Mr. Mitsch: Actually the fourth quarter for the chemical stocks showed some moderation, but things have improved since then. The chemical stocks have rebounded off their bottoms and are doing quite well as of early March.
TWST: How does the performance of the commodity chemicals look compared to that of the specialty chemicals?
Mr. Mitsch: For the period from the beginning of the year until March 9, specialty chemicals are doing a bit better, actually up about 5%, while commodities are down 1%. But both of these compare very favorably with the broader markets. The S&P 500, for example, is down 7%.
Earlier this year, there had been a gravitation toward the larger cap names, so clearly Dow (DOW) and DuPont (DD) were beneficiaries of that trend.
Tickers included in this excerpt: DD, DOW, EMN, LYO, MCH, MON, ROH, SOI, SYT
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