Heat and drought | Upward | Neuberger Berman citing ICCO, Sep 2015 (ICCO: El Niño typically reduces global cocoa output 2.4%) |
| Copper | Peru coast, northern Chile | Flooding and heavy rain disrupting mines | Upward | Nasdaq, Sep 2015 (excessive South American rain can affect copper mining/transport); MINING.COM, May 2015 (Chile flooding, output cuts) |
| Live cattle | Australia | Drought forces herd destocking and slaughter | Near-term downward (slaughter surge), tighter later | Reuters, Sep 2015 (Australia raised its beef-export forecast 20% on near-record El Niño-driven drought slaughter) |
| Vanilla | Madagascar (Southwest Indian Ocean) | El Niño suppresses Southwest Indian Ocean cyclone activity — protective, because Madagascar cyclones are the vanilla destruction mechanism | Protective/neutral — fewer cyclones, less disruption risk | ReliefWeb/OCHA, Feb 2024 (SWIO cyclone activity expected below average in the 2023–24 El Niño) |
| Platinum | South Africa (Bushveld) | El Niño-linked drought strained mine water supplies — a plausible water-supply channel for platinum mines, weakest of the re-examined labels | Bearish if it constrains mine output (supply-side) | MiningMx, 6 Nov 2015 (possible 2016 water shortages; Implats identified shortages as a critical risk) |
Wars & conflicts
Armed conflict and sanctions as supply events.
A real Black Sea supply shock — Ukrainian exports stopped, fertilizer spiked — and the price spike faded over months as other exporters filled the gap, demand rationed, and Russia's own record crop arrived. This episode only: one case, not a rule about shocks.
The June 2025 Twelve-Day War spiked urea prices and briefly bounced grains on risk pricing — then grains fell below pre-conflict levels. A fertilizer-cost shock, not an ag-price event.
Houthi attacks rerouted a third of Red Sea container traffic and roughly halved Suez trade — and grain prices fell anyway on record supply. The freight shock lived in shipping rates, not commodity prices.
Export bans
Governments closing the tap — expectation vs outcome.
Export restrictions amplified a crisis driven by low tradable stocks, strong demand, input costs, importer stock-building, and thin trade — the bans were the accelerant, not the whole fire.
Russia's ten-month grain ban moved wheat prices only until competitors filled the gap — in this episode. Wheat ended the ban cheaper than the pre-announcement Jul 2010 month-end reading.
A three-week export ban coincided with a 40.5% palm-oil move — but the Mar→Jul window spans the broader vegetable-oil correction, so timing alone does not prove the ban caused the collapse. What the ban verifiably did: trap stocks at home, anger farmers, and force Indonesia to discount to win back the buyers Malaysia had taken.
The world's largest rice exporter banned its biggest export category for 14 months — and CBOT rough-rice (ZR=F) futures ended the ban essentially flat (−1.2%). Grades, exemptions, and competitors absorbed it.
Climate drivers
El Niño and other recurring climate mechanisms.
The sharpest single-season corn shock on record sent CBOT corn futures up more than a fifth in six months — then a normal 2013 season erased the entire spike within a year. Weather moves the price; the next harvest moves it back.
Drought trimmed Brazil's crop — but near-empty warehouses turned a bad harvest into a 14-month rally that nearly doubled arabica. When inventories are thin, weather gets priced twice.
Three straight deficits — dry weather, disease, and years of underinvestment — repriced cocoa more than fourfold in under two years. Then high prices did what high prices do: grindings fell, supply recovered, and a third of the peak vanished in a quarter.
Counterexamples
The disruption was real. Prices didn't cooperate.
The headline exit rallied wheat briefly, then ample supply and alternative routes dominated: wheat -14.9% two months later. The exit was telegraphed for months — inspections had already slowed and some buyers had pre-positioned (Rabobank) — and Russia harvested a record crop instead of weaponizing supply. Observed in this episode; not a rule about exits.
