The seeming genius of many private equity funds in recent years has been based on this ability to borrow at cheap rates during the ‘up’ part of the business cycle. Now we are heading into the ‘down’ cycle. And the central banks have abandoned Bernanke Theory and are back to worrying about inflation. So today’s excess leverage means many over-leveraged companies will go bust.
Chemicals and the Economy
The Fed’s NASDAQ bubble starts to burst as Netflix, Facebook plunge 30%
The central banks are now abandoning the ‘Bernanke Doctrine’ set out in November 2010 – that what was good for markets, was good for the economy.
Everyone “knows” that the Fed will never let markets fall – and that China will never burst its real estate bubble
Our pH Report Sentiment Index has been a very reliable guide to the S&P 500 in recent years. Now it is suggesting a major downturn may be underway as the US and Chinese stimulus programmes come to an end.
The stock market bubble starts to burst
Exponential rapidly rising or falling markets usually go further than you think, but they do not correct by going sideways.
Your A to Z Guide to the Brexit trade negotiations
A. Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty set out the rules for leaving the European Union. As with most negotiations, it assumed the leaving country would present its proposals for the post-withdrawal period – which would then be finalised with the other members. The UK government, however, has still not yet set out its post-Brexit […]
G7 Summit shows leaders are forgetting the lesson of the 1930s
G7 Summits began in the crisis years of the mid-1970s, bringing Western leaders together to tackle the big issues of the day – oil price crises, the Cold War with the Soviet Union and many others. Then, as stability returned in the 1980s with the BabyBoomer-led economic SuperCycle, they became forward-looking. The agenda moved to […]
US New Old 55+ generation makes major move back into the workforce
We had another excellent audience for Thursday’s ACS Chemistry and the Economy webinar. We were swamped with questions both before and during the session, which kept moderator Bill Carroll and the blog on their toes right until the end. The above chart came from the early part of the session, and focused on the two […]
China focuses on the need for jobs, as Western companies reshore production
Its all about jobs. That’s the clear message from this month’s critical Economic Plenum in China, confirming the blog’s analysis back in February 2012. Of course, there was a lot of detail about future reform plans, which will certainly help to move the country’s economy in the right direction. But in the short-term, the key […]
Nobody realised the BabyBoom had happened till long after it finished
Milton Friedman received a Nobel Prize for economics in 1976, partly on the basis of his analysis that ‘inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon’. It sounds an appealing insight, but of course it is wrong. The reason is that it confuses cause and effect. The above chart presents a different view, highlighting the […]
Budgeting for an L-shaped recovery
As companies finalise Budgets for 2013-15, many will be thinking long and hard about the implications of the IMF’s new economic forecast: “The recovery continues, but it has weakened. In advanced countries, growth is now too low to make a substantial dent in unemployment. And in major emerging market economies, growth that had been strong […]
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