Gavekal Dragonomics

Andrew Batson

Feb 23rd 2021

China’s government is focusing on a new economic metric: the manufacturing share of GDP, which looks to feature in the next five-year plan. Rather than accept de-industrialization, it wants “stability” in manufacturing. In this piece, Andrew explains why China is worried about the fall in the manufacturing share, and whether it can be stopped.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Ernan Cui

Feb 19th 2021

China spent the Lunar New Year indoors and online. Travel over the seven days of the holiday declined 77% from 2019 levels, but sales of major retailers increased by 4.9%. In this Quick Take, Ernan explains how holiday restrictions and the January Covid outbreak in north-eastern China has depressed services and boosted retail sales.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Wei He

Feb 16th 2021

In 2021, China’s central government is gearing up to once again tackle the hidden debts of local authorities, toughening its stance after a couple of lax years. As Wei explains in this piece, the solution is likely to be a mixed one, combining limits on new borrowing, partial bailouts of some debt, and a lot of kicking the can down the road.

Gavekal Research

Udith Sikand

Feb 12th 2021

A surge in commodity prices has led to hopes for a new “super-cycle”. Bulls say that commodities have been in the doghouse for a decade, ensuring limited new capacity additions, yet demand is now getting supercharged globally by easy monetary and fiscal policies. Bears retort that commodity investors have a case of the vapors, as the next phase of global growth, especially in China, will be less resource-intensive.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Rosealea Yao

Feb 10th 2021

Housing sales growth is holding up well despite financial tightening and hawkish policymaker rhetoric. In this report, Rosealea explains why regulators are pressuring developers to cut prices, while increased household savings means more families can take advantage of these discounts. 2021 will therefore likely be a strong year for housing sales.

Gavekal Research

Anatole Kaletsky

Feb 04th 2021

Is the recent speculative mania the beginning of the end of the post-2009 bull market in stocks? Or is it only the end of the beginning? Anatole argues that today’s speculation is reminiscent of the later stages of dot-com bubble, but he remains a confirmed bull on global equities. In this paper he offers six reasons why this is no contradiction.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Xiaoxi Zhang

Feb 02nd 2021

Finance has been an exciting new frontier for China’s internet companies, as lax regulation and technological changes enabled a few years of rapid growth. This frontier era for fintech is now over. As Xiaoxi explains in this piece, China’s financial regulators are set on controlling what they now view as the overly risky growth of the sector.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Wei He

Jan 29th 2021

Short-term interbank rates surged to their highest levels in more than two years on Thursday after a surprising move by the central bank to drain liquidity from the market. In this Quick Take, Wei explains why this liquidity tightening does not signal a change in monetary policy, and why rates should return to normal over the coming weeks.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Ernan Cui, Rosealea Yao, Wei He

Jan 28th 2021

China enters 2021 having achieved a world-leading recovery, but now faces a tricky balancing act to secure its economic trajectory. Ernan Cui, Rosealea Yao and Wei He discussed how the authorities are responding to the latest rebound in Covid cases, what their strategy is for dealing with a frothy property market, and how they will balance growth with financial stability.

Gavekal Research

Dan Wang

Jan 26th 2021

The race to vaccinate the world in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic will be one of the most complex projects ever attempted. Most developed economies aim to fully vaccinate their adult population by year’s end. Dan outlines the manufacturing and logistical challenges involved the vaccine rollout

Gavekal Dragonomics

Ernan Cui

Jan 22nd 2021

The Chinese government has responded quickly and negatively to community group buying platforms, the latest business-model fad among China’s consumer internet companies. In this report, Ernan explains why subsidized pricing on the platforms has drawn regulatory attention and how this will affect future growth prospects for China’s big tech firms.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave, Anatole Kaletsky, Will Denyer, Arthur Kroeber

Jan 22nd 2021

A Democratic US administration is set to control all arms of the US government for the first time since 2010. Will this mean a fiscal blowout, causing big changes in the pricing of treasuries and the US dollar? Louis, Anatole and Will assess the possibilities.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Jan 20th 2021

Charles revisits the idea of the Greek "logos", "idiotes", demagogues and citizens, and how the Greeks believed that those who controlled the logos—the language used to describe the world—ipso facto controlled the political system. Problems arise when a new, competing logos started to emerge.

