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Gavekal Research
Charles Gave
May 24th 2018
My Kind Of Safe Haven
Long and sometimes bitter experience of financial markets has taught me that when the organically-produced fertilizer hits the rotary ventilation device, a few assets go up in price, while the vast majority go down. The first list is a short one, but on it you will always find the Swiss franc. Historically, the problem with this Swiss-franc-as-safe-haven idea was that the gnomes’ currency usually tends to be something of a collector’s item....
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Ernan Cui
May 23rd 2018
Urbanization Without Migration
The story of China’s urbanization has long been the migration of people from the country to the cities. Not anymore: as Ernan explains, rural migration has slowed sharply, and is being replaced by the reclassification of rural areas into urban ones. Policymakers now prefer this “local urbanization,” even though it delivers less income growth.
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Gavekal Research
Louis Gave
May 23rd 2018
A Structural Change, Or A Return To The Mean?
Chinese government bond prices have markedly outperformed treasuries for more than a year. This trend could be explained merely by cyclical factors, or that the Chinese fixed income market is going through a structural rerating, driven in part by the internationalization of the renminbi and the inclusion of Chinese government bonds in major benchmarks.
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Gavekal Research
Udith Sikand, Joyce Poon
May 23rd 2018
A Decision Tree For Emerging Markets
Over the last five weeks, something unusual has been going on in global financial markets: the US dollar has been strengthening, and at the same time the price of oil has been going up. If prolonged, such a simultaneous rise in two of the world’s most important prices will threaten to inflict a vicious double blow on emerging market economies and asset prices. To be clear: the bigger influence would be the US dollar. But the simultaneous...
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Gavekal Research
Udith Sikand, Tom Miller
May 22nd 2018
India Macro Update: Summer Market Blues
Indian growth is picking up nicely just as the external financing environment gets tougher, with a strengthening US dollar, raising yields and most importantly, a sharply rising oil price. In their regular quarterly review, Udith and Tom argue that India can weather the storm, but global investors would do well to back away from the market.
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Gavekal Research
Cedric Gemehl
May 22nd 2018
Giuseppe Who?
The leaders of Italy’s Five Star and Lega political parties on Monday nominated little-known law professor Giuseppe Conte to be the country’s next prime minister. Assuming president Sergio Matarella accepts their choice, Conte will be tasked with leading a coalition government whose disparate members have little in common except populism, euroskepticism, and expansionary fiscal plans.
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Gavekal Research
Anatole Kaletsky
May 21st 2018
The Resurgence Of Political Risk
Political risk is now the main driving force of financial markets. In 2017 investors learned—or thought they had learned—that political upheavals just create noise, with no lasting effect on market trends that are set by economic fundamentals. But in 2018 this relationship has been reversed. Wherever we look today—at oil prices, global trade flows or conditions in Europe—politics seems to overwhelm economic fundamentals and set the market trends.
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Gavekal Research
Nick Andrews
May 18th 2018
A UK Consumer Reckoning
This week saw the release of moderately good news for the Brexit-bound UK economy, as wages rose the most in almost three years. With inflation moderating, real incomes have edged higher, giving hope that consumption can again fire up growth. The problem is that the UK—like the US—increasingly displays late cycle characteristics, as shown by a tight labor market and falling profit growth.
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Gavekal Research
Charles Gave
May 18th 2018
Oil As A Party Spoiler
I have tended to see oil not so much as an asset in which to build a position as a party spoiler that can wreak havoc on a portfolio. Yesterday saw the price of Brent break above US$80 a barrel for the first time since November 2014 and the pain is visible in a range of emerging markets that run big external deficits. To be sure, most of my colleagues remain sanguine about EM prospects and do not expect a generalized crisis (see The Refuge In...
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Thomas Gatley
May 17th 2018
An Attractive But Troublesome Market
From June 1, China’s domestically-listed A-shares will be included in the MSCI Emerging Markets index, bringing the onshore market to the attention of many global investors for the first time. In this piece, Thomas examines recent developments in the A-share market, and outlines the promises and pitfalls of investing under China’s “regulatory firestorm”.
