ICIS Blogs : futures trading

The Boom/Gloom Index©

Chemicals & The Economy — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 06:01:30 GMT

Markets are driven by two factors, sentiment and fundamentals. Fundamentals can be followed by analysing hard data. In chemical markets, for example, key areas include new housing starts, auto sales, industrial production, Asian exports, etc. This data...(read more)

May's top posts

Chemicals & The Economy — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:38:56 GMT

The 3 most popular posts in May were: Dow, Ineos focus on debt issues Rotterdam oil storage running out of space Green shoots likely to be yellow weeds The blog will be celebrating its 2nd birthday at the end of the month. I would welcome your comments...(read more)

Adultery signals for traders

Chemicals & The Economy — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:51:03 GMT

My fellow-blogger, Barbara, cleverly spotted this week's 'Global Traders Summit' in Singapore. Had this blog been there, it would have mentioned the latest, apparently fool-proof, way to determine stock market turning points, based on bankers'...(read more)

Hopes of China recovery "premature" - World Bank

Chemicals & The Economy — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:03:16 GMT

The high level of speculation accompanying China's apparent economic revival worries the World Bank. "Until we see a recovery in private investment, it's hard to get too excited about the future," according to David Dollar, the Bank's...(read more)

'Checklist for Survival' Webinar

Chemicals & The Economy — Fri, 15 May 2009 12:24:08 GMT

Many thanks to everyone who signed up for yesterday's Webinar. We ended up running two sessions, due to demand. I hope you found it stimulating and helpful. My thanks go to Nigel Davis for chairing it, and to Alan Tyler and the ICIS team for organising...(read more)

US Fed supports Wall Street earnings, ignores corporate sector risks

Chemicals & The Economy — Sun, 10 May 2009 13:49:27 GMT

In July 2007 , the US Federal Reserve warned that "credit concerns were spreading" and estimated that total bank losses due to US sub-prime loans could reach $100bn. Yet now , after the conclusion of its "stress tests", the Fed says...(read more)

BASF sees "weak demand", traders see recovery

Chemicals & The Economy — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:42:36 GMT

BASF, the world's largest chemical company, said today that they see "weak demand for chemical products" continuing through 2009. In response, plants and sites "will be closed or sold where necessary". These are clear statements...(read more)

Rotterdam oil storage running out of space

Chemicals & The Economy — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:16:03 GMT

Today saw further anecdotal evidence of speculative crude oil buying. A senior manager at the Port of Rotterdam told Bloomberg that oil inventories were the highest he had seen since he began work there in 1985. Rotterdam can hold 75 million barrels....(read more)

G-20 prepares for London meeting

Chemicals & The Economy — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:55:42 GMT

Leaders of the G-20 represent 85% of the global economy, and 65% of world population. Set up by Finance Ministers after the Asian crisis in 1997/8, they first met at Heads of Government level in the USA last November . Sadly, although their communiqué...(read more)

US house prices below 1979 levels in real terms

Chemicals & The Economy — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:31:12 GMT

US house prices remain on a "downward path" according to today's latest S&P Case-Shiller house price index . S&P report that in terms of nominal prices (including inflation), "average home prices across the US are now at similar...(read more)

OPEC seeks to hold oil prices

Chemicals & The Economy — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 08:20:58 GMT

OPEC Oil Ministers, meeting today, have achieved 80% compliance with their announced production quotas. This is much higher than normal, and owes a lot to the hard-ball tactics played by Saudi Arabia, the world's leading oil producer, in initially...(read more)

INEOS announce €1bn inventory loss in Q4

Chemicals & The Economy — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 17:14:22 GMT

In early October , I forecast that we were about to revisit "the scariest moment of my 30 year chemical career", adding that: "The moment the blog has long feared, and warned about , may be about to arrive. It appears that we may be about...(read more)

Eurozone under pressure

Chemicals & The Economy — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:28:12 GMT

Early last year, the blog flagged up a warning from Gillian Tett in the Financial Times that Iceland could go bankrupt , as its banks were "too big to rescue". Yet at the time, the United Nations had listed it as having "the highest standard...(read more)

Crude oil trading hits new record

Chemicals & The Economy — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 05:32:20 GMT

The ever-interesting PetroMatrix report notes that 2008 saw record volumes of crude oil trading. As their chart shows (above), the volume of trading on futures markets in 1995 was equal to daily oil production volumes. By 2000, the ratio had reached 2...(read more)

The blog in 2008

Chemicals & The Economy — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:37:54 GMT

The blog is now 18 months old. It has a truly global readership, and as shown in the above map, is now read in 1244 cities and 89 countries. Its aim has always been to identify 'the influences that may shape the chemical industry over the next 12...(read more)