By John Richardson
ANOTHER week has led to another fall in Asian polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) prices despite higher naphtha feedstock costs on stronger crude oil.
Pricing has been weak since the Lunar New Year Holidays, (15-21 February). Market …
By John Richardson
THE trend that I identified last August is continuing. China is in the midst of a major contraction in lending via its highly unregulated, and so very risky, shadow banking system.
Last year we saw a big …
By John Richardson
SEPTEMBER is going to be a cruel month when the West returns from the summer holiday period and the extent of damage to chemicals and polymer demand becomes more apparent.
In Asia, temporary supply constraints in polyolefins, paraxylene (PX) and …
Source of picture: www.managingthedragon.com
By John Richardson
I love the phrase used by Andrew Peaple of the Wall Street Journal in this article on China’s property “bubble”: Getting a straight answer is like “nailing jelly to a …
Source of picture: www.prisonplanet.com
Misleading perceptions can be very dangerous – especially when they apply to the crude-oil futures markets.
“The price has more than doubled this year partly because of the belief that the recovery in Chinese …
……how long will it last is the inevitable question. Demand growth has been so strong so far this year with very little new production coming onstream that while crude oil and the price of monomers have set a floor for …
The Bank of Japan has decided to raise interest rates – from 0.25 to 0.5%. This could weaken the yen, thereby damaging the country’s export-led recovery. For the petrochemical players, the benefits of a 21-year low yen have been offset …
Japan’s fourth quarter GPD growth of 4.8%, which was released today, exceeded economists’ expectations. However, although consumer spending rose by 1.1% on an annualised basis, this merely compensated for the 1.1% decline in Q3. In addition, wages rose by only …
There seems to be a conspiracy of complacency about India. Read The Economist’s dire warnings. To be fair, the naysayers have been warning of an India collapse for years, But the longer that these imbalances are allowed to build, the …