Gavekal Dragonomics
April 24, 2018
In countries involved with China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative, there is a growing realization of the risks to signing up for the scheme. As debt has mounted and fears of economic dependence have increased, a backlash has begun. But as Tom explains, the lure of easy Chinese capital is a dangerous habit that many countries will struggle to kick.
Gavekal Research
April 24, 2018
If President Trump is to accomplish his stated goal of renewing American economic greatness then an absolute requirement is for productivity growth to be pushed above its current miserable level of 1%. To an extent, the economic cycle is helping him, as a tightening jobs market is pushing up wages and creating incentives for firms to add labor-saving capital investments.
Gavekal Research
April 23, 2018
We all know, don’t we, what defining characteristics the emerging markets have in common? Of course we do. Emerging markets are developing countries on course to become advanced economies, typically with the assistance of powerful demographic tailwinds. But although they enjoy rapid growth over the long term, their institutional architecture is still under construction.
Gavekal Research
March 28, 2018
As the US toughens up its negotiating stance on trade, it seems that ghosts from the Great Depression haunt the land. The men of Davos can be heard to intone gravely that President Donald Trump is aping Herbert Hoover, and as in the 1930s, the global economy may go into a tailspin.
Gavekal Research
March 23, 2018
In the US-China trade war, China is skillfully playing Go while the US is playing tic-tac-toe, badly. Arthur analyses the announcement of US$60bn worth of tariffs by the US on Chinese imports and finds the US flailing without a firm strategy.
Gavekal Research
March 9, 2018
In the aftermath of the past week’s to-ing and fro-ing over steel and aluminum tariffs, there is one thing we can be certain of this year: we are going to see a lot more protectionist theatrics coming out of the White House. What is much less certain is how worried we should be.
Gavekal Research
April 5, 2018
After spending many years as Gavekal’s equity permabull, I joined Charles and Louis last December in warning of the risks to what was then a roaring, and accelerating, bull market.
Gavekal Research
April 4, 2018
I see but through a glass darkly. Sometimes, however there are glimmers of light. Four months ago, in early December, I examined the signals being broadcast by the various investment rules I have long followed and concluded that: “While global markets have been stable for the past 18 months, we may soon be entering a period of greater instability.”
Gavekal Research
April 3, 2018
Two weeks ago I looked back at Enron’s collapse in 2001 and asked whether a crash-and-burn at Tesla or Uber would be this cycle’s catalyst for a fundamental re-assessment of business models.
Gavekal Research
March 19, 2018
Our regular Loser Reports are based on the premise that good money management can be as much about “avoiding losers” as “picking winners”. This month, Louis looks at the (worrying) direction of US fiscal policy and wonders whether the next shoe to drop could be defense contractors and energy producers in the US, and even municipal bonds.
Gavekal Research
November 15, 2017
Our new monthly Loser Report aims to identify things that investors should avoid, whether countries, sectors, themes or asset classes. In this second instalment Louis looks at the tumult affecting Saudi Arabia and assesses the ricochet effect across the Middle East and beyond.
Gavekal Research
October 19, 2017
It is a core Gavekal belief that good money management is more about “avoiding losers” than “picking winners”. Yet sell-side research focuses almost entirely on identifying winners. This leaves an avenue for a small, independent firm like ours to lean the other way and help clients identify “losers”.
Gavekal Research
April 11, 2018
On Monday the Congressional Budget Office published its latest projections for the US economy and government finances, incorporating for the first time the effects of December’s tax cuts.
Gavekal Research
April 4, 2018
Strong US auto sales in March mask a stagnating longer term trend and rising auto loan delinquencies. Happily, as KX explains, neither has broader implications for overall US consumer demand. Although auto sales may no longer be contributing to US growth, rising bad loans in the sector do not prefigure a wider consumer credit crisis.
Gavekal Research
March 28, 2018
A disproportionate increase in Libor relative to other benchmark short term rates over recent months has got many observers flustered. In this concise paper, Will and KX dig down to the cause of the increase, and explain what it does and doesn’t mean for portfolio investors.
