Sector

30 September 2016

China used to call Russia its ‘older brother’. However, never again since the fall of the USSR. In an effort to portray its status as a less powerful yet assuredly more senior neighbour, Russian officials have recently begun referring to their country as China’s ‘elder sister’. The new term...

Featured Articles

23 September 2016

Is India any Cyber-Safer?

Recently, technical and operational specifications of the Scorpene class submarine that India is buying from DCNS — a naval shipbuilder two-thirds owned by the French government — were leaked to The Australian newspaper. The incident follows the Modi administration’s launch...

22 September 2016

Is the Latest Steel Crisis China’s Doing?

Today, advanced economies blame China for steel overcapacity. In reality, four decades ago Washington and Brussels opted for bad policies, which China seeks to transcend.  In the G20 summit in Hangzhou, some world leaders had harsh words for China’s steel...

21 September 2016

Fracking to Sand: Thank You

The late-2014, Saudi-initiated oil-price war may have taken the 'boom' out of the US shale industry as it seriously threatened OPEC market share, but Saudi victory has been elusive: US shale has proven amazingly resilient. The industry has adapted quickly...

14 September 2016

Which Factors are Fueling Oil Rallies?

In most financial market contexts, crude oil maintains its position as one of the most actively traded commodities in the world.  In futures markets, light sweet crude oil is the most commonly traded futures contract, and price trends in these...

13 September 2016

Building a Single ASEAN Food Sector

The food sector has the potential to benefit greatly in the new ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). However, because food products attract higher levels of regulation, which often varies between member countries, a significant number of non-tariff measures (NTMs) remain. Such...

8 September 2016

Oil & Gas Equipment Manufacturers will be Slow to Recover

Oilfield services, shipbuilders and other industries that rose with the pre-2014 oil price boom have had it hard. Since barrel rates fell, their previous patrons have become uninterested in doling out major purchase orders, leaving oil and gas equipment manufacturers...

6 September 2016

How is China’s Low-Carbon Transformation Progressing?

China was responsible for 25 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2012. According to World Bank research, cities consume more than 65 percent of global energy and emit some 70 percent of greenhouse gases. Transforming cities into ‘low-carbon cities’...

2 September 2016

Selling the Brand Name and the Generic

Mylan is the latest pharmaceutical company to face controversy over its drug pricing. It has come under scrutiny and strong criticism from the public and government officials for raising the price of its EpiPen allergy device from about US$100 in 2008 to about...

31 August 2016

Oil Output Freeze Looking Less Likely

Oil has broken down further today.  The ostensible trigger was the larger than expected build in US inventories.  However, the price of oil has been trending lower since the beginning of last week.  It appears that our skepticism of talk...

31 August 2016

The Permian Basin Bucks the Trend for Now

  The collapse of oil prices has ground shale drilling to a halt, but the one region where drilling is still active, and even increasing, is in West Texas.     The collapse of oil prices has ground shale drilling...

30 August 2016

Silicon Valley vs. Antitrust Regulators…Fight!

Judging by the political winds, Silicon Valley seems headed for a showdown with antitrust regulators. For the first time since 1988, the Democratic Party’s platform includes stronger antitrust enforcement, while leading liberals have singled out Google, Apple and Facebook for holding too much market...

25 August 2016

Are You a ‘Lithium Skeptic’?

We have gone electric, and there is no going back at this point. Lithium is our new fuel, but like fossil fuels, the reserves we are currently tapping into are finite—and that is what investors can take to the bank....

24 August 2016

How Do You Hail a Driverless Car?

  Uber’s announcement that it will introduce driverless cars in Pittsburgh, US, throws into question the fate of not just the “sharing economy”, which Uber helped to make mainstream, but the future of employment in a wider sense too.     Uber’s announcement that it...

24 August 2016

Saudi Arabia Plays a Balancing Act

  It's possible that OPEC is crying wolf with hints of an output freeze next month in Algiers; but it's also possible that they are ramping up production to take the sting out of a freeze. This is a delicate...