Helping you navigate the new normal since 2001
As Hemingway noted, everyone is your friend when things are going well. But as countries and individuals are now starting to discover, the hangover when the party ends can be a painful experience.
Companies and investors need to invest time now on having a genuine debate about the risks ahead. The regulatory failures of the past few days highlight what can quickly go wrong, if one hasn’t war-gamed out potential risks. As the saying goes, “Failing to plan, equals planning to fail”.
Today’s financial crisis confirms that “failing to plan, equals planning to fail” Read More
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.
IMF warns the risks “for the economy are overwhelmingly tilted to the downside” Read More
Essentially, the problem is a timebomb which is set to explode next winter unless governments work together to increase arable planting, establish emergency stocks, and subsidize fertilizer costs whilst gas prices remain at today’s record levels.
Much of the way the world currently works depends on uninterrupted and elevated Chinese growth.
The end of China’s real estate bubble will impact global supply chains, exports and growth Read More
Wall Street is focused on central banks’ response to the pandemic, whilst Main Street focuses on its actual impact.
Wall Street hopes for the best, whilst Main Street fears the worst Read More
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
Wishful thinking remains the dominant feature in oil markets, as in our other key areas of the global economy
Policymakers continue to prefer wishful thinking to reality Read More
April will be the cruellest month, as the Covid-19 virus starts to have its full impact on health and the economy.
“Saving lives and protecting livelihoods ought to go hand in hand”, IMF Read More
The blog has now been running for 11 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 11th birthday – and a look forward to 2021 Read More
Western central bankers are convinced reflation and economic growth are finally underway as a result of their $14tn stimulus programmes. But the best leading indicator for the global economy – capacity utilisation (CU%) in the global chemical industry – is saying they are wrong. The CU% has an 88% correlation with actual GDP growth, far […]
Chemical industry data shows reflation remains hope, not reality Read More
If you want to know what is happening to the global economy, the chemical industry will provide the answers. It has an excellent correlation with IMF data, and also benefits from the fact it has no “political bias”. It simply
The global economy’s best leading indicator forecasts a downturn Read More