US chem shares fall again with general market

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Most US-listed shares of chemical companies followed by ICIS fell, as the general market declined and the Federal Reserve voted to keep interest rates near 0%.

The following shows the performance of the US-listed shares followed by ICIS.

	$ Current Price	$ Change	% Change
AdvanSix	14.50	-1.61	-9.99
Axalta Coating Systems	23.50	-0.76	-3.11
Braskem	10.86	-0.23	-2.03
Celanese	94.56	-2.44	-2.52
Dow	43.78	-0.63	-1.42
DuPont	53.76	-2.17	-3.88
Eastman	75.56	-1.46	-1.90
HB Fuller	42.08	-0.81	-1.89
Huntsman	19.17	-0.19	-0.96
Ingevity	54.45	-1.53	-2.72
Kraton	17.30	-2.01	-10.41
Kronos Worldwide	10.44	-0.32	-2.93
LyondellBasell	73.97	-2.03	-2.67
Methanex	22.21	-1.11	-4.74
NewMarket	433.64	2.66	0.62
Olin	13.41	-1.60	-10.66
PolyOne	27.58	-1.08	-3.77
PPG	109.32	-2.11	-1.89
RPM International	79.41	0.19	0.24
Sherwin-Williams	581.31	-0.46	-0.08
Stepan	99.96	-2.46	-2.40
Chemours	16.05	-0.68	-4.06
Trinseo	23.67	-0.56	-2.29
Tronox	7.99	-0.57	-6.66
Univar	17.39	-0.15	-0.83
Venator Materials	2.05	-0.29	-12.39
Westlake Chemical	55.02	-2.46	-4.28

The declines in chemical shares came as some US states are reporting rising numbers of people going to the hospital because of the coronavirus.

The major indices followed by ICIS also fell, although not to the same magnitude as many chemical stocks.

	10-Jun	Change	%
Dow Jones Industrial Average	26,989.99	-282.31	-1.04
S&P 500	3,190.14	-17.04	-0.53
Dow Jones US Chemicals Index	618.39	-9.91	-1.58
S&P 500 Chemicals Industry Index	619.29	-8.44	-1.34

Markets fell after the Federal Reserve voted to keep benchmark interest rates at 0-0.25%.

Members of the central bank expect rates will remain near 0% until at least 2022. The economy should contract by 6.5% this year, before expanding by 5.0% in 2021 and 3.5% in 2022.

Oil prices rose, as shown in the following table.

	10-Jun	9-Jun	%
Brent	41.73	41.18	1.34
WTI	39.6	38.94	1.69

In the US, refinery rates increased by 1.3 percentage points in the week ended 5 June.

North American chemical railcar loadings fell year on year for the week ended 6 June

In Europe, chemical stocks fell.

A report from the OECD outlined concerns that a second outbreak of the coronavirus would drag down global GDP. Europe would be particularly at risk.

In Asia, chemical shares were mixed.

Additional reporting by Michael Sims, Juhi Varma, Morgan Condon and Nurluqman Suratman

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