Gavekal Research

Tom Miller

Jan 18th 2021

As the outgoing Trump administration exits with a flurry of executive actions directed against China, Beijing is not sitting around hoping for Joe Biden to spark a new era of détente with the US. The recent tightening of control in Hong Kong shows that President Xi Jinping has no intention of giving an easy early ride to a leader who has pledged to build a “united front of US allies and partners” to constrain a resurgent China. The European...

Gavekal Dragonomics

Thomas Gatley

Jan 14th 2021

China’s exports have been boosted by two side effects of the Covid-19 pandemic: a shift of consumer spending to goods from services, and the failure of manufacturing in other countries to get back to full capacity. How long can those advantages last? Thomas argues they will continue to boost exports through the first half of 2021.

Gavekal Research

Simon Pritchard

Jan 13th 2021

Last Wednesday Hong Kong police arrested scores of pro-democracy activists for joining forces to try and win a local parliamentary election and thereafter block government legislation. The use of a tough new national security law to suppress routine political organization threatens more international opprobrium that will further cut the city off from the Anglosphere.

Gavekal Research

Arthur Kroeber

Jan 08th 2021

As a new wave of Covid infections grips major economies, and social restrictions return, the hopes for a return to pre-pandemic normal rest on the rollout of vaccines. With vaccine production ramping up, most developed economies could reach herd immunity by late in 2021. But many emerging economies will take longer, and several risk factors could still derail the rollout.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Wei He

Jan 07th 2021

The People's Bank of China is one of the world’s most hawkish central banks—but just how hawkish will it be in 2021? Bond market investors worry that the PBOC, eager to normalize policy, will be pushed into hiking rates by higher inflation. In this piece, Wei argues those worries are misplaced, and that bond yields have more room to fall.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Andrew Batson

Jan 05th 2021

The antitrust investigation into Alibaba, following close on the heels of the cancellation of the Ant IPO, has raised big questions about the changing political environment for Chinese internet companies. In this piece, Andrew considers the best- and worst-case scenarios, and concludes that at a minimum, growth prospects have dimmed.

Gavekal Research

Anatole Kaletsky

Dec 22nd 2020

In recent years Anatole has written a series of articles describing 10 key risks for investors. He readily accepts that this year’s exercise was rendered redundant by the emergence of Covid-19 in January. Next year, however, he believes that a greater range of factors could weigh on markets and in this piece assesses them one by one.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Dec 18th 2020

As he gazes into next year, Charles has reviewed some of his most trusted indicators and found that the US is moving towards an inflationary boom that should mean stronger growth, rising inflation and higher bond yields. If the Federal Reserve acts to crimp this adjustment in the price of money, he warns that the US dollar could tank.

Gavekal Research

Vincent Tsui

Dec 16th 2020

Hopes for a return to normality as Covid vaccines get rolled out have helped fuel a global rotation from growth to value equities, and from previous “Covid winners” to “Covid losers”. Due to its better pandemic management, clear policy headroom and exposure to the electronics sector, Asia has generally been a Covid winner. Hence, Udith Sikand and myself have argued that beaten-up non-Asian markets are the way to play this rotation (see Asia’s...

Gavekal Dragonomics

Dragonomics Team

Dec 15th 2020

China’s economic momentum continued to accelerate in November despite an October peak in credit growth, with exports and manufacturing investment taking the lead while more policy-dependent sectors plateaued. In this piece, the Dragonomics team explains why China is likely to maintain its strong economic growth through 1Q21.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Xiaoxi Zhang, Andrew Batson

Dec 14th 2020

China’s banking system has been steadily decentralizing for thirty years, with smaller and local banks gaining market share from the large, centrally controlled state banks. In this piece, Xiaoxi and Andrew show that this long-term trend has now come to a halt, and argue that the banking system will start to re-centralize in coming years.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Louis Gave, Arthur Kroeber, Thomas Gatley, Wei He, Dan Wang

Dec 09th 2020

Arthur Kroeber and Dan Wang sketched out the likely course of the US-China rivalry under the new Biden administration; He Wei and Thomas Gatley analyzed key developments in China's economy and markets, and Gavekal CEO Louis Gave presented his views on the forces shaping global markets.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Dec 08th 2020

It is an axiom of Gavekal’s research that the starting point for looking at the global macro landscape is that three prices matter above all others: the 10-year US treasury yield, the price of oil, and the US dollar exchange rate. In the third of a three-part series, Louis examines the US dollar.

