US Chemicals — Periodic Crowding Table

Research evidence excerpt

US Chemicals — Periodic Crowding Table

Viewpoint |

15 Jul 2026 05:00:00 ET │ 13 pages

US Chemicals — Periodic Crowding

Table

Weekly Valuation and Crowding Overview

Patrick Cunningham AC

CITI'S TAKE +1-212-816-6684

patrick.cunningham@citi.com

Below we analyze positioning using Citi Quant team’s data (Excel download)

and present key valuation metrics and share price moves for our coverage. Rachel Lee

While the crowding composite data is not intended to be a buy/sell signal by +1-212-816-4559

itself, we believe it can serve as a valuable tool for investment consideration. rachel.lee@citi.com

Most Crowded Longs — Analysis from Citi’s Quant Team suggests ECVT, LIN, and

RPM continue to be the most crowded longs within our coverage (Figure 3). Moves

were generally negative across the board following strong gains in crowding last

week. Particularly, CE (-12% W/W), APD (-7% W/W), and ALB (-6% W/W) drove the

decline. For CE, the decline in crowding was primarily driven by weaker sentiment,

as the market appears to have already priced in the recent acetyl chain capacity

announcements (our note here). That being said, we note that the new capacity is

expected to primarily serve the Chinese producer’s EVA demand. While the impact

on the broader market should be limited, it could challenge the thesis that Chinese

capacity additions will slow toward the end of the decade, as the announced project

represents roughly 3% of incremental global net VAM capacity additions. For APD,

the move appears largely attributable to a reversal of last week’s trends, when

crowding increased by more than 34% following the cancellation of the Darrow

project. This week’s change was driven mainly by higher short interest, despite

improving sentiment.