The chemical suppliers industry may be entering a new territory
The global chemical industry is no stranger to the setback in capital market performance. From the recent trend, the chemical suppliers industry may enter a new field. Since 2000, the chemical industry has been in the leading position of its value chain peers in terms of total shareholder return (TSR). However, the industry's TSR performance has faltered in the past 18 months. This has happened once before. In 2014, the sharp drop in oil prices had a profound impact on the entire chemical industry - not only the petrochemical industry, but also led to long-term instability. However, the strong performance of the Chinese market, among other factors, has enabled chemical suppliers to overcome capital market concerns about the economy. In fact, the industry's TSR performance rebounded in 2016 and 2017 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24% and peaked in January 2018. However, the decline in TSR performance over the past 18 months has been significant. The most obvious d...