Gavekal Research

Arthur Kroeber

Mar 26th 2020

Is the cure worse than the disease? This question is already being asked about the economic lockdowns being imposed in response to Covid-19. It will be asked a lot more in the coming weeks as the economic pain gets worse. The short answer is that the cure is costly, but needed; and well-designed policies can enable a transition to a much lower-cost approach by mid-May if not earlier.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Mar 24th 2020

As investors survey the shattered remnants of the past decade’s bull market, they can reasonably assume that the winners of the future will not be those who dominated in the last decade. Louis applies the Gavekal Four Quadrants framework to address the question of which asset class will emerge victorious in a new macro environment.

Gavekal Research

Arthur Kroeber

Mar 23rd 2020

We are heading into another difficult week. Covid-19 case numbers and fatalities outside China continue to grow rapidly. Social lockdowns are spreading to more US states and European countries. In the short run, fiscal support is on the way. Longer term, governments will have to start asking the uncomfortable question of when the economic pain outweighs the public health gain.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Rosealea Yao

Mar 20th 2020

Even as China’s property market has experienced an unprecedented decline, central government policymakers have kept a tight leash on official support. However, given growing signs of a lasting disruption to the sector, Rosealea believes that Beijing will tolerate more ambitious municipal efforts to keep local markets afloat.

Gavekal Research

Udith Sikand, Will Denyer

Mar 19th 2020

Policymakers in the world’s biggest economic blocks are responding to the current crisis with fiscal and monetary “shock and awe”. Yet even as the much maligned European Central Bank joined the asset purchase party, markets have continued to crater. For all the coordinated economic responses to the coronavirus pandemic, there has been no serious effort to free up the offshore market for US dollars.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Wei He

Mar 18th 2020

The People’s Bank of China has failed to join other central banks in the recent wave of rate cuts. But with the coronavirus now threatening a substantial hit to global demand, the PBOC is going to need to do more. In this piece, Wei argues that a cut in the benchmark deposit rate—a tool that has not been used in four years—is on the way soon.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Thomas Gatley, Andrew Batson

Mar 17th 2020

Given the extent of China’s coronavirus lockdown, it’s not surprising to see double-digit declines in economic indicators. The real surprise is that the statistics bureau did not fudge the data, as analysts expected it would, and printed numbers bad enough to be plausible. This suggests authorities will be pragmatic about the growth impact for 2020.

Gavekal Research

Anatole Kaletsky

Mar 16th 2020

Contrary to initial expectations, the spread of the coronavirus around the world is not following the relatively benign trajectories experienced in China outside of Hubei, and in Korea, Singapore and the rest of Asia. Instead, across Europe—and likely in the US—the spread increasingly resembles the path it took in Hubei. This threatens both medical and economic disasters.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Mar 13th 2020

In fraught times, Charles has decided to keep it simple and focus only on what he knows. In this piece, he considers changing relationships between oil prices, long-bond rates, US equities and the dollar and offers various approaches that could help investors survive the bear market.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Dan Wang

Mar 10th 2020

Plans enacted by US national security hawks to toughen sanctions on Huawei and other Chinese tech firms have run into stiff resistance from both American tech firms and President Trump himself. Dan reports that, amidst this stalemate, both factions are mobilizing for a protracted fight over the fate of restrictions on exports to China.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Mar 10th 2020

Amid the Covid-19 outbreak and the Saudi-Russia oil price war, markets are essentially priced for a scenario in which the US government does little in response, leaving the policy reaction to the Federal Reserve. While this may be the most plausible scenario, other possible US government actions, at home and abroad, have different implications for markets.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Thomas Gatley, Xiaoxi Zhang, Wei He

Mar 09th 2020

Chinese policymakers have announced a wide range of monetary and fiscal measures intended to help the smaller firms hit hardest by the Covid-19 outbreak. The helpfulness of these measures will likely only be marginal; however, Thomas, Xiaoxi and Wei are cautiously optimistic that most SMEs can still weather the ongoing crisis.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave, Andrew Batson, Cedric Gemehl

Mar 06th 2020

In Thursday’s conference call, Louis-Vincent Gave, Andrew Batson and Cedric Gemehl discussed the policy and market reactions to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Lance Noble

Mar 06th 2020

China’s government is rethinking its approach to biosecurity in order to reduce the odds of future outbreaks of infectious disease. In this piece, Lance explains what treating biosecurity as a part of national security will mean for regulation, public health and the biotechnology sector.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Mar 04th 2020

The bull market of the last few years has been built on the twin assumptions that globalization will continue, and that interest rates will remain low for years to come. These convictions have propelled an exponential wave of optimization. As the coronavirus calls key assumptions into question, the worry is that the giant bubble which sits at the heart of the system may be about to burst.

