Following on from the blog’s note yesterday, an investment banker reader passed on a similar insight from the high yield sector of the bond market. Currently, retail investors are desperate for income-producing assets, with global interest rates very low by recent historical standards. So to help supply meet demand, her bank’s high yield bond team […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Deflation a real risk for the 2011 Budget period
The blog is a great fan of Pimco, the world’s largest bond fund managers. They were the first people to spot the housing bust developing in the USA, and to suggest the scale of the damage it might cause. More recently, they have pioneered the concept of the ‘new normal’. Thus a new analysis by […]
Ineos’ Antwerp ethylene terminal a game-changer for Europe’s C2 business
In business, as in war, defence can often be the best form of attack. This seems to be the principle behind Ineos’s announcement that they intend to build a 1 million tonne deep-sea ethylene terminal to feed their 340KT ethylene oxide/glycol business near Antwerp, Belgium. The glycol business is clearly under threat from the massive […]
Force Majeure reports show worrying increase
Force majeures can be very costly in a downturn, as they enable competitors to gain market share, whilst the business suffers a loss of revenue and earnings. Yet maintenance spend on plant and equipment, and training, is always a soft target for cutbacks when cash is tight. The blog also knows from its own experience […]
Companies see strong H1 earnings and volume
The blog is awarding itself a pat on the back this morning. Last December, it made the bold forecast (given the widespread gloom at the time), that chemical companies would see “a strong H1“. Today’s regular snapshot of Q2 chemical company results certainly seems to confirm its optimism. Almost all companies reported stronger revenues and […]
Fed, American Chemistry Council, worry about US economy
The US Federal Reserve and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) have joined the blog in expressing concern about the outlook for the US economy. And as the chart above of the US S&P 500 shows, financial markets have continued to weaken since the blog’s advice on 8 May to “sell in May and go away“. […]
A Year of Two Halves
Two months ago, on 8 May, the blog suggested that ‘Sell in May and Go Away” was likely to prove good advice this year. Since then, most major stock markets have fallen dramatically, with the S&P 500 down by 9%. The proximate cause of the blog’s pessimism then was the onset of the Greek/eurozone crisis. […]
USA money supply slows to near-record lows
“Money makes the world go round” as the song from the musical Cabaret tells us. But the chart above, from BofA Merrill Lynch, suggests there isn’t too much money circulating in the world’s largest economy today. It shows M3 (the broadest measure of money supply). Merrill note that its growth is now close to the […]
Fear of Austerity replaces hopes of Green Shoots
A year ago, the blog launched its IeC Boom/Gloom Index. This was based on the concept that markets are driven by both sentiment and fundamentals. And whilst fundamentals can be understood by analysing hard data (eg auto sales, housing starts), it is equally important to understand sentiment, and what markets think will happen next. Analysing […]
Budgeting for a New Normal: a mid-year Update
The blog’s White Paper, ‘Budgeting for a New Normal’, proved enormously popular when it was published earlier this year. ICIS therefore suggested that it would be useful to update it, 6 months later. This Update is now published. It looks at the current state of the global economy, six months on, and then covers the […]
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