TEN-YEAR US TREASURY RATES UP UNTIL DECEMBER 15 2015 By John Richardson AN important article in the New York Times almost gets there, but like so much coverage out there, misses the crucial conclusion: Demographics drive demand and there is nothing that the Fed has done, or can do in the future, to alter this […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Oil At $25 Or Even Lower By The End Of This Year
By John Richardson AS most people react like a rabbit caught in a car headlight to the latest collapse in crude-oil prices, they need to take note of this: The long term average price of oil, adjusted for inflation, is only $33 a barrel. Why were so many misled into thinking that the natural price […]
China Will Continue To Drive Global Deflation
By John Richardson JANET Yellen has firmly signalled that US interest rates will be raised later this month for the first time since 2006. There will be collateral damage, sure, as I discussed in September, most importantly because of the private-sector debt binge in emerging markets resulting from such a long period of record-low US […]
Oil Prices: How To Avoid “Rear-View Mirror” Thinking
By John Richardson EARLIER this year I said that crude prices in the region of $30 a barrel were perfectly possible. Now, rather belatedly I feel, Goldman Sachs and other some other analysts are waking up to this possibility, with Goldman even going as far as saying $2o a barrrel is possible. Chemicals companies cannot […]
Another Round of Fed Stimulus Now Even More Likely
By John Richardson I am becoming more and more convinced that more of Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results – is on the way: A fourth round of Fed quantitative easing. This is the way in which I think this will happen: The […]
China Webinar: Making Good Use Of Your Time
Click here to register and join me for a free 30 September Webinar on how to reshape your China strategy. Here are some the reasons why you should attend…. IT IS one of those plays that is almost too painful to watch, but it is nevertheless disturbingly compelling: Samuel Beckett’s brilliant Waiting for Godot. […]
The Hypnotic Allure Of Emerging Markets
By John Richardson A GLEAMING new skyscraper in downturn Beijing, Bangkok, Mumbai, Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur made for fantastic TV viewing, especially if a photogenic reporter was standing in front of such a building. The reporter would then talk about “Asia’s rising middle classes” as the camera panned-out to people queueing outside Louis Viton and Cartier […]
Six Big Risks Of Fed Rate Hike And Some Long-Term Realism
By John Richardson IF you thought the 2013 Taper Tantrum was bad enough, I am afraid you have seen nothing yet. When the Fed finally does raise interest rates, either this year or next year, these are just six results: Whilst the perception out there is that emerging market sovereign debt is not as bad as it […]
Asian Ethylene Markets: What We Definitely Know
By John Richardson FORECASTING the absolute future price of any petrochemical has always been difficult and if you are ever exactly right this will be down more to good luck than good judgement. And the problem is that when you have been right once, and you make a big song and dance about it, everyone […]
The Real US Employment Story
By John Richardson THE “Will they won’t they?” debate became even more intense on Friday following the release of the US Labor Department’s employment report for August. Whether or not the Fed will raise interest rates in September, or at least by the end of this year, seemed no clearer as the report showed that […]
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