Gavekal Research

Will Denyer, Vincent Tsui, Thomas Gatley, Udith Sikand, Cedric Gemehl

Dec 04th 2020

The US equity market is seeing a switch from the winners of the pandemic like technology and online retail, to the beaten-up losers such as travel plays. At the same time, hopes for a strong economic recovery in 2021 are juicing up value stocks. Similar dynamics are being seen in other major markets. Our team of analysts discussed what happens next, and what’s in store in 2021.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Wei He

Dec 01st 2020

China’s financial regulators recently stepped in to calm a corporate bond market roiled by the unexpected default of a local state-owned enterprise. In this report, Wei argues that this reassurance does not translate to a reassertion of the implicit sovereign guarantee for local SOE debts; in fact, more local SOE defaults look likely for 2021.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Dan Wang

Nov 30th 2020

The US government’s August decision to deny Huawei access to every advanced chip in the world was a death sentence for the firm, but its execution has not been swift. In this report, Dan outlines the uneven effects of the decision on Huawei’s different business lines and explains why any solution to the firm’s troubles will have to be political.

Gavekal Research

Simon Pritchard, Tom Holland, Dan Wang, Vincent Tsui

Nov 26th 2020

Hong Kong has spent five months living under a tough national security law imposed on it from Beijing. The direct impact has been a sharp curtailment of opposition political activity that has sparked sanctions from the United States. Now, China has plans for more changes to Hong Kong's legal system, with a requirement for judges to be patriots. In yesterday’s webinar, Vincent Tsui, Dan Wang, Tom Holland and Simon Pritchard discussed the...

Gavekal Dragonomics

Dan Wang

Nov 24th 2020

Chinese bureaucrats are now busily drafting plans to achieve self-reliance in high technology. But as Dan argues in this piece, this latest industrial-policy push will be different. Thanks to US restrictions on Chinese firms, notably Huawei, the private sector is already convinced that developing substitutes for imported technology is necessary.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Xiaoxi Zhang

Nov 20th 2020

The surprise suspension of Ant Group’s IPO on November 4 was caused by the publication of new rules on online microfinance—a tiny sector that accounts for just 0.3% of China’s banking system. In this piece, Xiaoxi explains why microfinance is of so great macro importance to China’s financial regulators, and what they will do next.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Xiaoxi Zhang, Wei He

Nov 17th 2020

A missed debt payment last week by a local state-owned enterprise in Henan province has created turmoil in China's corporate bond market. In this report, Xiaoxi and Wei explain why the default undermined one of the market's fundamental supports and why investors are now likely to be more discerning between provinces.

Gavekal Research

Tom Miller

Nov 16th 2020

On Sunday, China signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. With the 15-nation trade agreement, Beijing has successfully positioned itself at the center of the region’s trade and investment networks. This will make it hard for US President-Elect Joe Biden to fulfill his pledge to place “America back at the head of the table” in international relations, at least in Asia.

Gavekal Research

Arthur Kroeber, Andrew Batson, Dan Wang, Wei He, Thomas Gatley

Nov 13th 2020

Having gone into lockdown first, China was also the first economy to emerge, and has since enjoyed a rapid rebound in industrial production and exports, reflected in financial markets. But now that the economy is back to “normal”, policymakers have returned to a conservative stance which focuses on financial stability.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Nov 11th 2020

China is emerging from the pandemic stronger than its big economic rivals in the West. It is an irony that the US and Europe are applying expansive Keynesian-type solutions of the type China has deployed in recent crises, but now seems to be rejecting. The result, Louis argues, may be that China starts to enjoy a "triple merit" scenario.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Rosealea Yao

Nov 10th 2020

China’s property sector led the rebound from Covid-19 lockdown, but how long can the new boom last? In her annual chartbook, Rosealea explains the outlook for 2021 after a very volatile 2020. Housing policy has turned tighter after signs of overheating, which points to sales flattening and construction activity declining next year.

