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Chemicals and the Economy

The end of the prologue

The report in today’s ‘Financial Times’ that Barclays Bank has lost ‘several hundred million dollars’, means that the UK has now joined every other global financial centre in suffering from the US subprime mortgage crisis. The news followed Friday’s 5% drop in the value of Bank of China’s shares, after it revealed it held $9.7bn […]

A tale of two worlds

It used to be said that ‘if the US sneezes, the rest of the world will catch a cold’. Well, the US is certainly sneezing as a result of its subprime financial crisis, but the rest of the world doesn’t seem to be taking too much notice, as least so far. As Bloomberg comments overnight, […]

£80k Maserati going cheap

Would you like to buy a nearly-new, limited edition £80k ($160k, €120k) blue Maserati Cambiocorsa? It may not be too late, as it was going cheaply this week in London, and about to be crushed. Apply to the Transport for London (TfL) parking pound, near Knightsbridge, and spend your savings at Harrods round the corner. […]

Interesting quotes (3)

Some of these quotes just seemed too good to ignore… `I don’t see any impact as yet on the real economy or on the inflation rate. Obviously, there could be an impact, but we have to rely on some real evidence.’ There is ‘a sort of credit crunch’, in place affecting housing and some types […]

Thursday’s child has far to go

The past two Thursdays have seen extraordinary things happen in financial markets. Last Thursday, BNP Paribas suspended redemptions on 3 of its funds, forcing the ECB to inject €95bn of liquidity into the financial system. Yesterday, the largest US mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial, had to raise an emergency €11.5bn loan in order to continue trading, […]

Rolling thunder and Penn Square Bank

When I worked with ChemConnect in the halcyon days of the dot-com era in 1999-2000, we had a fantastic PR lady called Linda Stegeman. Linda ignored conventional wisdom about ‘bundling’ all your best news together to gain maximum impact. Instead, she released the stories one by one, and let them build. First Dow and Rohm […]

Interesting Quotes (2)

Credit market problems intensified last week, even though stock markets rallied strongly until Wednesday. I thought you might like to see some more comments on what is going on, from people close to the action. ‘Trust was shaken today (Wednesday). Credit depends on trust. If trust disappears, then credit disappears, and you have a systemic […]

Every mania has its illusion

All the world’s media are now carrying accounts of the ‘liar loans’ and fraud that has accompanied the growth in US mortgage lending in recent years. How did this come about? All manias gain their strength from a widely believed ‘fact’ that turns out to have been an illusion. With subprime mortgage loans, the ‘fact’ […]

Subprime: a many-headed Hydra

Yesterday, the ECB (European Central Bank) provided an unprecedented €95bn into the region’s credit markets, to maintain liquidity. Otherwise, firms would have had problems paying their bills, and employees might not have been paid their wages. This is serious stuff, and it was followed by the US Fed providing $24bn into US markets, and the […]

ICI and Akzo (2)

It seems from the media comment that Akzo is likely to announce an agreed bid for ICI tomorrow (in order to meet Friday’s Takeover Panel deadline) of around £6.70 plus the dividend. Will this be the end of the story? The share price suggests not, trading at c£6.30 as I write, some 7% below the […]

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