Why investors should look at the looming 'lumber super cycle'

ON TIMBER

The revival in the US housing market will mean good things for America's favourite housebuilding material: timber, said Pictet fund managers Christoph Butz and Gabriel Micheli.

Investors seeking to capitalise on some of the most powerful economic and demographic forces shaping our world would do well to look at timber. There are numerous companies operating along the timber value chain that present an attractive investment proposition, and they do so for a number of reasons. Chief among these is the US housing market, the main source of timber demand worldwide. Indeed, this is the ultimate destination of some 70% of the trees harvested in the US. And this is not likely to change any time soon for the US remains severely underbuilt. Last year, only 780,000...