Unfortunately, the European Central Bank (ECB) does not read the blog, or yet subscribe to ‘The pH Report’. If it did, it would have been forewarned back in August that a collapse in oil prices was potentially about to provide the catalyst for the arrival of deflation. Instead, as the Minutes of its critical January […]
Chemicals and the Economy
10 day Superbowl oil rally ends with storage tanks close to full
The 10-day wonder of the SuperBowl oil rally has ended. Instead, we are returning to the world of the Great Unwinding, and prices are coming under pressure once more from the energy supply glut and weak demand. But it would be wrong not to mark the coup that took Brent prices up 26% from $50/bbl to $63/bbl […]
Markets pause for breath as oil traders enjoy upstream volatility
There are some signs of a recovery in some markets, but the overall picture is still very quiet for what should be the seasonally strongest quarter of the year for the West. Markets should also have been strong in Asia, in the run-up to this week’s Lunar New Year (LNY), but they have remained relatively […]
Deflation gains: China’s plastics market sees over-capacity
More and more commentators are beginning to recognise that deflation is becoming inevitable in many major economies: China’s producer prices fell -4.3% last month, and its consumer prices rose just 0.8% Eurozone consumer prices fell in December to -0.2%, and are likely to have fallen further in January US prices rose just 0.8% in December and are […]
Oil prices jump 20% in 2 days in SuperBowl weekend coup
An astonishing coup appears to have begun 10 days ago, in the last 45 minutes of trading in US oil markets. Yet we still don’t know who master-minded it, or their full objectives. . What happened to oil prices? Prices jumped 8% in the last 45 minutes of trading on Friday 30 January, taking Brent to $53/bbl and […]
How to survive the Great Unwinding of policymaker stimulus
I was privileged to be interviewed by Merryn Somerset Webb, editor-in-chief of MoneyWeek (the UK’s best-selling financial magazine) in this week’s edition. The interview covered a wide range of topics including the perilous state of UK house prices and some stock markets, and has prompted enormous interest amongst MoneyWeek readers. Merryn is one of the UK’s leading […]
Oil market faces “historic shift” – International Energy Agency
The above chart highlights one major reason behind my forecast last August that oil prices were about to collapse. This was that US inventories were so high, storage was starting to run out: Inventory had reached all-time record levels, and was at around 60 days of sales (blue area) And so prices simply had to fall, to […]
The great ‘Deflation Shock’ is coming closer
The world is about to be hit by a demand shock equivalent to 1973’s supply shock. Yet, astonishingly, most commentators remain so focused on central bank activity, that they have completely missed what is happening. Here’s how it is playing out. You may remember the ‘The pH Report‘ forecast in early December that: “Oil prices […]
You can’t print oil as fast as money
There has never been any fundamental reason for oil to trade at $100/bbl since 2011: There hasn’t been a single moment when a consumer failed to get the supplies they needed Inventories in the major markets such as the US have always been at very healthy levels And all the time, more and more production […]
“Houston, we have a problem!”
Suddenly, far too late, the world is catching up with reality. Goldman Sachs and others yesterday halved their forecast for Brent oil to $42/bbl from $80/bbl. But this isn’t forecasting, this is simply catching up with events long after they happened. Brent, after all, opened at $45/bbl this morning. As readers will remember, I forecast back in August […]
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