Jim Wiederhold · Commodity Indices Product Manager at Bloomberg — he builds and maintains BCOM (the Bloomberg Commodity Index) and BERY (the Bloomberg Enhanced Roll Yield Index); previously a commodities strategist at S&P Dow Jones Indices. A benchmark manager, not a stock picker: his lens is positioning data, futures-curve structure, index construction and physical flow, so these appearances are almost entirely macro.
Named as the datapoint proving his refined-product thesis — $7.3bn quarterly operating income while crack spreads run above their 2022 records. His argued view: the shortage is in refined products, not crude, and refiners have taken efficiency gains rather than adding capacity, so the margin drops to the bottom line; less bullish crude, constructive on petroleum products.
In one line: Commodities have gone from an ignored asset class to a strategic allocation again, and Wiederhold's job gives him the two things retail commentary usually lacks — the actual positioning data and the actual index arithmetic. He owns nothing he discusses, names almost no securities, and argues the whole complex from one mechanism: energy is an input to producing every other commodity, so an energy shock becomes a cost shock across the board.
Three reasons institutions hold commodities — and the third one is new. Diversification (the most uncorrelated of the major asset classes) and inflation hedging are the classics; resource security — governments and companies ensuring critical materials sit inside their own borders — appeared over 2025–26 and is "the big new investment theme." Allocations are back at a typical 5–10%, expressed via total return swaps (institutions) and ETFs (everyone else).
The regime is the 1970s, not the 2000s. Both look alike on a chart, but the 2000s super-cycle ran on globalization — the cheapest global supplier — while today's runs on deglobalization: buyers pay up for the strategic supplier close to home. Higher commodity prices are therefore a structural cost, not a demand boom.
Industrial over precious — his 2026 call, and it worked. Made in January after gold's 2½-year run; scored at mid-year (BCOM industrial metals +10% ytd, BCOM precious negative) and still standing in August. He grades his own calls against the sub-indices, mechanically.
Copper is the anchor. Electrification plus AI data centres against 10–15 year mine lead times and years of miner underinvestment — but he concedes honestly that high prices did incentivise supply and miners met demand for several years. What broke this year is cost of doing business and weather disruption (flooded mines, freight up 3–4x, low river levels), which is why copper hit all-time highs.
Gold: two clocks. Near term the driver is the US dollar; long term it is central banks — 1,000+ tonnes bought every year 2022–24, and a World Gold Council survey whose >40% intending to add is the highest in its history. Crucially central banks are price sensitive: they skip the spike and buy the pullback. He treats the survey as a genuine leading indicator with an admittedly unknowable lag.
Pattern rules he applies consistently. A 2½–3 year gold run (data back to 1960) buys a consolidation of months to years; an exponential two-month move — silver to $100, echoing 1980's spike to $50 — always pays for itself with a long grind afterwards. Positioning confirms it: length rotating into gold, draining out of silver.
The rotation rule from his own research. After every new gold all-time high over the last six decades, BCOM rose ~5% the next quarter and ~15% the next year — so take profit on the bullion and broaden into the basket. Some US pension plans did exactly that just before the February supply shut-off.
"Commodities take the elevator up and the stairs down." They are a spot asset class while equities are forward-looking, so a supply shock gaps them higher and then grinds them lower — the mirror image of an equity drawdown. In 2022, when stocks and bonds both fell, BCOM was up 16%. That asymmetry, not a correlation number, is his diversification case.
Oil: the scarcity is in the products, not the crude. The Strait of Hormuz is nominally closed yet crude sits below $100 because of finite offsets — China's demand levers, North American output, SPR and Chinese inventory draws, Saudi diversion west through Yanbu, and jaw-boning that moves no barrels. Roughly 9m bbl/d still transits, over half via the shadow fleet (150+ tankers off Oman vs 30–40 normally; ADNOC cargoes at night, transponders off, under US escort). Crack spreads are above their 2022 records — he is less bullish crude, constructive on refined products.
Index construction is an active decision. BCOM is two-thirds futures liquidity / one-third world production with a 33% sector cap and 15% single-commodity cap — which is why its energy weight is ~30% and why a capped basket's volatility can sit below the S&P 500's. BERY adds a curve premium (four contracts equally weighted across the curve, +1%/yr over five years) and a carry premium (tilt to backwardation, away from contango — natural gas at half its BCOM weight).
What to treat carefully: he is a Bloomberg index employee talking about Bloomberg indices, so BCOM/BERY performance comparisons are house numbers. He gives no price targets, holds no positions in anything discussed, and is candid about the limits of his own forecasts ("it's hard to forecast when there's a lot of moving pieces").
Transcripts
One dated page per appearance — each has its stock table (where securities are named), talking points, and the saved transcript. Newest first.