Merkel warns of need to prepare for No Deal Brexit
Most people missed the fact that last Tuesday was the last possible date to delay the UK’s exit from the EU at the end of the year. Yet as Germany’s leader, Angela Merkel warned on Wednesday: “To put it mildly, progress in the negotiations has been very limited. I will continue to press for a good
The Top 5 pandemic paradigm shifts
The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the fundamental changes which were already underway in global markets, as I discuss in a new interview with Will Beacham of I.C.I.S. Companies and investors need to focus on the challenges and opportunities created by 5 major paradigm shifts as we move into the New Normal. These will impact individual
Oil prices start to reconnect with coal and gas
Oil prices are finally starting to reconnect with other fossil fuel prices, as the chart shows. It compares US WTI prices in terms of $/MMBtu value (WTI/5.8), versus US natural gas and coal prices: In January 1990, WTI was $3.94 versus natgas at $2.30 and coal at $1.45 (all $/MMBtu) In January 2000, WTI was
Economic risks rise as the lockdowns end
It is now 13 years since I wrote the first post here, in June 2007. A lot has happened since then: There was the 2008 subprime crisis, forecast here and in the Financial Times – although sadly, few took advantage of the warning This led to the publication of ‘Boom, Gloom and the New Normal: How
World moves from Denial to Anger, as the Paradigm of Loss moves forward
I have been warning about the Covid-19 risk since early February, and in April suggested here that: “None of us have ever seen a health crisis on the scale of Covid-19 . Nor have we seen an economic crisis on this scale before. The best guide to what may happen is therefore likely to be
The New Normal for global industry
The global chemical industry is the third largest sector in the world behind agriculture and energy, and its outputs find their way into everything we consume. Paul Hodges, chairman of the pH Report, analyzes the chemical industry to give a unique perspective on the global economy to investors and corporations. In this timely discussion, he
Hertz goes bankrupt as non-essential consumer demand disappears
The US Federal Reserve has now spent $7tn bailing out Wall Street. But it couldn’t save the 102-year old Hertz rental company from filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for its US business on Friday night. Sadly, Hertz won’t be the only casualty. Its collapse instead marks the moment when the problems created by two
Debt, deflation, demographics and Brexit set to challenge London house prices
London property websites haven’t used the word “reduced” for many years. But it’s starting to appear again on homes for sale and rent, even in core city postcodes. And in another sign of the downturn, homes can now be on offer for months without moving. The problem is that prices were already ready to tumble
Smartphone sales head into decline as affordability becomes key
The smartphone sales decline accelerated in Q1, as Strategy Analytics report: “Global smartphone shipments fell 17% to reach 275m in Q1. This is the smartphone industry’s worst quarterly performance of all time. On an annualised basis, as the chart shows, global volume was down 12% to 1.36bn from the Q3 2017 peak. And, of course,
The bill for two decades of doomed stimulus measures is due
The Financial Times kindly made my letter on the risks now associated with central bank stimulus their Lead Letter One has to agree with your editorial that deflation is now probably inevitable (“Deflation is a bigger fear than hyperinflation”, FT View, April 28). But it is still disappointing to see that the role of central
Local supply chains replace global trade as world starts to “do more with less”
Something quite dramatic is happening in the global economy. Of course, Wall Street analysts still maintain that the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic will be over by the summer. What else can they say, given their income mostly depends on persuading the public to buy shares? But anyone on Main Street knows that it will
Financial markets enter their Convulsion phase
Many companies and investors are still comparing today’s downturn to the 9-month hiccups seen after the 1990/91 Gulf War and the 2000/1 dotcom crash. In reality, however, this is wishful thinking, as the IMF highlighted last week in its World Economic Outlook: “The Great Lockdown: Worst Economic Downturn Since the Great Depression” One key question,