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Gavekal Research
Tom Holland
May 17th 2018
Video: The Hong Kong Peg Under Pressure
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has again been intervening in the foreign exchange market after it stepped in last month when the Hong Kong dollar fell to its weakest in 35 years. So far the HKMA has bought HKD62bn, selling almost US$8bn to defend the Hong Kong dollar’s peg to the US dollar. In this video interview, Tom Holland explains what’s going on, and why there is zero risk Hong Kong will be forced to devalue its currency.
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Gavekal Research
Cedric Gemehl, Nick Andrews
May 16th 2018
The Next Phase Of Eurozone Reform
During last year’s French presidential election, Emmanuel Macron opened a debate by asking “what do we want to do with the euro?” His answer was more political integration and burden sharing. Those plans must get traction at the June 28-29 meeting of European Union leaders if they are not to be crowded out by a likely messy end to the Brexit process and next year’s European Parliament elections. Right now, this seems a long shot and attention...
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Gavekal Research
Joyce Poon
May 16th 2018
Beyond Japan’s 1Q GDP Contraction
Japan’s longest run of growth since the 1980s has come to an end. After eight consecutive quarters of growth, data released on Wednesday morning showed that the Japanese economy contracted in the first quarter. For investors, the question is whether this contraction will prove a short-lived blip, or whether it marks a decisive turn for the worse in both Japan’s macro-environment and equity market.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Chen Long
May 15th 2018
Bond Yields Have Further To Fall
After a sharp decline in March and April, Chinese onshore bond yields have bounced back over the past three weeks. But based on the latest economic data and policy signals, Chen Long thinks that bond yields have further to fall. Growth is continuing to slow, and the central bank seems comfortable with a slightly more accommodative stance.
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Gavekal Research
Tan Kai Xian
May 15th 2018
Playing A Flatter US Yield Curve
The US yield curve could invert towards the end of this year or early in 2019, the head of the St. Louis Federal Reserve said on Monday. For investors it’s a troubling thought. Over the last 50 years, whenever the US yield curve has inverted, a recession has typically followed within a year or two. Yet although the current flattening of the curve is set to continue, the process will be gradual, which means inversion and an ensuing recession...
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Gavekal Research
Udith Sikand
May 14th 2018
The Refuge In Emerging Markets
The year started in such promising form for emerging markets. Unfortunately, the initial promise failed to outlive January. Since early February’s mini-panic, emerging market assets have taken a beating, hammered by the triple whammy of a stronger US dollar, higher US yields, and rising oil prices—a combination that’s typically adverse for global growth, and so deeply negative for emerging markets. The strain has shown up first among “weak links...
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Gavekal Research
Nick Andrews
May 11th 2018
The Outcomes In Italy
Political uncertainty isn’t always bad news. It is now 10 weeks since Italian voters went to the polls in a general election, and still Italy’s bickering political parties have not managed to form a stable coalition government. That hasn’t proved an obstacle for investors. Since the election, Italian equities have gained 9.7% in euro terms, 6.4% in US dollar terms, making Italy the world’s best performing major stock market over the year to date.
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Gavekal Research
Udith Sikand
May 10th 2018
Malaysia’s 92-Year-Old Populist
It is surely the most remarkable political comeback of recent history. At the tender age of 92, former prime minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad won a shock victory in Wednesday’s general election, ousting from power the coalition he himself headed for 22 of the 61 uninterrupted years it ruled the country—ever since independence in 1957.
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Gavekal Research
Anatole Kaletsky
May 09th 2018
Hardly A Game Changer For Oil
While nobody could have been surprised by the full-scale commercial warfare launched against Iran by President Trump yesterday, his announcement raised more questions than answers. The most important question is whether this action will make the world safer or further destabilize Middle Eastern and global geopolitics. The second question is whether the US enforcement of sanctions will really be as tough as Trump’s belligerent rhetoric and the...
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Arthur Kroeber
May 09th 2018
What’s Really At Stake In The US-China Rivalry
It is still possible that the US and China will strike a deal to avert threatened tariffs. But as Arthur argues in this piece, any deal will be mostly cosmetic. The tension between the two is not mainly about trade, but about China’s challenge to US global dominance. The US will almost certainly keep trying to counter China’s efforts to gain power.
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