Plexiglass Becomes The Latest Hot COVID Commodity

Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports:

Orders are pouring in from retailers, offices, hospitals, and public transport companies, which are eager to get their hands on protective shields to separate employees from a coughing and sneezing public spreading the coronavirus. Like face masks and disinfectant, Plexiglas became omnipresent almost overnight, a translucent guard between cashiers, bus drivers, and receptionists on one side and customers on the other.

“The rise in demand for protective acrylic sheet from Covid-19 is meteoric,” says Anton Ticktin, a managing director at Piper Sandler’s Valence Group who specializes in chemicals transactions. Ticktin estimates record sales and profit this year for the acrylic sheet industry, which is getting an additional boost through consolidation and higher demand for LCD screens that use the material.

Axios reports:

Here’s more proof that plexiglass is one of the hottest commodities of the coronavirus pandemic: A word that was almost never mentioned is popping up in corporate earnings calls and company press releases.

Plexiglass is the must-have partition for places around the world doing business in the COVID-19 era — restaurants, grocery stores,  casinos, even possibly schools (once students return). Take Dollar Tree, for instance — which late last month told analysts it installed more than 16,000 plexiglass shields at store checkouts.

And Google searches for “plexiglass” peaked in mid-May, as businesses across the country readied to reopen. The brand name, Plexiglas, didn’t get nearly the same attention.