The 15th World Aromatics & Derivatives Conference take place in Vienna in 2 weeks’ time on 22 – 23 November. Co-organised as always with ICIS, we will benefit from the insight of key executives from the global industry including: THE OUTLOOK FOR AROMATICS Shell’s Commercial Manager, Europe, on feedstock and product availability China’s CICCC on what […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Chemical industry warns of likely global recession in 2017
The chemical industry is the best leading indicator for the global economy, and it is flagging major warning signs about the outlook for 2017. As the chart above shows, based on American Chemistry Council (ACC) data: Since 2009, Capacity Utilisation (CU%) has never returned to the 91.3% averaged between 1987 – 2008 It […]
Forget the IMF: global chemicals are your guide to future performance
The chemical industry provides a far better guide to the economic outlook than the IMF or any economic forecaster, as I describe in my latest post for the Financial Times, published on the BeyondBrics blog The global chemical industry has long been the best real-time indicator of the global economy. This is partly because of […]
S&P 500 volatility close to 43-year lows as uncertainty rises
Something very strange is happening in US stock markets, as the above chart highlights: It shows weekly (blue line) and average quarterly (red line) volatility in the US S&P 500 Index since 1928 Both are very close to 43-year lows, going back to September 1973, at 1.7% and 1.6% respectively This seems quite […]
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