By John Richardson THE Nikkei Index has risen by more than 30% since November (see the chart below). Earlier this week, the Nikkei was at its highest level since September 2008. Global stock markets are, in general, of course, on a roll. This is fantastic news for the day traders and the electronic traders, […]
Asian Chemical Connections
The 99.9 Percent
Credit: Odysseas Gp Creative Commons BY NC SA By John Richardson WHEN the Fed launched its third round of quantitative easing (QE3), a Perth Australia-based investment analyst said: “I get the feeling that people are waking up to the fact that the Fed has lost all ability to improve the real economy. “The balance […]
Failure Of Central Bankers
Source of graph: Reuters By John Richardson THE Federal Reserve has got it badly wrong, and could compound its mistake by launching a third round of quantitative easing (QE3), warns Ruchir Sharma, head of emerging markets and global macro at Morgan Stanley. “The first two rounds of quantitative easing fuelled a commodity bubble, increased […]
September Will Be A Cruel Month
By John Richardson SEPTEMBER is going to be a cruel month when the West returns from the summer holiday period and the extent of damage to chemicals and polymer demand becomes more apparent. In Asia, temporary supply constraints in polyolefins, paraxylene (PX) and styrene monomer (SM) have disguised the damage. These constraints will at some point ease, leading […]
Clinging On To Vain Hopes
By John Richardson ANYONE clinging on to the hope that the weakness in the global polyolefin market is merely down to China going through a prolonged period of destocking could face a rude awakening. China’s polyethylene (PE) demand was down 4% in January-May this year, at 7.1m tonnes, compared with the same period in 2010. […]
Broad Commodities Retreat Hurts Chemicals
By John Richardson WE hate to say we told you so but the 15 per cent fall in oil prices last week – the steepest one-week decline in two-and-a-half years – was evidence of growing concern over the health of the global economy. And as we predicted on 12 April, last week saw a broad sell-off […]
Cotton Support For Fibre Intermediates Declines
By John Richardson RISING cotton prices might well have been the single-biggest factor on the strength in the synthetic textiles chain for the last year. Other major factors have obviously been the surge in crude and supply constraints in both paraxylene (PX) and purified terephthalic acid (PTA) – but certainly not in mono-ethylene glycol (MEG)! […]
The Chemicals Party Is Over
By John Richardson IT has been a fantastic party. Nobody expected that the drinks would last for so long, thanks to Wen Jiabao and Ben Bernanke working overtime to man the 24/7 off-licence (it is called “liquor store” in the States and a “bottle shop” in Australia). But now the market has clearly reached the top with […]
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