Source: Daily Forex By John Richardson WE warned on 4 April that real economics threatened a sharp correction in crude-oil prices and it now appears to be happening. “New York’s main contract, West Texas Intermediate for May delivery, closed at $US88.71 a barrel on Monday [15 April], down a hefty $US2.58 from Friday,” wrote The […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Managing China’s Middle Income Aspirations
Finding a way through…. Traffic in Shanghai. Picture: Rex Features By John Richardson WHEN the blog first visited China in the late 1990s, it travelled around Beijing in a fruitless and naive attempt to get people to really talk about everyday life. Last week was the complete opposite during our visit to Beijing and Shanghai. People initiated conversations […]
More Than Just Absence Of “Animal Spirits”
By John Richardson THE blog held a full day of discussions with our ICIS China price reporting team in Shanghai (we will provide a lot more details next week) and the story was consistent: *Government policy to rein-in liquidity, most notably new restrictions on the housing market, has driven demand down. *Traders expected a post-Chinese […]
China’s New Expectations
By John Richardson THE difficulties of life in modern-day China was evident from several conversations the blog has held during the first two days of its visit to the country. “I had to get an apartment first, which cost a lot of money but luckily my parents were able to help me, and then I […]
A Note From Beijing
Dear all THE blog is very busy this week, travelling to Beijing and then Shanghai, and so apologies if our posts are a great deal shorter than usual. But just to show that we haven’t forgotten you, this is a very interesting article worth reading on China’s leadership challenges.
Here We Go Again
By John Richardson EVERYONE should read the following section from this Economist article with great concern. Central bank stimulus might well be doing more harm than good. “When Americans borrow money to buy a car or a house, their debts are often repackaged as the backing for a bond,” writes the Economist. “Before 2007 investors […]
US Energy Supply: Morning In America
Source: ICIS Chemical Business By John Richardson SEVEN grassroots crackers are now being planned in the US, along with numerous ethylene derivatives facilities (see the above table). The mood at last month’s the 38th American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) International Petrochemical meeting (IPC) in San Antonio, Texas, was incredibly buoyant on record current […]
The Real Economies Set To Dominate Q2
By John Richardson Sometimes a picture is worth many thousands of words. The above chart, supplied by one of the blog’s resources analyst contacts in Perth, Western Australia, neatly illustrates the dangerous divergence between real ecoomies and financial markets. As the Nikkei 225 has surged, Arabian Gulf very large crude carrier (VLCC) freight rates to […]
China To Take A Big Stick To Financial Crisis
By John Richardson CHINA is facing a financial crisis that could put US sub-prime into the shade. “Between 2007 and 2012, the ratio of credit to GDP climbed to more than 190%, an increase of 60 percentage points,” said US funds manager, GMO, in a report. “China’s recent expansion of credit relative to GDP is […]
Coal-To-Chemicals Funding Clampdown
By John Richardson Coal-to-chemicals is one of nine major industrial sectors that the China Banking Regulatory Commission has warned is blighted with overcapacity and other risks related to what it calls, rather disingenuously, “the economic cycle”. Thus, the commission has advised the state-owned banks to exercise greater caution in extending further funding to these sectors. […]
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