Flying the flag for Q3… Source of picture: etftrends.com Yes, Q3 earnings season is almost upon us with the usual headline-grabbing improvements in carefully selected reported numbers. What this season might tell us about the overall direction of everything is, to start the week on yet another pessimistic note, hardly uplifting. John Authers is once […]
Asian Chemical Connections
Thrifty times call for new strategies
At an investors conference call yesterday, Indira Nooyi, the chief executive of PepsiCo, said she expects the ‘age of thrift’ in consumer spending to continue into next year. As consumers in the developed world are placing value at the top of their agendas, the company’s efforts in the future will be on developing lower priced […]
Chemical execs go long on realism
Offsetting the risk of being over-optimistic? Source of picture: thetradingpit.net MAYBE there should futures contracts in realism versus recklessness. That way any senior company executive who wants to take a punt on next year being better than 2009 can offset the risk by going “realistic” on the futures markets – and, of course, vice […]
A Generational Shift In Attitudes To Debt?
Britain’s last generational shift: The 1980s Miners Strike: Source of picture: www.wsws.org My late parents hated even the concept of debt – let alone the insanely irresponsible error of actually borrowing money. This is not surprising as my father could remember, when he was a boy, queuing for free food handouts during the Great Depression. My […]
Thai project delays good news for markets, but…..
….what do these environmental issues mean for Thailand as an investment destination? The Map Ta Phut refinery-petrochemicals complex Source of picture: Pattaya News By Malini Hariharan (Malini is now joint blogger for Asian Chemical Connections) Here’s yet another unexpected project delay that could prop up markets in the fourth quarter. […]
Is the risk of staying long worth it?
Source of picture: Time.com Yesterday I talked about lack of willingness by western banks to lend money because their focus was on rebuilding reserves. But Steven Major, Global Head of HSBC’s Fixed Income Strategy Team, puts a different spin on the problem. In the Fragile Recovery video from the Financial Times’ View […]
“It’s the level, stupid – it’s not the growth rates….”
…..said Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England Source of picture: northbriton45blogspot.com ANY excitement over US house-price figures for July – which showed the biggest monthly gain for years when they were released yesterday – has to be put into the kind of context that undermines a lot of recent positive economic numbers. The […]
Western Polymers: Get Out Or Get Cleverer?
MOVING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION (SORRY, OUCH….!) Source of Picture: www.autospies.com The automobile industry in the West has been bought more time by economic stimulus, as this article in The Economist points out. But some of the discussions at the Frankfurt International Motor Show, which takes place on 15-27 September, will be about the future […]
A New Series: It’s A Mad World
Source of Picture: pupillageandhowtogetit.wordpress.com And now for something completely different. I am launching an new and occasional series, hopefully fed by anonymous contributions, on the daftest examples I come across of company strategies. A friend works for a global training company. Pass rates are awful at the moment in Asia because students are struggling to […]
West To Exert More Cost Pressures
The US back-to-school buying season Source of Picture: theglobeandmail.com As regular readers will remember, last Friday I linked through to this article from the New York Times on the likelihood of a disappointing back-to-school sales season in the US. I had promised some more thoughts on this article and so here goes…. ……This is a […]
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