Gavekal Research

Gilliam Collinsworth Hamilton

Nov 05th 2020

While the US has been busy tying itself in knots over the 2020 presidential election, the Chinese government, with no electoral calendar to worry about, has quietly been setting out its grand strategy for the country’s development over the next two decades. In this video, Gilliam cuts through the impenetrable ideological jargon to identify the key themes running through Beijing’s long term policy pronouncements.

Gavekal Research

Andrew Batson

Nov 04th 2020

Ant Group’s US$35bn IPO was set to be the ultimate market validation of the new world of fintech and financial innovation. But by suspending Ant’s IPO at the last minute China’s financial regulators have demonstrated there is still a force more powerful than the coming wave of financial innovation: the state. It’s a lesson that big tech giants outside China may also need to take to heart, as they face increasing regulatory scrutiny from US and...

Gavekal Dragonomics

Thomas Gatley

Nov 03rd 2020

Net profits of China’s listed non-financial firms surged in Q3, reflecting the fundamental improvement in the Chinese economy. In this Quick Take, Thomas explains why business conditions, although improved, are not as good as the net profit figures might suggest—and why Q4 will likely represent the peak of China’s corporate profit cycle.

Gavekal Research

Vincent Tsui

Oct 30th 2020

Massive inflows of capital into Hong Kong’s financial system ahead of this week’s record-breaking US$34bn IPO for Chinese fintech giant Ant Group represent a major vote of investor confidence in Hong Kong’s future as a financial center, just months after many international commentators were writing the city’s obituary following Beijing’s imposition of a sweeping national security law. Vincent explores the underpinnings of this confidence.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Gilliam Collinsworth Hamilton

Oct 28th 2020

Party officials are gathering this week to discuss China’s 14th Five-Year Plan, a document intended to guide the country’s development from 2021 to 2025. In this report, Gilliam outlines the plan’s likely major themes and why it represents the first step in Xi Jinping’s ambitions of transforming China into a “modern socialist country” by 2049.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Oct 27th 2020

A core thesis for Louis is that in financial markets three prices matter above all others: the price of oil, the price of US dollars and the yield on 10-year US treasuries. In this second part of a three-part series, he addresses the bond market question. US treasuries are currently pricing in a highly deflationary future on both a cyclical and structural basis. Such an outcome would defy recent experience in the US bond market.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Xiaoxi Zhang

Oct 22nd 2020

The pandemic economy has not been very good for China’s banks, with net profits plunging an unprecedented 24% in Q2 as the government pressured them to sacrifice profits. In this piece, Xiaoxi explains why things are not actually so bad: bank profits have been hurt mainly by aggressive provisioning requirements, which are likely to ease in 2021.

Gavekal Research

Vincent Tsui, Udith Sikand

Oct 20th 2020

Last spring, key beneficiaries of the rich world’s fiscal and monetary largesse were emerging market economies, which enjoyed unprecedented policy flexibility that gave broad-based, if not universal, financial relief. The next turn in this crisis is, however, unlikely to float as many boats, as shown by divergent inflationary trends across EM economies.

Gavekal Research

Andrew Batson

Oct 16th 2020

The advance of the private sector and the retreat of the state sector has been central to China’s long transformation from an isolated socialist nation to a globally connected economy. Yet the notions of China’s private sector being either in the ascendency, or facing a squeeze in the statist Xi Jinping era are not born out by the facts. Andrew Batson discussed the findings in his recent major piece of research on this topic.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Oct 14th 2020

In financial markets, there are three prices matter above all: the price of the US dollar, the yield on 10-year US treasuries, and the price of oil. Get the direction of these right, and the other pieces of the investment puzzle fall into place. In the first of a three-part series, Louis examines in depth what could cause the oil price to break out of its current trading range.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Oct 13th 2020

In half a century of doing financial analysis, Charles has acquired the core conviction that there is not one type of bear market, but two. Think of these as the gentle black bear-type downturn that is survivable and the highly-dangerous, big brown grizzly collapse that for many money managers proves fatal. In this piece, Charles seeks to map this insight with some analytical rigor.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Ernan Cui

Oct 12th 2020

Tourism over China's weeklong National Day holiday disappointed, with tourism revenues down 30% YoY. In this Quick Take, Ernan writes that Chinese consumers still seem concerned about long-distance travel, and are instead spending their money locally; however, the overall recovery in consumer spending is still continuing apace.