Gavekal Research

Anatole Kaletsky

Mar 02nd 2020

Now that the Federal Reserve has hit the panic button, is it time to try to catch the falling knife on Wall Street? Technical analysis and investor sentiment suggest that equity prices may still have somewhat further to fall before they find a sustainable floor, even if the viral threat is probably overstated and stimulus by major governments will eventually outweigh the temporary economic collapse.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Rosealea Yao

Feb 28th 2020

Steelmakers have continued production despite a precipitous drop in demand, resulting in a short-term inventory glut. As Rosealea explains, this will lead to continued downward pressure on steel prices, at least until the construction sector recovers from the coronavirus crisis and drives demand back up to meet supply.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Wei He

Feb 27th 2020

As size of China’s growth shock from the coronavirus shutdown becomes clear, yet another infrastructure stimulus looks to be on the way. In this piece, Wei assesses the scale of the possible boost. The most likely outcome is that public-works spending accelerates to 8-9% in 2020 from just 3.3%, a nice boost but still well below historical peaks.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Feb 26th 2020

Most serious investors know MV=PQ, where M is the money supply, V is the velocity of money, P is the general price level and Q is output. The typical approach is to wait for M, P and Q to be published and so derive V, which renders the equation a mere tautology. In contrast, Charles has long thought V to be an independent variable whose variations impact P and Q.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Thomas Gatley

Feb 25th 2020

The shutdown of normal economic activity during the coronavirus outbreak is going to mean a huge hit to corporate cashflow in Q1. In this piece, Thomas outlines the difficult road ahead for Chinese firms: many will have no choice but to default on cash obligations to staff, banks and suppliers, as well as curtail their capex plans for the year.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Xiaoxi Zhang

Feb 20th 2020

A March spike in maturing bonds is going to mean significant liquidity challenges for many companies, particularly as they continue to grapple with the coronavirus and its economic fallout. The government has announced some supportive policies, but as Xiaoxi explains these measures are likely to favor large and state-owned companies, leaving smaller firms at risk of going under.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Feb 19th 2020

The financial world is organized around two axes: time and risk. If some authority manipulates the time axis, the effect will be to compromise the risk axis. This is not an abstract formulation. It has the potential to threaten portfolios and the solvency of major institutions.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Feb 18th 2020

Louis spent last week meeting with clients in the US and discussions centered on the coronavirus situation. His starting point is that the Chinese authorities now have every incentive to overstate, rather than understate, the severity of the viral outbreak. He explores the impact on growth in the rest of the world and asset price movements.

Gavekal Research

Anatole Kaletsky

Feb 17th 2020

In the third paper of his series about the risks that threaten asset markets in both the short and long run, Anatole turns his attention to four longer term risks that are widely discussed—and even more widely misunderstood. Investors should worry about demographics and climate change, although not for the reasons many believe. In contrast, they can sleep relatively easily about debt and productivity growth.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Rosealea Yao

Feb 12th 2020

While the 2003 SARS outbreak had only a transitory impact on China’s housing market, the 2020 coronavirus episode is proving to be much more serious. In this piece, Rosealea argues that the big hit to housing sales will leave developers short of cash and limit their ability to keep projects going. This points to a lingering drag on construction.

Gavekal Research

Didier Darcet

Feb 10th 2020

Last week, Didier applied his quantitative risk management tools to model the spread of the coronavirus, setting a bound on catastrophic risk. Thankfully that bound appears to have been undershot. In this update, he models the probable trajectory of the epidemic from here and finds reasons to hope the spread of the virus has been contained.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Wei He

Feb 07th 2020

China’s central bank has moved quickly to demonstrate its readiness to support an economy battered by the coronavirus outbreak. But Wei argues that it is too early to assume the PBOC is going to abandon its policy of selective easing and aggressively cut rates, as it still has reasons to hold to its its conservative policy stance.

