Helping you navigate the new normal
Unfortunately, the problems look set to get worse rather than better. And the oil price rise caused by the Israel/Gaza crisis adds to the problems caused by the Ukraine invasion. A difficult winter, and 2024, lie ahead.
300+ years of Bank of England data shows that interest rates are typically inflation plus 2.5%. At today’s level, this would imply – US rates would be 3.7% + 2.5% = 6.2%: Japan would be 3.2% + 2.5% = 5.7%: Eurozone rates would be 5.3% + 2.5% = 7.8%; UK rates would be 6.7% + 2.5% = 9.2%
The chemical industry is now starting to warn us of a new risk. Europe is already suffering from a cost of living crisis. And people simply can’t afford to pay even higher prices for energy. At a certain point, therefore, demand may simply collapse, and usher in deflation
Taylor Swift’s concerts are creating massive short-term demand as people reconnect after lockdowns. But the chemical industry is warning that deflation could be round the corner, due to the over-capacity created by 20 years of stimulus
The Ukraine war highlights how the real world can often be a very messy place. Issues such as geopolitics and demographics aren’t easy to understand. It can be hard to understand the detail of how key industries and markets are operating.
So it’s no surprise that most policymakers have preferred to stay in the world of theory.
The good news for consumers is that the move to renewables is already set to save European consumers €100bn in 2021-23. The technologies needed in terms of wind, water, solar and storage can successfully deliver the cheaper and more reliable energy supply needed to support the global economy.
Food prices have stayed high due to the disruption caused by the war. They are unlikely to fall back quickly as the war continues and economic volatility intensifies.
The ‘digitalization of everything’ has transformed the global economy over the past 30 years. The rise of the internet is just one example. Now electrification is set to have a similar impact, starting with the world’s largest manufacturing industry. Fasten your seatbelts for the ride!
It’s going to be a very difficult winter. Most of the world will be impacted as Europe bids up energy/food prices to keep its people warm and fed. And it would never have happened if policymakers had recognised the importance of geopolitics, energy markets and demographics.
As the head of Germany’s Employers’ Associations warned last month: “We are facing the biggest crisis the post-war Federal Republic has ever had. We have to be honest and say: First of all, we will lose the prosperity that we have had for years”.
Millions of people around the world are already having to cutback on buying food for their families due to today’s high prices. By wintertime, the risk is that they will have to choose between buying food or heating their homes.
The US is moving into recession as the Atlanta Fed chart confirms. Chemicals have been warning of this for some time. But policymakers and commentators remain in Denial about the economy. They prefer to focus on their computer models, and ignore the real world outside their window.
We are facing a perfect storm of global food, energy and financial crises set off by the war in Ukraine. Analysts need to stop focusing on monetary policy and the inversion of the yield curve. They need to look out of the window and start dealing with the geopolitical reality of Putinflation.
Consumer sentiment is already at all-time lows. Rising energy, transport and food prices will likely soon push inflation above 10%, and interest/mortgage rates to 5%+, adding to the risk of a major and long-lasting downturn.
Central banks and investors believed stimulus programs had created a “New Paradigm” where asset prices would always increase. Now they are starting to realise that stimulus is irrelevant against the 3 Horsemen of the Apocalypse – China’s continuing battle with the pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and potential famine as rising gas/fertilizer prices mean farmers can’t afford to grow their crops or feed their animals.
Energy and financial markets are exacerbating the risks ahead. Oil prices at current levels – as the chart confirms, they now account for more than 3% of global GDP – have historically led to recession as the chart shows. The reason is that consumers have to cut back on their discretionary spending, which drives economic growth, in order to heat their homes and travel to work and school. Today’s high levels of natural gas prices add to this risk.
We are facing a K-shaped recession. Companies and investors have a difficult time ahead. They not only have to navigate a potentially major downturn. But they also have to completely reposition their portfolios for the New Normal world that will follow.
These are difficult times, and there is no guarantee that they may not get worse. But they also remind us of the critical need to move beyond the Age of Oil, and develop more sustainable energy resources for the future.
The issue is simply that investors are in a state of Denial. And so there is a growing risk of a financial crisis as reality finally dawns on them.
The central banks are now abandoning the ‘Bernanke Doctrine’ set out in November 2010 – that what was good for markets, was good for the economy.
Our pH Report Sentiment Index has been a very reliable guide to the S&P 500 in recent years. Now it is suggesting a major downturn may be underway as the US and Chinese stimulus programmes come to an end.
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
The implications of the rise in EV sales go well beyond the auto and oil markets, with petrochemicals likely to be next in line for disruption. This is why the surge in EV sales up the S-curve of adoption has to be my Chart of the Year.
We can expect to see electricity prices fall along with CO2 emissions. And consumers will no longer be held to ransom by geopolitical events
COP26 confirmed that the world is moving away from fossil fuels. OPEC’s high prices have made this move easier to afford by causing artificial shortages.
The new business models, based on using locally-produced recycled plastic feedstocks, are a ‘once=-in-a-lifetime’ opportunity to create growth for decades to come.
Recession may also burst today’s asset price bubbles in stock markets and housing prices – and even in more obscure assets such as art markets.
The Federal Reserve can’t control the fallout from the bursting of China’s ‘subprime on steroids’ real estate bubble
Autos are going through a genuine transformation, just as a caterpillar transforms via the chrysalis stage into a butterfly
Flooding in China and Europe, record temperatures in the USA, wild fires – all these are signs that climate change is accelerating. After all, the world has gone from 2.5bn people in 1950 to 7.9bn today. That must have an …
Auto industry provides a model for the transition to Net Zero Read More
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 …
The blog’s 14th birthday – and the New Normal world it predicted has arrived Read More
My Dutch colleague, Daniël de Blocq van Scheltinga, is a graduate of Leiden University in the Netherlands, with a Master of Law degree and a specialty in International law. Here he gives his expert view on the Dutch court’s decision to order Shell to reduce its CO2 emissions by at least 45% , relative to
The post Friends of the Earth v Royal Dutch Shell – what did the Dutch Court rule, and what does it mean for Shell’s business? appeared first on Chemicals and the Economy.
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Volatility has begun to rise in oil and bond markets, as we expected. China’s upcoming ‘Vision 2035’ seems likely to prove a major game-changer for its economic model over time.
Wall Street is focused on central banks’ response to the pandemic, whilst Main Street focuses on its actual impact.
The Hertz rental car bankruptcy in the US highlights the risks to the economy
Financial markets are treading water as they wait to see what happens next
Financial markets have sharply diverged from events in the real world
A month ago, we forecast that oil prices would go negative in Q2
Markets are being driven by speculators funded by the central banks, rather than long-term investors.
Wishful thinking remains the dominant feature in oil markets, as in our other key areas of the global economy
April will be the cruellest month, as the Covid-19 virus starts to have its full impact on health and the economy.
