Fibres and clothing sentiment mixed to positive – August CMCI

LONDON (ICIS)–Market sentiment in the European fibres and clothing-related sector for August compared to July, with a generally more positive trend according to ICIS chemical market confidence index (CMCI) data on Wednesday.

Both current business conditions and expectations for the next twelve months were more positive than in July. Levels compared to the last twelve months were more strongly affected, bouncing into positive territory after being strongly negative in July.

Order book volumes fell compared to the previous twelve months; however, expectations were for this situation to reverse itself over the next twelve months.

Profitability for August rose strongly compared to July, whilst expectations for the next twelve months were down slightly.

The rebound in sentiment for the majority of the indexes reflects, in part, a reduced level of uncertainty following a difficult month in July, when sentiment was strongly impacted by the UK’s vote to exit the EU.

Fibres and clothing CMCI change May to August

A large number of sources were away from the market this month as a result of the summer holiday period in Europe, so feedback for this index was limited for August.

The ICIS fibres and clothing CMCI tracks sentiment in the acrylonitrile (ACN), caprolactam, cyclohexane (CX), isocyanates, nylon, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyols markets.

The newly established ICIS Europe CMCI aggregates sentiment from hundreds of petrochemical market players actively involved in price negotiations across more than 60 different markets.

The Europe CMCI runs from +100, to -100, with zero on each index representing neutral, or uncertain conditions, a negative score indicating bearish expectations and a positive score representing bullish expectations. The indices also gather sentiment on the comparison between the current situation and the situation across the past 12 months to give a complete picture of current market conditions and confidence. The information is gathered in the third week of each month.  A full methodology is available on request.

For more details on the overall Europe CMCI data, click here