Gavekal Research

Anatole Kaletsky

Aug 19th 2019

Anatole has previously argued that the correlation between inverted yield curves and recessions has very little predictive significance. In this piece he updates that view to argue that inverted yield curves have no predictive significance whatsoever. For this reason, he thinks that equity investors have gotten their reaction to recent developments about right, while bond investors are all in a muddle.

Gavekal Research

Simon Pritchard

Aug 16th 2019

Extreme nervousness in global markets can be attributed to a synchronous weakening of growth that has been reinforced by soft data out of Germany and China. This is also a juncture when commentators seem to have concluded that pent up stresses in the global trading and security system have reached a tipping point. On top of these secular worries is the terror that China is about to have a “Tiananmen moment” by violently crushing the two month...

Gavekal Dragonomics

Thomas Gatley

Aug 14th 2019

After a end-of-quarter bounce in June, China’s economy resumed its gradual downward course in July, with industrial production, fixed investment, housing starts, retail sales and credit growth all slowing. The bright spots were exports, which registered a surprising pickup despite the trade war, and housing sales, which reversed three months of declines with a modest gain.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Aug 14th 2019

In US dollar terms, Argentina's equity benchmark on Monday fell -48% in a one-day move only bested by the Colombo market’s -62% plunge in 1989. The -24% drop in long-dated US dollar-denominated Argentine bonds, a -17% drop in the currency, or the -38% fall in the local equity index will cause pain for certain macro players and dedicated emerging market funds. It should also cause us to ponder a number of questions.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Dan Wang

Aug 13th 2019

The outcome of US-China trade talks is uncertain, but one thing is clear. Chinese companies, their customers and suppliers, faced increased risks of US American sanctions. Hardliners in the US national security establishment are pressing ahead with an “all-of-government” strategy to constrain China’s technological and financial clout. This will continue regardless of the outcome of trade talks.

Gavekal Research

Vincent Tsui

Aug 12th 2019

It has often been said that when the US sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold. In Asia, a similar link exists between the behemoth China and other regional economies. Hence when Beijing unexpectedly let the renminbi weaken through CNY7.00 to the US dollar last Monday regional currencies fell by 1.6% in the following five days. They could fall more, however there is unlikely to be a broader contagion to regional asset markets. Asia’s solid...

Gavekal Research

Nick Andrews

Aug 08th 2019

Even before the US-China trade war escalated last week, Europe stood on shaky ground. We learnt yesterday that German industrial production for June fell -1.5%. Europe’s largest economy faces cyclical and structural challenges, and the question is whether it takes its neighbors down with it.

Gavekal Research

Arthur Kroeber

Aug 06th 2019

Monday’s actions on the Chinese currency—Beijing’s decision to let the renminbi’s exchange rate weaken past CNY7.00 to the US dollar, and Washington’s decision to label China a currency manipulator—signal that the US and China are close to throwing in the towel on a trade deal. Trade war escalation should now be the base case.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Rosealea Yao

Aug 05th 2019

China’s government is once again going after pollution from the steel industry, raising the risk of more policy-induced spikes in steel prices. While forced shutdowns to ensure blue skies are on the way, Rosealea argues that the bigger risk to steel prices is on the downside, due to weakening construction activity and cautious housing policy.

Gavekal Research

Tan Kai Xian, Will Denyer

Aug 02nd 2019

Trade war fears are once again front and center of investors' minds. But the reduced magnitude of pledged US tariffs indicates that Trump is anxious to avoid damaging the US economy and financial markets. This leaves the focus on the Fed, and how much it is likely to cut interest rates.

Gavekal Research

Nick Andrews

Aug 01st 2019

In the last week or so, the pound has fallen sharply to a two-and-a-half-year low against the US dollar. That’s all down to the new British government, headed by Boris Johnson, and his "do or die" Brexit campaign. But when a deal is finally struck, Britain’s strong economic fundamentals mean it is well placed for a boost in growth, along with the pound.

