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Chemicals and the Economy

Chloralkali operating rates confirm European slowdown

Operating rates in European chloralkali markets are confirming the general slowdown in demand across the continent. Total chlorine production was already down 1.9% in 2012, with H2 operating rates averaging just 75.7%. And sadly, March data from Eurochlor suggests the usual burst of activity in Q1 has been extremely fragile. As the chart shows: • […]

Crude oil’s slide puts markets under pressure

Crude oil markets long ago lost their role of price discovery. Since early 2009, they have instead been dominated by pension funds seeking to find a ‘store of value’ as the US$ weakened, along with hedge funds enjoying a money-making ‘momentum play‘. The reason has been the $tns spent by western central banks in their […]

Volcker speaks out on central bank policies

Central bankers clearly read too many super-hero comics when they were young. Ben Bernanke at the US Federal Reserve, Mario Draghi at the European Central Bank, Mervyn King at the Bank of England and now Haruhiko Kuroda at the Bank of Japan, all see themselves as Superman solving the world financial crisis. The only problem […]

US auto sales growth slows as Hurricane Sandy impact ends

250,500 US autos were destroyed during Hurricane Sandy last November, according to official data from the National Insurance Crime Bureau. Their replacement was clearly going to have a big impact on auto sales for the following months. Yet strangely, the blog has seen no discussion of this impact. So it has made its own calculations […]

US employment ‘surprise’ confirms computers lack commonsense

Last week saw more evidence that recent weakness in chemical markets mirrors developments in the global economy. Of course, given the bullish mood amongst investors, these signs were still treated as being ‘surprises’. This is perhaps inevitable when trading is dominated by the computers owned by the high-frequency traders, rather than people. Computers can be […]

Companies warn on Q2 earnings outlook

Traders in Western financial markets are confident of 3 key facts about the economic outlook: • The US is already recovering, with auto and housing markets returning to pre-2008 levels • The Eurozone crisis is almost resolved and recovery is expected by H2 • China’s new leadership will ensure its growth surprises on the upside […]

China’s PE import market declines

China’s polyethylene demand has proved an excellent forward indicator of economic policy. So far, however, the usual data on China’s own production has not been yet been published in 2013. Today, therefore, the blog is instead focusing on trade analysis, based on Global Trade Information Services data. This provides important insight into commercial developments: The […]

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