Once again, the chemical industry has performed its role as a reliable leading indicator of the global economy. On Friday, the IMF warned their next forecast: “Will be tilted to the downside and certainly lower than the forecast that was published three months ago” This will not be news to blog readers. As the chart […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Markets wait for oil price lead
The March IeC Boom/Gloom Index confirms the blog’s sense that markets are sitting on a fence, waiting for something to happen. As the chart shows (blue column), it has risen back to 4.1, just at the point which divides strong from weak markets. Similarly the US S&P 500 Index (red line) is stuck at 1369, […]
€489bn avoids Eurozone collapse, for now
A month ago, the former UK Finance Minister, Alastair Darling, warned that the European Central Bank (ECB) had “to recognise they have to be the lenders of the last resort”. He added that “This is far worse than the banking crisis of 2008 in its seriousness and, if it is not solved by Christmas, I […]
Recession may now be very close
German Chancellor Merkel’s recent comment that “I don’t see anything which signals a recession in Germany” is just one sign of the current complacency about the global economy within the Western political elite. Long-standing readers will remember Profs Eichengreen and O’Rourke 2009-10 work comparing today’s Great Recession with the Depression of the 1930s. Worryingly, the […]
An unmanaged Greek default gets closer
The Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair may come to be seen as a critical turning point, when the story of the Greek default is written. The then IMF head was en route to meet German Chancellor Merkel, when arrested in New York last month. He had been at the forefront of the campaign to pretend that Greece […]
Wine price rises parallel those for crude oil
Many of the blog’s readers have been known to sample the occasional glass of wine. So it thought new research, from the IMF (International Monetary Fund), on the linkage between higher prices for fine wine and crude oil, might be of general interest. The IMF’s researchers wanted to analyse “the causes of extreme fluctuations in […]
IMF warns on government spending
The global economy and the chemical industry have been boosted, since the Crisis began in 2008, by massive government stimulus programmes in areas such as autos and housing. Now the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has released a new report, focusing on what happens next. It warns that “general government debt is expected to rise by […]
Markets approach the “drawn-out fundamental downtrend” phase
Sell in May and Go Away” is the oldest rule in stock market investment. This week has certainly provided further support for it: • The major Western stock markets are down c8% • The major emerging markets are down between 4% – 13% • Crude oil prices are down 13% This May panic may well […]
IMF targets bankers’ FAT
We are often told that investment bankers are much cleverer than the rest of us. But sometimes, they do seem to lack common sense. Their behaviour since the Crisis, in paying out $bns in bonuses to the lucky few, seems no way to appease understandable public anger over the cost of the banks’ bailout. The […]
Recovery to be “weak by historical standards” – IMF
The good news is that the IMF thinks that the economy may have stopped getting worse. The bad news is that it thinks it may be a long time before we get back to earlier levels of demand. The main problem is the ongoing weakness of the banking system. The IMF has maintained its April […]
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