Gavekal Research
April 11, 2018
Once again, French public sector workers are en grève—on strike. In the last couple of weeks, railway workers, air traffic controllers and teachers (and their students) have walked out in protest against Emmanuel Macron’s structural reforms. Inevitably such broad opposition to official policy has prompted memories of 1995, and even 1968.
Gavekal Research
March 6, 2018
In Italy’s general election on Sunday, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement emerged as the largest single party in each chamber of parliament, and the populist Lega eclipsed Silvio Berlusconi’s Forze Italia to dominate the right of Italian politics.
Gavekal Research
February 8, 2018
On the face of it, yesterday’s coalition deal between Angela Merkel’s center -right grouping and the Social Democratic Party differed little from that agreed last month. In addition to domestic stimulus measures it backed more European integration.
Gavekal Research
April 18, 2018
The Chinese central bank is no longer in full policy tightening mode. That’s good news for Chinese bank shares. Shortly after government statisticians released economic data for the first quarter on Tuesday, the People’s Bank Of China announced a 100bp reduction in bank reserve requirement ratios.
Gavekal Dragonomics
April 18, 2018
China’s central bank has tweaked monetary policy to soften the slowdown in credit growth. The RRR cut continues its strategy of managing liquidity to limit the economic impact of the campaign against financial risk. Other data for March still point to a moderate growth slowdown in 2018, particularly given the continued strength in property.
Gavekal Dragonomics
April 12, 2018
China’s policymakers have for the first time called for reducing the total debt-to-GDP ratio. This shift has raised worries that monetary policy could get tougher, on top of the tightening of financial regulation that is already underway. In this piece, Long explains that no shift in policy is imminent; if anything, easing is getting more likely.
Gavekal Research
April 16, 2018
Even as winter descended in January, the economic climate seemed decidedly balmy. Eurozone growth for 4Q17 came in at 2.7% YoY, while the year’s first PMI peaked at a post-2006 high of 58.8. Investors liked the idea of deflation finally being slain and a possible earlier-than-expected normalization of monetary policy.
Gavekal Research
March 14, 2018
In the first half of last year making money in European stocks was easy as benchmarks steamed higher on hopes that less political risk would allow an economic surge into sunlit uplands. It has not exactly worked out that way.
Gavekal Research
March 12, 2018
The result of this weekend’s Russian presidential election is not in doubt. But investors in Russia face considerable uncertainty. Despite monetary policy and exchange rate liberalization, Russia has made little progress towards the structural reforms needed to boost its potential growth rate above rock-bottom levels.
Gavekal Research
February 20, 2018
It made headlines around the world earlier this month when the US government’s Energy Information Administration announced that US oil production had hit 10.25mn bpd in the last week of January.
Gavekal Research
August 8, 2017
Charles has often said that the impact of a market shock shows up with the same sort of delay as the effects of dynamite fishing. First the small fry float to the top, then the mid-size fish. Only later does the dead whale break surface.
Gavekal Research
August 3, 2017
A quick glance at our Gavekal TrackMacro application illustrates how the global equity environment remains benign: modest but accelerating growth, low inflation, solid corporate profits and low interest rates. In such an environment, why not load up on equities? Investors have clearly done just that in recent quarters.
Gavekal Research
February 27, 2018
Indian growth in the fiscal year ending March 31 should top 7%, before accelerating to nearer 7.5% in FY18-19. Yet Indian equities failed to rebound with other emerging markets after this month’s correction, and the rout in bonds since last summer is continuing.
Gavekal Research
February 21, 2018
As most emerging equity markets have clawed back a good portion of the losses they suffered in early February’s risk-off, there has been one notable exception. Far from rebounding, Indian stocks have taken another leg down following revelations of a US$1.7bn fraud at Punjab National Bank, the country’s second-largest state-owned lender.
Gavekal Research
November 29, 2017
India reports its third quarter GDP tomorrow and in this chartbook Udith and Tom offer their assessment of the economy. They expect the official numbers to show a pick-up in growth due to firms restocking after the rollout of the new Goods & Services Tax and think this trajectory will continue through to next year.
Gavekal Research
April 13, 2018
At Gavekal’s seminar in Hong Kong this week, Arthur Kroeber, Rosealea Yao and Nick Andrews presented their latest views on the brewing trade war between the US and China, Chinese growth and the property market outlook, and how to capture European growth.
Gavekal Dragonomics
April 5, 2018
In this lively presentation from our recent London seminar, Tom Miller outlines the dramatic political changes that have been taking place in China. He explains what Xi Jinping’s new status means for economic policy and governance, and how the links between the Communist Party and the state are being strengthened.
Gavekal Research
March 29, 2018
In this video interview Joyce discusses why profits should drive a maturing cycle in EMs that increasingly favors commodity-focused markets outside of Asia, and the risks to such a benign scenario.
Gavekal Research
March 6, 2018
At Gavekal, we have no house view, but in recent weeks something of a united front has formed among my erudite colleagues on the subject of Europe and her politics.
Gavekal Research
February 16, 2018
Last week, the Bank of England upped its UK growth forecast and signaled that interest rates may be raised harder and faster than expected. This week, Theresa May’s government maintained its muddled passage towards a European Union exit, which has increasingly fretful multinationals warning that Britain’s economy could be headed for the rocks.
Gavekal Research
January 31, 2018
“I can’t stand London,” one US economist who last year relocated to the UK capital recently complained to Gavekal. “It’s grey and miserable, and all anyone ever talks about is Brexit.” It’s easy to sympathize. Political infighting over the Brexit process dominates UK headlines.
Gavekal Research
April 6, 2018
India’s central bank surveyed the landscape and yesterday painted an upbeat picture. It argued that the investment cycle may be turning, while inflation, the sub-continent’s constant bugbear, is becalmed. With Indian equities off -6% in 2018, this would seem a decent reentry point.
Gavekal Research
March 14, 2018
Three years ago Malaysian prime minister Najib Tun Razak faced the kind of graft allegations that would ultimately defenestrate heads of government in Brazil and South Africa. His political fortunes were further imperiled by Malaysia’s highly trade-dependent economy staggering trough the 2014-15 commodity bust.
Gavekal Research
February 15, 2018
The market correction of the last two weeks has been centered on the US, but also hit emerging markets pretty hard. A year ago, I argued that the sustainability of the EM run-up depended on continued strong global growth, more oil price gains and a further fall in tail risks associated with the financial system.
Gavekal Research
April 3, 2018
With its latest sell-off, the S&P 500 capped two months of volatility by moving officially into correction territory: down -10% from its January high, and below its 200-day moving average for the first time in two years. Is this the end of the long US equity bull market?
Gavekal Research
March 12, 2018
In last week’s Research Conference Call Cedric Gemehl and Nick Andrews presented a thematic approach for playing the European growth story.
Gavekal Dragonomics
December 12, 2017
In this final issue of China Economic Quarterly, an all-star cast of contributors takes a look back at how the country has changed since 1997, and a look forward at how China, and its global impact, might evolve in the next couple of decades.
Gavekal Dragonomics
February 28, 2018
Since markets reopened after the Chinese New Year holiday, the prices of commodities tied to China’s construction cycle have been picking up. This optimism could be justified: construction fundamentals are solid and policy interventions are mostly positive. In this piece, Rosealea explains the upside risks for construction activity in early 2018.
Gavekal Dragonomics
February 20, 2018
China’s financial crackdown is now extending to the funding tricks that local governments use to pay for infrastructure projects, which have long been tolerated in the name of economic growth. This report explains why this crackdown will put more of a chill on infrastructure spending—but also why public-works investment is unlikely to collapse.
Gavekal Dragonomics
January 31, 2018
The populations of Shanghai and Beijing, China’s two largest cities, declined in 2017, in a clear sign that urbanization policies are being enforced more strictly under Xi Jinping. In this piece, Ernan explains how planners have gotten more effective in restricting growth of the largest cities, how controls on almost all cities have tightened.
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’.