By John Richardson CHINA will become a country of a billion plus Western-style middle class consumers is what many people have been telling us for many years. Its unstoppable economic rise involves hundreds of millions more Chinese rising out of poverty as the economic boom moves steadily westwards into its poorer regions, is the popular […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China’s January credit surge: Case for one-off panic, no new global economic boom
By John Richardson CHINA’S HUGE January credit increase might be the start of a new round of major credit-fuelled economic stimulus, was the theory I put forward last week. This would lead to a rebound in global growth and a surge in worldwide chemicals demand as global growth is about these three things: China, China […]
Search for votes in 2020 US presidential battleground states may wreck trade deal
By John Richardson A GOOD WAY of deciding whether or not the likely US/China trade deal will hold is to take a close look at the demographics in 15 potential battleground states in the 2020 presidential election. As of 2016, just ahead of the last presidential poll, David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report estimated […]
Polyethylene production via oil and gas: The next horse and cart
By John Richardson IF YOU had conducted a snap survey of horse and cart manufacturers during New York’s Easter Parade in 1900, I am sure that hardly any of them would have foreseen that 12 years later their businesses would have all but disappeared. Photos show that during the Easter Parade in 2011 automobiles had […]
China full-year lending decline confirms that Fed pause is a sideshow
By John Richardson CHINA’S full-year 2018 lending figures are out and they underline what I’d be warning throughout last year – the withdrawal of stimulus back to the levels of the pre-2009 period. Shadow bank lending, which has led to extraordinary growth in demand for chemicals and polymers, and all the things made from chemicals […]
Turkey PE demand could be 8% lower as economic problems continue
By John Richardson TURKEY’S apparent demand for PE may have fallen by 8% in 2018 to around 2m tonnes from 2.2m tonnes of demand in 2017, I estimate. PP doesn’t look to have been as badly affected, as I think apparent demand will be approximately 2.2m tonnes in 2018, some 40,000 tonnes less than in […]
US/China trade deal in March would likely quickly unravel
By John Richardson YOU CAN bet on a rally in equity markets and in oil prices if some kind of deal is announced by the US and China over their trade dispute by the 1 March deadline. But we could be back to Square One if a deal is then picked apart by President Trump’s […]
Nothing the Fed can do to stop China causing a global recession
By John Richardson US stock markets yesterday demonstrated their worst negative reaction to a US Federal rate rise since 1994. Asian equities also fell this morning in response to the Fed decision. But you would be entirely wrong to conclude that all that needs to happen to return to the bull run is for the […]
You must not assume a Goldilocks oil price in 2019 – not too hot, not cold
By John Richardson TIME AND again people get oil markets wrong because they entirely focus on the physical supply and demand of the black stuff whilst ignoring the pivotal role that financial speculators play in driving prices higher or lower. Since 2000, futures speculation has greatly increased because of regulatory liberalisation, as I wrote in […]
China Shadow Lending Down By 70% With Deleveraging To Continue
By John Richardson The ABOVE CHART shows that lending via China’s shadow banking system fell by no less than 70% in January-February 2018 over the same period last year. This follows the 90% year-on-year fall in January 2018. The latest data underline the key conclusion that lending via the highly speculative shadow lending system is […]
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