Ewa Manthey

Ewa Manthey is a commodities strategist at ING Think who links daily price moves in oil, gold and metals to bigger structural shifts in the global economy and financial markets. She joined ING in September 2022 and covers the entire commodities complex, moving between fast-moving market notes and longer-horizon thematic work. Her writing is driven by how macro data, monetary policy and geopolitics translate into concrete price levels, volatility and forecast paths for key raw materials.

The Commodities Feed: Tariff-induced sell-off

A core part of Manthey’s output is the recurring “The Commodities Feed” series, where she tracks day-to-day moves across energy and metals and ties them to catalysts such as data releases, policy expectations and geopolitical headlines. In “The Commodities Feed: China adds to gold reserves”, she sets out how ICE Brent pushed above US$77/bbl on supportive sentiment and a stronger physical market, then zooms in on China’s central bank increasing its gold holdings after a pause, detailing tonnage changes even with prices near record highs. Pieces like “The Commodities Feed: Profit taking hits gold” and “The Commodities Feed: Gold trades softer on lower rate cut expectations” show her focus on how shifts in Federal Reserve rate-cut expectations and stronger economic data can trigger sharp sell-offs or softer trading in gold, silver, platinum and palladium, with percentage moves spelled out for each metal. She repeatedly links gold’s intraday direction to evolving market pricing of central bank policy and broader risk sentiment, while simultaneously tracking crude benchmarks such as ICE Brent as they react to inventory data from the EIA and other supply signals.

Within the same format, Manthey covers energy markets through a policy and sanctions lens, as in “The Commodities Feed: The US scrambles to rein in oil prices”, where she dissects a US waiver allowing Russian crude and products to reach India for a limited period and what that implies for near-term price pressure. Headlines such as “The Commodities Feed: Tariff-induced sell-off” and “The Commodities Feed: Weak economic data weigh on sentiment” underline how she treats commodities as a barometer of trade policy and growth expectations, tracing how tariffs or disappointing data can prompt broad-based selling across the complex. In coverage of oil moves around US–Iran developments, including when oil falls after a US–Iran deal, she situates price action in the context of changing perceptions of supply risk from the Middle East and the scope for diplomatic de‑escalation to cap crude benchmarks. Her short-format work emphasises speed and specificity: each piece distils what moved, why it moved on that particular day, and which macro or geopolitical levers mattered most.

Gold Monthly: Gold breaks new highs

Manthey’s “Gold Monthly” series and related gold notes extend this approach into medium-term analysis and explicit price forecasting. In “Gold Monthly: All that glitters is gold” and “Gold Monthly: Fundamentals remain strong”, she sets out how structural supports such as central bank buying and safe-haven demand underpin the market, while quantifying expected average prices for coming quarters and years. In “Gold Monthly: Gold breaks new highs”, she provides quarterly and annual forecasts, including projected averages for the second quarter and the full year, and links those numbers directly to an assumed path for the Federal Reserve, the US dollar and bond yields. The piece explains that her outlook for higher prices rests on a scenario where rate cuts start in the second half of the year, with a weaker dollar and lower yields reinforcing gold’s appeal.

She complements this with more focused thematic work such as “Gold to hit fresh highs in 2024” and “Why the gold rally isn’t over yet”, where she frames the metal’s performance in terms of safe-haven demand, central bank diversification and the interest-rate outlook. In those notes, Manthey points to structural pillars of the rally, including geopolitical fragmentation, potential policy easing and renewed ETF interest, and argues that these forces keep the broader environment favourable for gold despite intermittent pullbacks. Across her gold coverage, she consistently ties technical milestones like record highs back to underlying macro and flows-based drivers, and she uses forecasts as a way to express how changes in Fed policy expectations, currency trends and investor positioning feed through to the bullion market.

Metals enter a new era

Beyond precious metals and oil, Manthey dedicates substantial work to the longer-term transformation of industrial metals markets. In “Metals enter a new era”, she describes how demand is increasingly shaped by electrification, clean energy build‑out, defence spending and data infrastructure rather than the broad industrial expansion that drove previous cycles. She emphasises that the next metals cycle is defined by more constrained and politicised supply, greater influence from decarbonisation policies and stockpiling, and a growing role for defence spending in sustaining demand, all of which combine to raise volatility. The piece highlights that slower supply responses alongside these new demand drivers mean the coming phase for metals prices will differ fundamentally from past cycles.

In “Metals price discovery is shifting east, driving volatility”, Manthey examines how Chinese speculative flows are becoming a defining force in short-term price formation for metals, even as global fundamentals continue to anchor prices over the longer term. She argues that markets remain global but the sequencing of moves increasingly points to China as the centre of gravity for short-term price discovery, with positioning amplifying swings and increasing the risk of abrupt corrections when sentiment or policy changes. Her work on “China’s Great Transition and what it means for metals demand” extends this focus, exploring how the evolution of China’s economy alters the composition and pace of metals demand and why that matters for producers and investors. Together these pieces show her tendency to connect sector-specific themes—such as electrification, defence and digital infrastructure—to cross-market effects in metals, with an explicit eye on how policy and geography are reshaping both demand and price dynamics.

Oil supported by ongoing supply risks

Manthey’s analysis reaches beyond ING Think through syndicated commentary and media engagement focused on oil and broader market risk. On Investing.com she writes analysis and opinion pieces such as “Oil Supported by Ongoing Supply Risks”, where she explains how ongoing supply concerns underpin crude prices and frames oil’s trajectory in terms of risk premia rather than just spot fundamentals. Her work is also cited in wider financial press coverage: ING strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey are quoted in articles on Arkansas Online and in the Washington Post discussing how uncertainty around conflict involving Iran could affect oil prices and stock markets, including scenarios where crude could spike significantly if supply from the region is disrupted. Within ING’s own platforms she participates in events like the “Iran ceasefire – what next for markets and the economy?” webinar, where she contributes a commodities perspective to a broader discussion of geopolitics, macroeconomics and financial markets. Across these channels, she brings the same style as in her written research: concise, scenario-driven commentary that connects supply risks, geopolitical flashpoints and policy responses to the levels and volatility seen in oil and related assets.