Today’s VUCA landscape (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) is having a profound impact on consumers as well as companies. All of us are grappling with 3 key trends in our lives: • Life is too busy, particularly for women juggling home and work • Technology has become too complex for most of us to understand • […]
Chemicals and the Economy
US job news shows demographics slowing demand
Friday’s weak US jobs report seemed to surprise most of those Wall Street analysts who are supposed to understand this key subject. The reason is that they ignore the major demographic changes now underway. The chart above shows official US employment numbers since 1939 (blue column) and per capita disposable income since 1969 (red line), […]
Growth in US jobs and disposable income no longer following historical trends
Short-term pressures have come to dominate financial markets in recent years. In turn, they have become dominated by high-frequency trading, which frequently accounts for over 60% of all market action. Their trading is not based on careful analysis, but on extremely fast ‘black box’ computing, which generates ‘trading opportunities’ in micro-seconds. Their power is enormous, […]
Pensions fall as financial market turmoil continues
Increasing life expectancy is an enormous benefit for today’s population. We can all, whether in developed or developing countries, expect to live a decade or more longer than our grandparents’ generation. Yet pension systems haven’t adapted to this change. The money we now save is still only enough to pay for a few years of […]
Tesco says ‘Today is the New Normal’
The world’s leading retailers have been extremely reliable leading indicators for the chemical industry, since the Great Recession began. They were the first, back in July 2007, to highlight the major changes underway in consumer markets. Tesco, the world’s 3rd largest retailer, warned then that they were changing their focus away from more affluent shoppers […]
“Way too early” to talk of a US recovery
Consumer giant Reckitt Benckiser sell major brands in 200 countries around the world. CEO Bart Becht’s views on the current state of the retail market are therefore very troubling: “In Europe, the situation continues to be very, very weak. In North America, it also continues to be rather weak. It is marginally better than it […]
US house starts remain at all-time lows
Changes in US housing values continue to exert a larger and more important impact upon household consumption than do changes in stock market values“. That’s the conclusion of an important new study by the developers of the main S&P Case-Shiller US House price index. The chart above, based on US Census Bureau data, shows the […]
US households worry about incomes
The fascinating chart above from Dave Rosenberg at Gluskin Sieff confirms the blog’s fears above the impact of today’s high oil prices on US consumer spending. It shows that consumers in the world’s wealthiest econony have very low expectations for their real income. These are now at the 4th lowest level since the survey began. […]
Coatings companies focus on carbon footprint issues
The blog has been in the USA this week, speaking at the bi-annual Global Coatings Summit. Coatings sales are worth $75bn globally, and are a key market for chemicals. Interestingly, much of the discussion centred around sustainability. In spite of the downturn, it is clear that consumers are now very focused on carbon footprint as […]
Benzene supply/demand begins to change
Benzene is the blog’s favourite leading indicator for chemical demand, due to its widespread use in the industry. Its recent price movements versus its naphtha feedstock, may therefore be telling us something quite important about changing supply/demand balances. As the chart above shows, based on ICIS pricing, its spread versus naphtha has become very volatile […]
Jump to page: