Gavekal Dragonomics
January 23, 2020
Although the Wuhan coronavirus has the potential to whipsaw Chinese equities in the near term, it makes sense to assess the prospects for China’s A-share market this year should the current nervousness quickly abate. Thomas argues that market sentiment is likely to turn favorable provided the virus is contained given the trade war truce, easing deflationary pressure and a profit cycle upturn.
Gavekal Research
January 23, 2020
After almost five months of calm, there is a quickening in Italian politics. Luigi Di Maio yesterday stepped down as head of the governing Five Star movement as it faces the prospect of a drubbing in a regional election this weekend. The man most likely to capitalize on his troubles is Matteo Salvini, whose Lega Party is the most popular in Italy, polling 30-35%.
Gavekal Research
January 22, 2020
The investment zeitgeist can be thought of as a set of assumptions that investors hold about structural growth drivers, key prices and policy approaches. An investment manager should understand what makes up the zeitgeist and how it is changing. Louis outlines five foundational pillars that he considers integral to the current situation.
Gavekal Research
December 27, 2019
As the year draws to a close, Louis has decided to review the key events of 2019 that he either didn’t see coming, or whose ramifications he under estimated. Such events could cast a long shadow in the coming quarters as their impact on markets may not yet be fully digested.
Gavekal Research
December 20, 2019
Back in 2003, low interest rates were creating problems for pension funds and insurance companies which could not find enough high-quality bonds offering a decent interest rate.
Gavekal Research
December 18, 2019
Back in October, when the Fed said it would start expanding its balance sheet at the same time as the ECB and BoJ, Louis reasoned that powerful forces were aligning for a global reflation trade. A little over two months later, markets have ripped higher, but the reflation trade has not materialized quite as anticipated.
Gavekal Dragonomics
January 13, 2020
Although US President Donald Trump has called a truce in his trade war with China, the strategic tensions in the US-China relationship still remain. Therefore, as Lance explains in this piece, the US defense sector is already taking concrete steps to reduce its reliance on China for some products with direct military applications.
Gavekal Research
January 2, 2020
President Trump has confirmed he will sign his trade deal with China on January 15, and the PBOC has reinforced its tilt to more dovish policies. This combination of events means the macro factors that drove December’s rally—a receding trade war and a global easing of monetary policy—are still in place for January, if increasingly priced in.
Gavekal Research
December 16, 2019
The “phase one” US-China trade deal announced last week still has some hoops to pass through before it becomes real: completion of a bilingual legal text and formal signing in January. Still, both sides have incentives to avoid the economic damage from further tariff escalation, so the deal will almost surely come into force.
Gavekal Research
January 13, 2020
US unemployment is at its lowest in half a century. Yet for investors, the strength of the US jobs market is far from an unalloyed good. The biggest macro risk to the bull market in US equities this year is a sharp rise in inflation.
Gavekal Research
January 10, 2020
US corporate bonds had a great run in 2019, and have started 2020 on a strong note. Both investment grade and high yield indexes rose by around 14% last year, with credit spreads contracting substantially in the fourth quarter to approach their narrowest for this cycle.
Gavekal Research
January 3, 2020
Global markets began 2020 on a bullish note, with the US S&P 500 climbing to a fresh record close, up a chunky 4.3% over the last month. Indeed, the US monetary backdrop at the start of 2020 is reminiscent of that in early 2017, a year which saw the S&P 500 climb 19.4%.
Gavekal Research
January 14, 2020
Last summer, as Hong Kong’s police seemed set to run out of tear gas, betting against the Hong Kong dollar peg seemed like a safe bet. It hasn’t exactly worked out that way, and in recent weeks the Hong Kong dollar has strengthened to the strong side of its limited trading band. In this piece, Louis explains why.
Gavekal Research
November 29, 2019
After easily passing both houses of Congress, Donald Trump had little choice but to sign bills dictating the US government’s treatment of Hong Kong. Its significance will be determined by Beijing’s response, and for now that is likely to stay focused on achieving an interim trade deal that delivers a roll-back on US import tariffs.
Gavekal Research
November 25, 2019
The last 15 years has seen pro-government parties in Hong Kong rely on voter apathy and division across the democratic camp to often rule the roost. That changed yesterday, with establishment parties getting thumped in local council elections as voters expressed anger at the government’s handling of violent street protests in the last six months.
Gavekal Dragonomics
January 13, 2020
Although US President Donald Trump has called a truce in his trade war with China, the strategic tensions in the US-China relationship still remain. Therefore, as Lance explains in this piece, the US defense sector is already taking concrete steps to reduce its reliance on China for some products with direct military applications.
Gavekal Dragonomics
December 5, 2019
The Chinese government has made artificial intelligence a national development priority and is dedicating huge resources to the task. Yet, as Lance explains in this report, the effort is suffering from mismanagement, wasteful provincial competition and difficulty retaining skilled workers.
Gavekal Dragonomics
November 13, 2019
US sanctions on Chinese technology companies have grown progressively less effective since the US government used them to take down ZTE. Huawei has refused to collapse, and other targeted firms are not too troubled. In this piece, Dan explains why export controls, once the kiss of death, are becoming just another operational challenge.
Gavekal Dragonomics
January 8, 2020
China’s central bank is moving forward with its interest-rate reforms, ordering mortgages to be reset based on the new loan prime rate. Rosealea explains that this shift will make monetary policy more transparent and effective by re-linking mortgage rates to official policy rates, but it does not herald a cycle of major cuts in mortgage rates.
Gavekal Dragonomics
December 17, 2019
China's latest economic figures show continued growth into the end of this year. In this report, Thomas outlines how these data points, combined with the fragile US-China trade truce, might give Chinese policymakers the space they need to achieve their goal of maintaining stable growth without resorting to excessive stimulus.
Gavekal Dragonomics
December 11, 2019
Beijing has been largely successful in balancing a response to China’s economic slowdown with a need to continue its financial cleanup, but how sustainable is this delicate status quo? In this report, Andrew lays out different scenarios and the likelihood of policymakers being able to maintain their “selective easing” strategy through 2020.
Gavekal Research
January 15, 2020
After Sweden's Riskbank in October said it would end negative interest rates as the dangers from the policy outweighed the waning advantages, the krona rose 5.3% against the euro and 3.8% against the US dollar until the end of the year. Since then, however, the unit has slumped -1.2% on a trade-weighted basis.
Gavekal Research
January 13, 2020
On the face of it, Germany’s industrial slump is still worsening. The worry has been that a cratering of Europe’s industrial economy proves bad enough to reverse the “internal” recovery spurred by super-easy monetary policy.
Gavekal Research
December 12, 2019
The “European Green Deal” announced with much fanfare on Wednesday was long on ambitious targets, short on implementation details about how they will be achieved. The lack of detail leaves investors to ask how Brussels’ green deal will affect the continent’s growth prospects. Here it is possible to set out some pointers.
Gavekal Research
January 8, 2020
At very first glance, the Iranian missile attack on two US airbases in Iraq early Wednesday might appear to confirm worst case fears that the US and Iran are heading irreversibly towards all-out war.
Gavekal Research
January 6, 2020
To judge by the tone of the media coverage and much of the analysis since Friday, the world is teetering on the brink of an apocalyptic war in the Middle East between the US and Iran. But a dispassionate examination of the US-Iran confrontation indicates that the probability of an all-out shooting war between the two sides remains small.
Gavekal Research
December 5, 2019
Who would have thought at the time of the September attacks on Saudi that the oil sector would perform so dismally in the weeks after? This has been in line with a longer term underperformance, which has led many investors to dismiss the energy sector as uninvestible.
Gavekal Research
January 7, 2020
Few major economies and markets are more exposed to a possible Middle Eastern conflict than heavily oil-import-dependent India.
Gavekal Research
December 4, 2019
After India’s economic growth rate slumped to a six-year low in the third quarter, the government of Narendra Modi is throwing fiscal caution to the winds in an attempt to juice up growth.
Gavekal Research
November 7, 2019
Narendra Modi’s government has set out ambitious objectives for India’s energy policy, targeting wider access to affordable energy, a greatly increased role for renewables, and stronger national energy security. The trouble is that these aims appear to be contradictory, and the government has yet to set out a coherent plan for implementation.
Gavekal Research
January 10, 2020
Taiwan goes to the polls on Saturday in a presidential election where pro-independence incumbent Tsai Ing-wen looks like a shoo-in against the more China-friendly Kuomintang candidate. Tsai is unlikely to push China’s red lines and cross-strait relations should not be imperiled.
Gavekal Research
December 12, 2019
India’s economy has slowed down dramatically from around 8% growth a little over a year ago to 4.5% in the most recent quarter. Udith reckons the primary causes of this are domestic factors, as the financial system has continued to struggle while the policy response is too weak to be effective. The risk for the rupee is to the downside.
Gavekal Research
December 6, 2019
Ever since the European debt crisis Germany has outperformed the rest of Europe thanks to booming external demand, while the rest of the continent suffered from a restrictive policy mix. However, lately these conditions seem to be reversing, with Germany suffering from a collapse in its crucial auto industry.
Gavekal Research
December 19, 2019
In 2017, as the Brexit negotiations between London and Brussels got going in earnest, I wrote a paper explaining why the European Commission’s officials and their counterparts across the continent were going to do everything in their power to make the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union as difficult as they possibly could (see May’s
Gavekal Research
December 18, 2019
We now know why markets reacted so nervously to Boris Johnson’s election landslide last Thursday. The lack of follow-through after that evening’s exit poll and the retreat when trading resumed on Friday morning was suspicious. But there were no clear explanations until Monday evening, when everything became clear.
Gavekal Research
December 13, 2019
With the confirmation of a conservative victory in the UK election, and a long awaited trade deal between the US and China, the pieces are falling into place for a weakening of the US dollar and a continuation of the global reflation trade. Already, both sterling and the euro have strengthened in response to the reports of a Tory victory.
Gavekal Research
January 16, 2020
Contrary to investor fears, the victory of Chinaskeptic Tsai Ing-wen in last weekend’s Taiwanese presidential election is unlikely to lead to a marked further deterioration of cross-straits relations between Taipei and Beijing.
Gavekal Research
January 14, 2020
The US decided on Tuesday to drop its designation of China as a currency manipulator. Beyond the short term politics of US-China bilateral relations, the Treasury's report was also notable for the countries named on its “monitoring list” of potential currency manipulators.
Gavekal Research
January 9, 2020
Washington and Tehran are dialing down the geopolitical tensions, at least for now. The US and China are about to sign a trade deal. Big central banks are spraying around liquidity. And the mighty US dollar is looking mortal.
Gavekal Research
January 10, 2020
The past few weeks have seen Chinese policymakers signaling clearly that the campaign of selective easing begun last year will be carried on into 2020 even as growth continues to slow. With trade war risk lowered, and the electronics and auto sector cycles bottoming out, the outlook for equity and bond markets is fairly benign.
Gavekal Research
January 7, 2020
In 2019, investors were cowed by the US-China trade war and Chinese policymakers’ efforts to balance growth and financial stability. This year, these factors will weigh less heavily: the US and China are set to ink a trade deal, while China is shifting more toward growth-supporting policies.
Gavekal Research
December 4, 2019
After India’s economic growth rate slumped to a six-year low in the third quarter, the government of Narendra Modi is throwing fiscal caution to the winds in an attempt to juice up growth.
Gavekal Dragonomics
November 21, 2019
China’s financial regulators are squeezing funding for property developers in order to discourage land speculation and cool down property prices. In this piece, Rosealea argues the crackdown has been fairly successful, and does not pose a big risk to construction. Slightly easier demand-side policies will help offset tough supply-side restrictions.
Gavekal Dragonomics
October 30, 2019
China’s property market has held up surprisingly well in 2019, but will that strength last? In her annual chartbook, Rosealea examines key market trends and explains the outlook for 2020. Flexible policy can probably continue to avoid a deep decline in housing sales, but construction activity and materials demand are almost certain to slow.
Gavekal Dragonomics
September 24, 2019
China’s government has launched a new program to renovate older residential compounds, which some are touting as a massive new investment stimulus. As Rosealea explains in this piece, such hopes are misplaced. But the new spending will help cushion the impact of the cutbacks of the subsidies delivered through the slum redevelopment program.
Gavekal Research
November 23, 2012
In our politically correct age the pressure to bow down before certain popularly accepted and apparently proven “truths” can be overwhelming. In the aftermath of the US elections, two such nostrums are unnecessarily vexing investors—the urgency of deficit reduction and fear of higher taxes.
Gavekal Research
July 20, 2011
In A Study of History, Toynbee explains that the role of a society’s elite is to rise to the challenges of the times, and find solutions fitting to those times, even if this involves a radical break with the past.
Gavekal Research
February 28, 2011
Perhaps the most famous economic law is the one that there is no such thing as a free lunch. By keeping US short rates at abnormally low levels beyond the financial crisis and as growth bounces back beyond the dreams of the wildest optimists, the Fed increasingly seems to be trying to ‘feed the US economy for nothing’.