Gavekal Research

Nick Andrews

Jul 31st 2019

Since Boris Johnson became prime minister, the UK government’s promise of a “do or die” Brexit has caused sterling to slump -2.9% against the US dollar to about US$1.21. While the chances of Britain actually leaving the EU without a deal remain small, this outcome will remain unclear for some time. That presents risks, but great opportunities for those dealing in sterling.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Jul 31st 2019

Keynes advised that at the outset of a recession, policymakers should drive down market interest rates in order to borrow from future demand. Today’s central bankers have adopted this approach as permanent policy. Unfortunately, permanent Keynesianism fatally interferes with the economic Darwinism of creative destruction that propels growth in a capitalist system—with dire consequences.

Gavekal Research

Arthur Kroeber

Jul 30th 2019

Trade talks between the US and China resume today after a three-month hiatus. This meeting may or may not pave the way for a deal in the next several months, but it no longer matters much. The global macro risk from the trade conflict has ebbed dramatically. What's important now is the dimensions of the decoupling between the world’s two biggest economies.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Arthur Kroeber

Jul 29th 2019

Trade talks between the US and China will resume this week after a three-month hiatus, but how much do they really matter? In this piece, Arthur argues that the macro risk from the US-China trade conflict has ebbed to almost zero. What’s important now is to understand the dimensions of the decoupling between the world’s two biggest economies.

Gavekal Research

Cedric Gemehl

Jul 26th 2019

Mario Draghi fired no new bazooka on Thursday. But the European Central Bank president did signal the deployment of a whole arsenal of monetary weaponry in September. Such a package will cement the transition of the ECB under Draghi into a more active and more actively political institution, with a much more counter-cyclical policy stance.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Jul 25th 2019

With US$13.5trn of bonds on negative yields, Germany’s sovereign curve in negative territory out to 20 years, and G7 yields lower than in the 2008 crisis, the euro crisis, or 2016, when the world expected China to collapse, there are two possibilities. Either the world is facing low growth and inflation forever, or the bond market is in the final phase of an almighty bubble.

Gavekal Research

Nick Andrews

Jul 24th 2019

On Wednesday, “colorful” former journalist, television comedian and London mayor Boris Johnson will achieve a long-held ambition when he moves into Number 10 Downing Street to replace the hapless Theresa May as the United Kingdom’s new prime minister. Judging from the headlines, Johnson is taking over an economy on the brink of a painful slowdown, if not already actually in recession.

Gavekal Research

Will Denyer

Jul 23rd 2019

On Monday, the White House and Congressional leaders reached a tentative agreement to raise US government spending caps and suspend the debt ceiling for two years. Assuming the deal is passed by Congress in the next few days, a fiscal crisis will be averted this year. But before investors breathe a sigh of relief and bet on a rally, it should be noted that one near term effect of the agreement could be an acute liquidity drain as the Treasury...

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Jul 19th 2019

Surrounded at Waterloo and asked to lay down his arms, General Cambronne of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard replied: “La garde meurt mais ne se rend pas”. This translates as “The guard may die, but it does not surrender”. A saying that could apply to the new ECB head is: “The president’s term may end, but the institution does not yield to conventional monetary policies”.

Gavekal Research

Tan Kai Xian

Jul 18th 2019

US mortgage applications fell in the week ended July 12, compared with the week before. But do not be misled by the latest week-on-week decline in this high frequency data series. In year-on-year terms, mortgage applications for home purchases have been rising consistently since the beginning of 2019, pointing to a rise in housing construction over the coming months.

Gavekal Research

Udith Sikand

Jul 17th 2019

Technocrats globally are under the cosh from populist politicians who have tired of doing the sensible thing. In the developed world, checks and balances have insulated most big agencies, but the story is different in developing economies. The worry is that they are lurching off onto a development track that ends with fiscal blowouts and currency debasement.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Andrew Batson

Jul 16th 2019

China’s economy ended the second quarter on a high note, with industry and exports doing better than expected in June. The data reassured markets that the government’s macro policy stance—which has been quite conservative—is justified. But as Andrew argues in this piece, growth is being driven mainly by property, and can slow further.

