ICIS Blogs

Browse by Tags

• ACC
• American Chemistry Council
• Anthony Bolton
• Asia
• auto sales
• Bank for International Setlements
• Bank of England
• Barrons
• BASF
• Bear Stearns
• BIS
• Bloomberg
• BP
• Carlyle Group
• Case-Shiller index
• central banks
• China
• Chrysler
• Citigroup
• credit crunch
• crude oil prices
• Currencies
• Deutsche Bank
• Dow Chemical
• euro
• Europe
• European Central Bank
• ExxonMobil
• Fannie Mae
• Father Christmas
• Federal Reserve
• feedstock pricing
• Fiat
• Fidelity
• Financial Events
• financial markets
• Financial Times
• food and energy costs
• Ford
• France
• Freddie Mac
• Frederic Mishkin
• Futures trading
• gas prices
• Gazprom
• General Motors
• Germany
• global downturn
• GM
• Goldman Sachs
• Hank Paulson
• housing
• IEA
• IMF
• India
• inflation
• interest rates
• Iran
• Israel
• Japan
• Leverage
• M & A
• Merrill Lynch
• Moody's
• natural gas
• Northern Rock
• Oil markets
• oil prices
• OPEC
• Pension funds
• petchem margins
• Petrochemicals
• PetroChina
• PIMCO
• polyethylene
• polymers
• recession
• Rohm & Haas
• Russia
• Saudi Arabia
• Sinopec
• subprime crisis
• subprime mortgage crisis
• supply chain
• Toyota
• UBS
• UK Government
• UK housing downturn
• US $
• US Congress
• US Federal Reserve
• US house prices
• US housing
• US recession
• US subprime crisis
• USA
• Wall Street
• Wal-Mart
• Warren Buffett
• yen

• Sinopec cuts back (a little) on petchems

  China's Sinopec has taken a lead in reviewing its petrochemical expansion plans. Speaking to employees last week , Wang Tianpu, CPC division President, noted that 'global crude prices may remain high and the petrochemical industry may become even... Posted Sep 08 2008, 10:17 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, Petrochemicals, Sinopec, polymers

• Another major bailout

  The US government has finally decided to nationalise the two home loan giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Readers will remember I forecast this would be necessary a year ago, in a letter to the Financial Times . I argued then that 'a buyer of last... Posted Sep 07 2008, 10:46 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Financial Events, Leverage, US house prices, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac

• 'The price of all assets will go down'

  'Deleveraging' is an ugly word, and it has ugly implications. Bill Gross of Pimco, who manages the world's largest bond fund, has done us all a favour by trying to explain its impact, and why it is likely to continue for some time to come... Posted Sep 07 2008, 10:09 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, Financial Events, oil prices, Leverage, PIMCO

• Statistics, statistics

  The blog has worried in the past about the way that official statistics seem to be increasingly manipulated to provide a rosy view of the economy. Barrons, the leading US investment magazine, provides another example this week , in connection with the... Posted Sep 05 2008, 09:13 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Barrons, US GDP

• $514bn and counting

  There seems no end to the losses being revealed by the world's major banks. The total has now reached $514bn . 110 banks and investment firms have now posted writedowns. CitiGroup, the largest US bank, tops the list with $55.1bn of losses, closely... Posted Sep 04 2008, 08:50 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Financial Events, credit crunch, US Federal Reserve, IMF, Merrill Lynch, UBS, Citigroup, Prof Nouriel Roubini

• 'A very, very serious global economic slowdown'

  A trend seems to be developing amongst the world's policy makers. Last month saw China and the UK's finance ministries warning of bad times to come. Yesterday, France's finance minister joined the chorus, saying that she had 'underestimated... Posted Sep 02 2008, 09:14 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: China, UK, Economic growth, Oil markets, Financial Events, Leverage, global downturn, France

• August highlights

  Many readers have been out of the office during August on a well-deserved break. I am therefore highlighting below the main postings over the past month, in the hope this will help them to catch up quickly on key developments - please click on the highlighted... Posted Sep 01 2008, 01:06 PM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: China, BASF, Economic growth, Currencies, housing, credit crunch, oil prices, Petrochemicals, Warren Buffett, global downturn, auto sales, polymers

• A sombre outlook

  Housing is a vital market for chemical companies. It boomed in the US and other Western countries as credit standards were relaxed between 2003-7. Now it is at the centre of the credit crunch. Martin Feldstein, Harvard economics professor, and the man... Posted Aug 27 2008, 09:59 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Currencies, Financial Events, credit crunch, M & A, Leverage, global downturn, Martin Feldstein

• US house prices keep on falling

  US house prices, according to today's S&P/Case-Shiller Index, are still falling quite sharply. As shown in the chart, they are now down 17% versus last year. The key influence, according to S&P, is that 'the markets that were the high... Posted Aug 26 2008, 05:13 PM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Case-Shiller index, Financial Events, Leverage, subprime crisis, US house prices

• China's growth slows

  China's growth rate is slowing quite sharply. Exports to the US grew just 9% in H1 , half the 2007 rate. In addition, ICIS news has reported that China's important textile industry has seen a 25% decline in orders, whilst US polyethylene exports... Posted Aug 24 2008, 09:19 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: China, Economic growth, polyethylene, subprime crisis, global downturn

• The nudist beach on Wall Street

  When you're the richest man in the world, you can generally say what you think. Thus Warren Buffett reflected reality back in March , when he commented that 'by any commonsense definition, the US is in recession'. Yesterday, he probably ruffled... Posted Aug 23 2008, 11:49 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Financial Events, M & A, Leverage, Warren Buffett, subprime crisis

• The 'slow motion train wreck' continues

  A year ago, the noted investment analyst, Jeremy Grantham, described the credit crisis as a 'slow motion train wreck'. The Financial Times has now updated the metaphor to describe what has happened since. It notes that train crashes happen more... Posted Aug 19 2008, 02:01 PM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Currencies, Financial Events, credit crunch, Leverage, global downturn, Jeremy Grantham

• BASF reduce 2008 global GDP forecast

  BASF have now reduced their 2008 GDP forecast from 2.8% to 2.4%. This may sound a small amount, but it means it is now in line with the Global Downturn Scenario set out in our Feedstocks for Profit Study. Previously, it had been just below our Base Case... Posted Aug 19 2008, 01:19 PM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: BASF, Economic growth, Currencies, Financial Events, subprime crisis, global downturn, Feedstocks for Profit

• Global inflation on the rise

  Pimco, the world's largest bond investors, are worried about rising inflation . Their main concern is that many Asian and Middle Eastern countries had 'anchored' their currency to the US$. 'With that anchor gone', they comment, 'due... Posted Aug 14 2008, 08:06 PM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Currencies, inflation, PIMCO

• OPEC output, Chinese oil demand, hit records

  OPEC's oil output hit an all-time record in July at 32.8mbd, due to higher volumes from Saudi and Iran. The Saudi increase to 9.55mbd was in line with their pledge at the Jeddah summit in June to raise output to 9.7mbd. But the Iranian increase appears... Posted Aug 13 2008, 10:11 AM by Chemicals & The Economy Filed under: Economic growth, Oil markets, Futures trading, Saudi Arabia, Iran