Final data for EU auto sales has now been published, and is summarised in the chart above: Sales fell for the 4th year in a row in 2013 (red square) to 11.8 million This was a 2% fall versus 2012 (green line) and a cumulative 18% fall versus 2007’s peak Only 2 countries, the UK and Spain, […]
Chemicals and the Economy
US new car sales at highest level since 2007
The good news about US auto sales is in the chart above. It shows: 2013 volumes at 15.6 million were the highest since 2007 (red square) This was a 7% increase versus 2012 levels (green line) Q4 sales at 3.8m were particularly strong, and were the highest since 2005 Unsurprisingly this has led many to believe that […]
China auto sales jump to meet pollution quota deadline
China’s auto sales moved past Europe’s in 2010, and are now close to US levels. But even China is not expected to maintain this surge in 2014. As the chart above shows, sales soared in the past few months (red line) versus 2012 (green). But as the automotive association explains, this was mainly because: “Panic consumption over […]
Brazil, Russia, India car sales fall for first time in 10 years
Since 2009, the 4 BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) have been the focus of every car manufacturers’ dreams. Whilst the West worried about ageing populations and its financial crisis, the BRICs seemed to have moved into a new dimension. Today, however, reality is beginning to set in: Auto sales in Brazil (the world’s […]
The trend is your friend until it isn’t – part 2
“May you live in interesting times” is a Chinese proverb which has an alternative meaning as a curse. And the blog suspects this duality of meaning may start to make a lot of sense as we go through 2014. We have, after all, been in a very strange world for the past 5 years. Markets […]
Deflation gets closer in Europe, USA and China
Demographics drives demand. If it doesn’t, then its hard to think what does. So forecasting economic growth depends on two key variables: If you have lots of young people in your adult population, then you should have fast growth If you have lots of older people, then you will be lucky to have any growth […]
US house price recovery “living on borrowed time”
Housing used to be the key driver for US chemical demand in the SuperCycle, and went into overdrive in the subprime era between 2003-6, when housing starts rose to 2 million/year. We don’t yet have December’s data, but we already know that 2013’s total will be only half this level, despite all policymakers’ efforts to revive the […]
Aluminium stocks enough to build nearly 2 years’ supply of cars
We all know that strange things have been happening in global commodity markets in the past 5 years. Central banks have been pumping out free cash, which has been used to fund speculative trading by many of the major investment banks. In turn this has taken many prices to new records. And this was all happening when […]
“The policy Kings/Queens have no clothes”
There seems almost no need to publish a forecast for 2014. Policymakers have toured the TV studios to confirm that this is finally the year of recovery. They admit it may have taken nearly 5 years longer than first expected, and that there have been numerous ‘false dawns’ on the way. But now, they are certain that […]
Global economy approaches a T-junction
Intuition’s great benefit is that it provides a different perspective. Thus the intuitive concept behind the launch of the IeC Downturn Monitor was that April 2011 would prove a watershed moment for policymakers’ Recovery Scenario after 2008’s financial crisis. Their Scenario essentially had two elements: Acting as a ‘lender of last resort’ when the major banks stopped lending to each other and the […]
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