Goldman Sachs: Supply Shocks Are Back — 60/40 Portfolios Need Commodities
nashnova research
Goldman's commodities team warns that supply shocks have become structural, breaking the hedge logic of the traditional 60/40 stock-bond portfolio, and recommends positive commodity exposure at both tactical and strategic levels.
How much have commodities outperformed this year?
The Bloomberg Commodity Index (BCOM) returned 36% year-to-date. The S&P 500 gained 13%; 10-year Treasuries fell 5%; 30-year Treasuries fell 8%.
Energy led by a wide margin: the BCOM Energy sub-index rose 98%; the petroleum sub-index surged 136%.
A traditional 60/40 portfolio returned roughly 8% with a Sharpe ratio of 1.2 — decent in isolation, but dwarfed by commodities.
This means → if your portfolio had no commodity exposure, you missed the single largest return driver of the year.
Why do stocks and bonds both "fear" oil prices?
Over the past six months, Brent crude's daily correlation with the S&P 500 was roughly -0.5; its correlation with moves in the 10-year Treasury yield was roughly +0.6.
In plain terms = when oil rises, stocks fall *and* bond yields rise (bond prices fall) — stocks and bonds get hit simultaneously.
Goldman's team, led by Daan Struyven, explains: five-plus years of above-target inflation have left central banks with no room to "look through" energy shocks. Every oil-price rally is now priced as an extension of the rate-hike path.
This reflects a fundamental shift: the premise behind stock-bond hedging — "inflation is under control" — has cracked.
How high could oil go?
Goldman's base case: Brent at $90/barrel by year-end.
Tail-risk scenario: if Gulf output stays 5 million barrels/day below February levels through 2027, Brent could reach $140/barrel in early 2027, averaging roughly $125 for the year.
The report also flags rising reports of attacks near the Strait of Hormuz since October. This means → the tail scenario is not purely theoretical; the trigger conditions are accumulating.
What is the evidence that supply shocks are now structural?
Goldman cites three episodes: the 2022 Russian natural-gas shock, last year's China rare-earth shock, and this year's cross-commodity Hormuz shock.
Supply concentration is stark: the DRC accounts for roughly 70% of global cobalt output; China holds roughly 90% of rare-earth refining capacity and 70% of lithium refining.
In plain terms = a single policy decision by one country can upend an entire supply chain — in that structure, disruption is not a surprise but an inevitability.
Why has the stock-bond correlation flipped?
From the 2000s through the 2010s, globalisation drove demand shocks — demand shocks meaning price swings driven by shifts in economic growth. Growth and inflation moved together; stocks and bonds hedged each other effectively.
Over the past five to six years, supply shocks have dominated. Growth and inflation now move in opposite directions — inflation rises while the economy weakens, and stocks and bonds fall together.
The 60-month rolling correlation between S&P 500 returns and changes in the 10-year Treasury yield collapsed from a long-term positive range after the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It now sits at roughly -0.5, back to pre-2000 levels.
This means → the "stocks fall, bonds rise" safety net of the past two decades has vanished. The foundational logic of 60/40 no longer holds.
So how should investors allocate?
Goldman's asset-allocation team calculates that the optimal commodity weight under the current macro regime is higher than traditional frameworks imply.
The report is explicit: the case for commodities is not about where oil goes next. It is that when a supply shock hits, commodities are the only asset class that can hedge simultaneous losses in stocks and bonds.
This reflects a core judgment: buying commodities is buying insurance, not chasing upside — and whether that insurance is worth the premium depends on supply-shock frequency staying near current levels.
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