Exponential rapidly rising or falling markets usually go further than you think, but they do not correct by going sideways.
Chemicals and the Economy
China’s ‘perpetual motion’ housing machine has started to slow
Evergrande’s default will only be the first of many. Companies and countries that have “bet the ranch” on China’s “perpetual motion machine” need to urgently decide how to minimise their potential losses, whilst there is still time.
OPEC+ faces difficult decisions as Covid returns, recession risks rise, and oil prices crash
OPEC+ oil producers saw prices tumble $10/bbl (13%) on Friday as the world woke up to the fact that the next phase of the pandemic may be underway. And this is not the only challenge that they face. OIL PRICES HAVE ONLY BEEN HELD UP BY MAJOR SUPPLY CUTBACKS The first is the challenge from […]
‘Watch out below!’ as supply chain chaos comes to an end
“What goes up, comes down” is usually a good motto when prices start to reach for the skies. As the great investor Bob Farrell noted in his 10 Rules, they usually go further than you think. But they don’t then correct by going sideways. The charts showing US lumber prices, China coal prices and the […]
The Fed’s stock market bubble is at risk as China bursts its real estate bubble
The US stock market bubble just keeps rising. And every investor “knows” that the US Federal Reserve will never let it burst. But the Fed can’t control the fallout from the bursting of China’s ‘subprime on steroids’ real estate bubble. Could this also mean the end of the Fed’s bubble? There is no doubt that […]
Xi aims to “bring order out of chaos” by bursting China’s property bubble
China is at the start of its biggest economic shake-up since 1978, when Deng Xiaoping launched his post-Mao reform programme. President Xi Jinping’s ‘Common Prosperity’ policy aims to retain his focus on increasing living standards. But it wants to spread the wealth far more widely. The electricity rationing now underway across China highlights the need […]
An Evergrande default could reset the Chinese, and global, economy
China’s economy has been ‘subprime on steroids’ since the financial crisis in 2008. And essentially, this has morphed into a giant Ponzi scheme, where some property developers used deposits paid by new buyers to finance the construction of apartments they’d already sold. Now the world’s most indebted property developer, Evergrande, has warned it may default […]
Businesses set for transformation as supply chain chaos combines with Net Zero targets
‘Business as usual’ seems a most unlikely outcome as we look forward over the next 6 months. The pandemic may well bring further trials for us to endure. We also have to set budgets for the next few years, and so we will need new strategies and business models to respond to the Net Zero […]
The blog’s 14th birthday – and the New Normal world it predicted has arrived
The blog has now been running for 14 years since the first post was written from Thailand at the end of June 2007. And quite a lot has happened since then: There was the 2008 financial crisis, one of the blog’s early forecasting successes This led to the publication of ‘Boom, Gloom and the New […]
“When all the experts and forecasts agree — something else is going to happen”, Bob Farrell
In January, “everyone knew” that inflation was about to take off, and that the US$ was going to collapse. Last week, the great Bob Farrell’s Rule No 9 proved its worth, yet again. US interest rates fell sharply and the US$ bottomed for this cycle. The two charts above tell the story – because they […]
Jump to page: