An ageing population and record annual levels of oil prices create massive headwinds for Europe’s petrochemical producers. One means demand growth is much reduced from the SuperCycle. The other means these lower …
Slowly but surely the myths over supposed supply shortages in the crude oil market are being exposed. As leading US investment magazine Barron’s wrote this week: “In May, U.S. production hit its …
Almost every day brings new revelations about the growing evidence of major fraud in China’s ‘collateral trade’. Yet the world’s financial markets remain very complacent. They have forgotten the basic rule, that the first …
Sometimes the blog gets lucky with its timing. That was certainly the case when it spoke to the world’s leading bond investors last week. Just an hour before, they had been shocked …
Who would have believed the blog would still be here, 7 years after it began with a post from Thailand in June 2007? Who would have believed the range of developments that …
The good news about EU auto sales, as the chart shows, is that they have stabilised above last year’s record low levels: Sales in the January – May period were up 7% …
The blog got 54.8m results from Google when it entered the phrase “China GDP” this week. The only problem, seemingly unrecognised by most analysts, is that China’s GDP report is a completely fictitious number, invented …
The annual BP Energy Statistics publication is a treasure trove of information for anyone interested in global energy markets. One key area is the impact of today’s higher oil prices on consumption growth, …
US housing markets will never be the same again. That’s the conclusion of a new analysis by the blog for ICB. The picture above of a typical US family from the BabyBoom …