SWIMMING IN OIL? Source of Picture: fashionfunky.com The threat posed by Iran test-firing its Shahab-3 missiles and a rally in US equities on increased M& activity in the drug and technology industries pushed crude slightly higher yesterday after last week’s steep declines. This is yet further evidence that the oil market is […]
Asian Chemical Connections
The Threat from Dark Pools
Source of picture: zerohedge.blogspot.com It might seem a little melodramatic (and it’s a wonderfully melodramatic name), but what kind of threat do dark pools – and other off-exchange trading mechanisms – present to all our livelihoods? You can see that the World Federation of Exchanges might have a financial motive in making their complaint to […]
Falling China license plates a lead indicator?
Source of picture: Chinaenvironmentallaw.com Talk around the water-cooler in Shanghai offices at the moment is the fall in the cost of a car-license plate in September to a lowest bid of Yuan 27,000 ($3,953) from around Yuan 36,000 in August. “It surprised everyone because the forecast had been for the price to actually go up […]
Western Polymers: Get Out Or Get Cleverer?
MOVING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION (SORRY, OUCH….!) Source of Picture: www.autospies.com The automobile industry in the West has been bought more time by economic stimulus, as this article in The Economist points out. But some of the discussions at the Frankfurt International Motor Show, which takes place on 15-27 September, will be about the future […]
Equities, Futures, Sentiment = Recovery?
Forget supply and demand, just record the index cards…. Source of picture: Heatusa.com This amateur pundit is beginning to think he got it very wrong. “I’ve been thinking the same thing – I was as gloomy as you a few months ago,” said an oil-and-gas consultant friend of mine this morning. “The Singapore property market […]
What’s China’s real consumption growth?
Source of picture: millermmccune.com How quickly is China shifting its economy away from exports towards stronger domestic consumption? The answer to this question is, of course, critical to the global chemicals industry. On the surface it looks good: Retail sales grew by 16.6% in the first half of 2009 and by a slightly more modest […]
“Steal a little and they throw you in jail…..
Source of picture: rateyourmusic.com …steal a lot and they make you a King,” wrote the great Bob Dylan in A Sweetheart Like You on his great 1980s album, Infidels. This seems appropriatea as we commemorate exactly 12 months to the day since the West’s financial system imploded. Obama is talking tough on new regulations – […]
Taking Back Control Of Crude Markets
Goldman Sachs is talking about crude oil at $85 a barrel by the end of the year. Sound familiar? Not quite forecasts of $200 a barrel, but is there a danger of repeating the mistake that the James A Baker III Institute on Public Policy claims was made in 2008? In a new report, the […]
West To Exert More Cost Pressures
The US back-to-school buying season Source of Picture: theglobeandmail.com As regular readers will remember, last Friday I linked through to this article from the New York Times on the likelihood of a disappointing back-to-school sales season in the US. I had promised some more thoughts on this article and so here goes…. ……This is a […]
The more you look at the data…..
Deep in the heart of the great wealth gap Source of picture: Blogmlive.com ….the more convincing seems to be the argument that financial and commodity markets have got way ahead of the recovery in the real economy. Take a recent Credit Suisse report, for instance. Its analysis of monthly apparent demand in China, up until […]
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