An analysis of how price fluctuations for commodities impact performance of Swedish industrial companies

Sammanfattning

The relationship between performance for the Swedish industry and changesin prices and volatility of commodities has been examined using multiple linearregression. The study focuses on how commodity price fluctuations correlate withgross profit growth, measuring company performance. Gross profit as a performancemeasure is contrary to most previous studies that use stock performance as thedependent variable. This study has found two commodities whose prices have asignificant relationship with changes in gross profit for the Swedish industry sector,Brent oil, and platinum. The correlation with Brent oil is the most reliable one.Surprisingly, Brent oil has a positive relationship with gross profit, even thougha higher oil price is causing more expensive logistics and manufacturing operations,increasing costs of sold goods. This indicates a possible correlation between oil priceand demand for manufactured products; industrial companies can either increaseprices or produce at a high capacity. Regarding the volatility of commodities, nosignificant correlation with gross profits has been found.