Gavekal Research

Tom Holland

Feb 05th 2020

Nowhere in markets has the impact of the Wuhan flu made itself felt as forcefully as in the oil price. The price of Brent crude has fallen -24% in just four weeks to US$54.58/bbl on Wednesday morning in Asia on fears of massive demand destruction in disease-hit China. WTI has fallen by a similar amount. This slide has great immediacy for investors in the energy sector.

Gavekal Research

Thomas Gatley

Feb 04th 2020

The Chinese authorities’ attempts over the weekend to shore up confidence among domestic investors came to naught on Monday as prices plummeted when the onshore stock markets reopened after their 10-day lunar new year shut-down. Yet, once signs emerge that the outbreak it is contained, the resulting relief rally should combine with underlying tailwinds to propel stocks higher again.

Gavekal Research

Tom Holland, Vincent Tsui

Feb 03rd 2020

The rapid spread of Covid-19 has spooked investors and triggered steep sell-offs in Chinese and Asian markets. But there are good reasons to hope the spread of the disease will be contained in the coming weeks, at which point Chinese and regional equities can recover.

Gavekal Research

Andrew Batson, Ernan Cui

Jan 28th 2020

The economic costs of the Wuhan virus are not simply a function of how deadly it is, but of the measures China’s government takes to contain it—which have rapidly escalated to an unprecedented severity. The shutdown of normal travel and business now in place across much of China is certain to deliver a hit to growth in the first quarter of 2020.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Gilliam Collinsworth Hamilton

Jan 24th 2020

In 2015 the Chinese government set out its 13th five-year plan, with economic and social targets that it aimed to hit by the end of 2020. The five-year plans are important because the government derives legitimacy from improving people’s livelihoods. The Dragonomics team has examined seven such targets and their impact on the economy.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Jan 22nd 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 Dragonomics

Gilliam Hamilton

Jan 20th 2020

2020 is a big year for China’s central planners. Beijing has set a wide range of targets to be achieved by the year’s end, and the policies enacted to meet these objectives have had far-reaching effects. In this report, the Dragonomics team examines seven such targets, the policies implemented to reach them, and the consequences for China’s economy.

Gavekal Research

Vincent Tsui

Jan 16th 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. With that risk off the table, explains Vincent, the coast is clear for an improving electronics cycle to support the local stock market.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Jan 14th 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

Andrew Batson, Thomas Gatley

Jan 10th 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 Dragonomics

Rosealea Yao, Andrew Batson

Jan 08th 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 Research

Andrew Batson

Jan 02nd 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

Louis Gave, Anatole Kaletsky, Arthur Kroeber, Will Denyer

Dec 19th 2019

In the final Gavekal Research Conference Call of the year Louis-Vincent Gave, Anatole Kaletsky, Arthur Kroeber and Will Denyer reviewed the current investment environment and outlined their expectations for 2020.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Thomas Gatley

Dec 17th 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 Research

Louis Gave

Dec 13th 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 Dragonomics

Andrew Batson

Dec 11th 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 Dragonomics

Lance Noble

Dec 05th 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 Research

Andrew Batson

Dec 04th 2019

The People’s Bank of China and the Bundesbank have never been known to be close. But Yi Gang, the Chinese central bank governor, is starting to sound German in his views on monetary policy. He argues that negative interest rates and quantitative easing have been a failure, and China must stick with conventional policy and positive rates.

Gavekal Research

Simon Pritchard

Nov 29th 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 Dragonomics

Thomas Gatley

Nov 27th 2019

The inclusion of Chinese onshore equities in global indexes has catalyzed a wave of interest from global investors. But for foreign investors to really get comfortable with Chinese stocks, Thomas argues, they need to grasp the many issues not addressed by index inclusion such as volatility, leverage, regulatory risk and corporate governance.

Gavekal Research

Simon Pritchard

Nov 25th 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 Research

Vincent Tsui

Nov 21st 2019

Taiwan's stock market has gained 18.6% year-to-date. This rally will be vulnerable to a heightening of bellicose rhetoric from Beijing prompted by the expected victory of the incumbent China-skeptic Tsai Ing-wen in January’s presidential election. But given the favorable structural and cyclical trends, any sell-off around the election should provide an attractive buying opportunity.