BMW, the world’s largest luxury car manufacturer and owner of Rolls Royce motors, today abandoned its August forecast of record auto sales and a 4% operating margin for 2008. CEO, Norbert Reithofer, was in downbeat mood, saying that “the financial crisis is by no means behind us yet, particularly its impact on the real economy […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Budgeting for survival
The blog prefers to be optimistic. But 30 years in the chemical industry has taught it to be extremely realistic. So its motto for 2009 Budgets is ‘batten down the hatches’. Chemical companies are likely to be sailing in some very rough seas, with treacherous currents and plenty of dangerous rocks. Survival, not growth, is […]
Auto markets face ‘outright collapse’ in 2009
Collapsing housing markets are creating major problems for chemical companies worldwide. Now JD Power, the leading auto industry research firm, is warning that ‘the global auto market in 2009 may experience an outright collapse.’ They add that ‘while mature markets are being impacted more severely than emerging markets, no country or region is completely immune […]
‘Demand and prices in free fall’
The moment the blog has long feared, and warned about, may be about to arrive. It appears that we may be about to revisit 1980, when for some weeks it seemed that demand for many petchem products had simply stopped. As Nigel Davis notes in an excellent ICIS insight article, we are not there yet. […]
US car sales plummet, house prices fall again
September was another difficult month for the cornerstones of US chemical demand, autos and housing: • GM cut prices dramatically via its ‘Employee discount for everyone’ programme. But even so, sales fell 16% versus last year (blue column) • Toyota (red column), fell 30% • Ford (green column) fell 34% • Chrysler (purple column) fell […]
August highlights
Many readers have been out of the office during August on a well-deserved break. I am therefore highlighting below the main postings over the past month, in the hope this will help them to catch up quickly on key developments – please click on the highlighted title if you want to read the original posting: […]
The blog’s first birthday
Its now a year since the blog started. Since then, 213 postings have appeared. It is now read in 72 countries and 620 cities (shown above). Most encouragingly, readership continues to steadily increase. Since January, it has risen a further 301%. The blog’s aim is to identify ‘the influences that may shape the chemical industry […]
US auto sales collapse in June
‘Collapse’ is not a word that should be used lightly in business. But there is no other way to describe June’s US auto sales figures:
Father Christmas didn’t visit last month
Yesterday’s action in financial markets reminded me of the Bird/Fortune video (noted here in December), where they took a satirical look at the causes of the sub-prime debacle. Specifically, the question in the interview where Fortune describes Bird as a ‘sophisticated investment banker, with his fingers right on the pulse’. The moment that recalled this […]
US house prices carry on falling
Every month, it seems, the US housing market gets worse. Spring should have provided some respite, as it is the peak time for sales. But instead, as the chart shows, the benchmark S&P/Case-Shiller house price index fell again to a new record low, and is now 14% below this time last year. ‘There are very […]
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