Confidence among European aromatics players plummets as 2017 begins – CMCI

LONDON (ICIS)–Confidence in the European aromatics chain fell in all but one indicators for January, with the sharpest decrease for future order book volumes, analysis of the ICIS Chemical Market Confidence Index (CMCI) showed on Friday.

(*Forward-looking data for December was for next 12 months, while from January onwards, forward-looking sentiment will be based on the next six months)

In December, confidence in future order book volumes saw the largest increase in confidence, however, this month it has dropped by 41.8 points. Confidence in current order book volumes also dropped, by 16.6 points in this case.

Profitability, both current and future, also saw decreases in confidence of 15.6 and 25.6 points respectively.

In the only positive indicator, confidence in future business conditions grew by 6.7 points, however, the sentiment around current business conditions dropped by 15.7 points versus last month.

The 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