A 400m ship blocked Suez for six days and 400+ vessels queued — oil wobbled $2.60 and reversed, and no verifiable agricultural price reaction followed. A timing shock, not a supply shock. Kept in the dataset only as an explicitly limited non-attribution case.
Every price number in these records is computed from our price series with its instrument and measurement window labeled — or cited to the named source and date shown. Nothing is interpolated; missing data is shown as missing. Secondary press quotes are reported as published and were not individually audited against primary sources.
The data
Every price spike our research could attribute to a documented cause, across all tracked commodities. This is a handpicked sample — what followed these large spikes, not what shocks typically do. For the event-first view — including the times the obvious trade was wrong — see Stories above.
Playbook by cause
What followed large labeled spikes, by cause — medians across all commodities. A handpicked sample, not a base rate. Aftermath is vs the spike-month reading, not the peak. Tap a card to filter the cases below.
This shows what followed large price spikes — not what each kind of shock typically does. Typical-vs-rare is established in the event records.
- weathern = 17 labeledMedian run-up+53.7%6 mo later (month-end)-6.8%n=1612 mo later (month-end)-11.1%n=16Worst within 6 mo (daily closes)-20.7%n=16Worst within 12 mo (daily closes)-29.8%n=16
- geopoliticsn = 10 labeledMedian run-up+58.9%6 mo later (month-end)-13.9%12 mo later (month-end)-20.1%Worst within 6 mo (daily closes)-23.9%Worst within 12 mo (daily closes)-27.7%
- warn = 2 labeledRun-ups+40.5%, +46.7%6 mo later (month-end)-29.1%12 mo later (month-end)-45.4%
- supplyn = 6 labeledMedian run-up+58.4%6 mo later (month-end)-2.3%n=512 mo later (month-end)-8.7%n=5Worst within 6 mo (daily closes)-18.3%n=5Worst within 12 mo (daily closes)-28.9%n=5
- demandn = 4 labeledMedian run-up+47.4%6 mo later (month-end)-4.7%12 mo later (month-end)-0.8%Worst within 6 mo (daily closes)-14.6%Worst within 12 mo (daily closes)-19.2%
- marketsn = 3 labeledMedian run-up+50.5%6 mo later (month-end)-10.6%12 mo later (month-end)-22.7%Worst within 6 mo (daily closes)-28.4%Worst within 12 mo (daily closes)-33.3%
The “worst within” line is a different measurement from the month-end rows: the worst daily close inside the window, on daily front-month futures closes, shown alongside rather than instead of the month-end readings. Month-end snapshots understate how far prices fell inside the window. Palm oil, rubber, and vanilla have no daily data and are excluded. Research vintage v1_2026-09-15; front-month roll days can distort extremes.
All cases
Sorted by size of the run-up.
- +185.7%West Africa cocoa, 2023–246 mo later -20.9%·12 mo later -19.1%
- +130.3%Pakistan floods cut crop; India halted export registrations6 mo later -48.4%·12 mo later -56.2%
- +114.4%Second straight small world crop; $8.40 record Sept futures6 mo later -1.1%·12 mo later -27.6%
- +92.6%Severe Brazil drought threatens 2014/15 arabica crop6 mo later -7.4%·12 mo later -32.8%
- +91.9%Forecast 2000/01 deficit after Brazil drought cuts cane6 mo later -4.0%·12 mo later -31.9%
- +90.4%India drought spurs import-surge expectations; Brazil crop doubts6 mo later -31.2%·12 mo later +4.9%
- +84.0%China infrastructure buying on record Feb-2009 imports6 mo later +16.4%·12 mo later +19.7%
