A year ago, the blog suggested that financial markets were reaching their most dangerous ‘melt-up’ stage, driven by investor complacency about the ability of central banks to protect them from any downturn. This analysis was confirmed in November, when absurdly high prices were paid for works of modern art, smashing previous records. Gillian Tett of the Financial Times (another of […]
Chemicals and the Economy
Markets remain “volatile and challenging” says BASF chairman
Nothing has really changed over the past year. That seems to be the key conclusion from the blog’s quarterly summary of company results for Q1. A year ago, BASF noted that “achieving our earnings target is significantly more challenging today than we had expected”. This month, chairman Kurt Bock “warned the markets will remain volatile and […]
Leaders need to “see around corners” in today’s VUCA world
The number “42” was the answer to “the ultimate question of life” in the classic novel ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe’. Yet as the supercomputer providing this answer then explained, it was a pointless exercise as nobody understood the meaning of the original question. The world’s policymakers are in the same position, although they don’t yet realise this. They […]
Demographics drive demand and fertility rates have fallen
A major debate is underway in Eurozone financial markets about the imminent approach of deflation. As the chart above shows, Eurozone inflation has ben falling steadily for the past 2 years. Yet most still fail to recognise that today’s demographics make this development more or less inevitable. The Financial Times has kindly printed the blog’s […]
5 years of stimulus have only delayed move to the New Normal
Coincidentally the blog began its 6-monthly review of global financial market performance on 7 March 2009, as the US market hit its post-Crisis bottom. At this point, it was possible to hope that central banks would allow markets to resolve the issues that they themselves had created. After all, there would have been no subprime crash if the US Federal […]
“Reservations are no longer necessary at many high-end restaurants”
Think back a moment to September 16 2008. Newly released transcripts analysed by the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times reveal for the first time what was really going on that day at the world’s most important central bank. Lehman Bros, one of Wall Street’s largest investment banks, had just gone bust. Merrill Lynch, another giant, had […]
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 […]
The trend is your friend, until it isn’t
Investing in today’s financial markets is relatively easy. You simply have to believe that governments in the US, Japan and Europe will continue to provide plenty of free cash to investors as part of their Recovery Scenario of a quick return to ‘normal growth’. It doesn’t matter whether the investor believes in the Scenario, the driver is simply the fear of […]
Can oil prices stay at $100/bbl forever?
Sometimes the blog’s mind goes back to its happy days in Houston, Texas, when it set up and ran ICI’s feedstock and petchems trading office. And it thinks through the factors that it would have considered when deciding whether to buy, sell or sit on the sidelines. The memory came back during last week’s lively ACS webinar, when […]
Growth remains below SuperCycle trend, whilst debt is building
Whisper it quietly, so as not to disturb policymakers’ dreams. But the charts above from the Financial Times confirm, as if proof were needed, that their policies of the past 5 years haven’t worked. The charts compare trends in economic growth in the world’s two largest economies, the Eurozone and the USA. As the arrows indicate, both are […]
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