Trusted market intelligence for the global chemical, energy and fertilizer industries
Sales of most chemicals are down due to the recession. But US sodium silicate volumes could see a massive boost, according to the Wall Street Journal. The reason is that the government has mandated its use to destroy the engines of the old cars that it buys under the subsidy scheme. Normally ‘liquid glass’, as […]
Merrill Lynch’s Bob Farrell was the doyen of sentiment analysts. He famously suggested that ‘bear markets have three stages – sharp down, reflexive rebound, a drawn-out fundamental downtrend’. So far we have certainly seen the ‘sharp down’ period, and the blog’s new Boom/Gloom Index© seems to have signalled the current ‘reflexive rebound‘, with July’s Index […]
This week’s company results have been keenly awaited, as the industry seeks to form a view on what happens next to demand and profits. My new IeC colleague Paul Satchell reviews them, from the point of view of a highly-experienced financial analyst, in his ‘Chemicals Viewpoint’. But the blog thought it would also be interesting […]
Natural gas is a major feedstock for US chemical producers. So the problems caused by the rush to buy a fund that “invests” in the natural gas futures market, are a concern. Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix has been warning for some time that the UNG fund was becoming too large. Investors have been so keen […]
Its not only the blog (and fellow blogger John Richardson), who worry about the speculative frenzy underway in China, and its impact on global polymer and chemical markets. Wu Xiaoling, former deputy governor of the central bank, has called the growth in new lending “excessive“, and warned it is creating “bubbles in the property and […]
Source: Chartoftheday.com There are “lies, damn lies, and statistics” according to Mark Twain, the famous American humorist. His argument was that statistics are often (a) untrue* and (b) used without the necessary context. Last week provided a perfect example of the latter. As the blog’s own Boom/Gloom Index© shows, sentiment is currently very positive in […]
The excellent weekly report from the American Chemistry Council (ACC) has a number of interesting insights: • As the chart shows, global chemical production seems to have bottomed. All regions are, however, now showing a decline versus 2008. • Separately, the ACC has updated its valuable survey of the state of inventories down the US […]
In another sign of the economy ‘bouncing along the bottom’, US drivers appear to have returned to the road in recent months. Latest figures from the US Highway Administration show a 0.1% rise in vehicle miles travelled during May, the second consecutive month of positive growth since 2007. But this is unlikely to provide much […]
California’s Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has now made a provisional agreement to reduce the State’s soaring budget deficit. Its main features are a $9bn temporary cut in the education budget, plus multi-$bn cuts in welfare and health programmes. The only good news is that it clears the way for oil drilling to resume off the Santa […]
The blog is rather pleased with the performance of its new Boom/Gloom Index©, as financial markets continue to respond positively to any suggestion of “good news”. The Index is based on Ben Graham’s famous concept that markets are: • A voting machine in the short-term but • A weighing machine in the long-term It is […]
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