- +81.3%Export bans (India, Vietnam, others) + importer panic-buying6 mo later -30.0%·12 mo later -39.9%
- +79.1%Mine strikes spark squeeze; funds pile in6 mo later -14.7%·12 mo later -8.7%
- +75.3%2007-08 food crisis: tight stocks, weak dollar, strong demand6 mo later -12.5%·12 mo later -42.5%
- +71.9%Brazil 2005/06 crop damage forecasts widen deficit6 mo later -18.0%·12 mo later -6.2%
- +70.9%Russia heatwave; Aug-2010 export ban after ~20% crop loss6 mo later -26.4%·12 mo later -17.8%
- +69.5%South Africa power crisis halts mines, slashes output6 mo later —·12 mo later —
- +68.2%Brazil record drought slashes 2025/26 crop outlook6 mo later -5.2%·12 mo later -27.2%
- +67.9%India drought collapsed stocks; exports withdrawn6 mo later +8.3%·12 mo later -4.7%
- +57.1%Brazil frost, Jul 20216 mo later +16.7%·12 mo later +14.2%
- +56.1%Record-low juice stocks (84,745t); small Brazil crop; Idalia6 mo later -8.5%·12 mo later +26.8%
- +53.7%La Nina record rains slash Colombia crop outlook6 mo later +6.4%·12 mo later -25.2%
- +53.7%2002 drought slashes US, Canada, Australia wheat harvests6 mo later -30.5%·12 mo later -8.1%
- +52.6%China's record buying on hog-herd rebuild; La Nina dryness6 mo later +3.3%·12 mo later +8.8%
- +51.6%Jan-2022 freeze; USDA cut crop to 41.2M boxes, smallest since 19456 mo later +13.1%·12 mo later +46.7%
- +51.2%ETF hoarding bids: JPMorgan held ~50% of LME deliverable stock6 mo later -3.8%·12 mo later -22.7%
- +50.5%Commodity-boom speculative buying despite global sugar glut6 mo later -10.6%·12 mo later -5.6%
- +49.8%China buying spree + Thai stock-sale suspension (exporter short squeeze)6 mo later -40.0%·12 mo later -34.3%
- +48.4%Pakistan floods + Russia wheat-ban spillover (thin-market overshoot)6 mo later -0.8%·12 mo later +4.4%
- +47.2%8-year high on supply worries; ~500kt projected deficit6 mo later -2.3%·12 mo later -1.9%
- +46.9%La Nina drought hits Argentina/Brazil; Russia wheat ban spillover6 mo later -6.3%·12 mo later -14.0%
- +46.7%Iran-war fertilizer shock + emerging El Nino6 mo later —·12 mo later —
- +45.3%Jan 2004 USDA reports: smaller 2003 crop, record Q1 use; stocks lowest since 1995/966 mo later -35.8%·12 mo later -33.4%
- +44.2%La Nina Texas drought; managed-money short-covering squeeze6 mo later —·12 mo later —
- +43.5%Worst US drought since 1956 crushes corn/soy yields6 mo later -14.7%·12 mo later -20.2%
- +42.2%China import surge; world stocks lowest since 1994/956 mo later -22.5%·12 mo later -41.4%
- +42.0%October WASDE cut US crop; speculative longs surged6 mo later -19.2%·12 mo later -32.4%
- +40.5%Black Sea, 20226 mo later -29.1%·12 mo later -45.4%
- +39.5%Australia drought halves 2006/07 harvest; world stocks at 25-year low6 mo later +0.5%·12 mo later +67.3%
- +34.7%US drought, 20126 mo later -11.5%·12 mo later -44.5%
- +34.6%Russian export halt tightens market; gold rally spillover6 mo later +24.4%·12 mo later +29.3%
- +33.9%Strong beef demand; feedlots current, cash surges6 mo later -12.7%·12 mo later -10.3%
- +28.7%Canada BSE closes border; imports vanish, supplies tighten6 mo later -13.2%·12 mo later -13.7%
- +25.7%Record Texas drought liquidates herd; record feed costs6 mo later +0.5%·12 mo later -0.9%
- +23.8%PED virus pork shortfall; herd at 63-year low6 mo later +2.6%·12 mo later +4.0%
- +15.5%India rice export curbs, 20236 mo later -14.6%·12 mo later -22.5%