An accident waiting to happen is perhaps the best way to describe aluminium markets – the key swing outlet for caustic soda. Caustic soda is normally a late cycle product, with sales then focused on the mining industry. Industry leader Alcoa’s results confirm the disappointing trend. It lost money in Q1, whilst revenue fell 8% due to a decline […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Aluminium shortage “temporary and artificial” says world’s largest buyer
When was the last time you told your customers that they would have to wait 570 days for delivery of material for which they have already paid? You’ve never done this? Well, you need to take lessons from those super-smart people who own the aluminium warehouses, such as Goldman Sachs (pictured above by Reuters). As the blog […]
Aluminium stocks enough to build nearly 2 years’ supply of cars
We all know that strange things have been happening in global commodity markets in the past 5 years. Central banks have been pumping out free cash, which has been used to fund speculative trading by many of the major investment banks. In turn this has taken many prices to new records. And this was all happening when […]
Pricing for profit
The price of a product is a key factor in determining the profitability of producing and using it. And a transparent pricing structure encourages liquidity, which enables price discovery to take place more easily between buyers and sellers. This is why I have long been a supporter of the London Metals Exchange (LME) initiative to […]