What a difference 5 months makes. It seems like it was yesterday when Goldman’s commodity strategist, Jeffrey Curie, wrote in a July 28, 2014 note that: The long-awaited global recovery appears to be getting on track, lifting commodity demand Apparently unaware that just 5 months later precisely the opposite narrative would be used by everyone, Goldman included, namely that plunging commodity prices (and demand) is a boost to the economy, Currie added the following: One of our key macro views for 2014 has been a gradual return to the ‘Recovery’ phase of the business cycle – where accelerating growth would drive a gradual (but persistent) closing of the large negative output gap which opened following the 2008/09 crisis. Disappointing 1Q14 growth raised question marks over this view and appeared reminiscent of the previous “stop-start” recovery patterns of 2010-13. On aggregate, DM growth fell to +0.4% annualized (from +1.9% in […]