By John Richardson ALL the excitement over the positive impact of US tax cuts should be placed very firmly in this context from an early July Reuters article: US budget analysts generally look at the impact of tax changes over a ten-year period. The tax cuts approved at the end of 2017 were estimated to […]
Asian Chemical Connections
It Is Not A Question Of If, But Rather When
By John Richardson IT is not a question if, but rather when Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang decide that enough is enough and get on with tackling China’s growing financial imbalances. That is if they don’t want the whole house of cards to eventually collapse, which we believe is not the case. These imbalances have […]
Damage Limitation
By John Richardson POLYETHYLENE (PE) prices crept up by $10-50/tonne for the week ending 22 February, according to ICIS pricing. But, as the above chart shows, integrated high-density PE variable cost margins in Southeast and Northeast Asia remained very weak, and were way below all the other regions – again, up until the week ending […]
A Road Map For Success
The new chapter of our free ‘Boom, Gloom and the New Normal’ ebook sets out a road map to success for companies in the New Normal. It also identifies 5 key areas where major change is already underway. Demand-driven. Markets have essentially been supply-driven in recent decades, with growth being forecast on the basis of […]
China Polyolefins Divorced From Fundamentals
A permanent separation? Source of picture: edu.com By John Richardson IT IS pretty easy to predict specific events that will cause declines in polyolefins pricing in China next year thanks to the big role that macro-economics now plays in setting the market. No longer do you need to mainly sweat over increasingly difficult polyethylene […]