Gavekal Research

Tan Kai Xian

Jul 16th 2019

The evolution of the yield curve over the last four months—an inversion after a series of Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, followed by a rapid steepening—has been characteristic of the early stages of the last four US recessions. However, investors worried that the US economy may already be in recession can relax.

Gavekal Research

Udith Sikand

Jul 12th 2019

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi faces some daunting economic challenges in his second term. As Udith explains in this interview, the biggest is to create new jobs India needs. In the coming decades, India must generate some 10mn new jobs every year simply to provide employment for the cohort of young Indians set to enter the workforce.

Gavekal Research

Vincent Tsui

Jul 12th 2019

Investors have been cheered by the US and China deescalating a trade dispute that has focused on China’s use of US technology. So what to make of a stand-off between two US allies in North Asia that could disrupt highly integrated technology supply chains? Could this action reflect the normalization of trade sanctions being used in bilateral disputes?

Gavekal Research

Tan Kai Xian

Jul 11th 2019

In Congressional testimony on Wednesday, Jay Powell cooed just like the dove investors want him to be. The Fed chairman dispelled any lingering doubts that either the end-June trade truce between the US and China or June’s strong US payrolls number will dissuade the Fed from cutting interest rates at the end of July.

Gavekal Research

Tom Miller, Udith Sikand

Jul 10th 2019

India’s new government delivered a careful budget last Friday, preferring to keep a veneer of fiscal rectitude than to prioritize growth and jobs with heavy spending. Yet there was one exception amid the caution: for the first time, India is set to issue sovereign debt in foreign currency. This is an intriguing development for foreign investors wanting exposure to India while avoiding currency risk.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Ernan Cui

Jul 09th 2019

China’s auto market is still locked in the worst downturn in its history. In this report, Ernan explains how the government’s rushed transition to new vehicle-emissions standards worsened that downturn, and why it hasn’t reversed course. Though an end-year recovery for auto sales is still likely, 2019 will be a second bad year for the industry.

Gavekal Research

Udith Sikand

Jul 09th 2019

Emerging markets did nicely out of the rumor, less well from the fact. As hopes grew through June for some form of trade détente between the US and China, EM assets staged a broad rally. Similarly, EM currencies pushed broadly higher, on the back of a wider US dollar softness. Over the last week, however, EM equities and currencies have pulled back.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Jul 08th 2019

A look back at the last 50 years shows that the dominant conviction among investors at the end of each decade about what would drive markets over the following decade was invariably wrong. With this in mind, and on the basis that avoiding losers is easier work than picking winners, Louis asks what beliefs dominate investors’ minds today, and how they are likely to be proved wrong in the 2020s.

Gavekal Research

Will Denyer

Jul 05th 2019

Facebook will have an uphill battle trying to convince consumers to adopt its announced digital currency, libra. As it will be backed by a basket of assets denominated in different currencies, the prices of goods and services will be more volatile in libra than in existing local currencies, even in emerging markets. This volatility will deter consumers from making the switch.

Gavekal Research

Tom Miller

Jul 04th 2019

Vietnam has the potential to be a big winner from the US-China trade war as companies move manufacturing out of an increasingly high-cost China. This trend can be seen in sharply rising foreign investment and fully occupied export-focused industrial parks. Yet the issue is how to deal with bottlenecks that impede the path to high value-added activities.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Rosealea Yao

Jul 03rd 2019

Housing policy in China has taken a cautious turn, with policymakers more concerned about potential overheating in prices than worried about a downturn in sales and construction. In this piece, Rosealea explains how this shift is playing out through cuts in housing subsidies and changes to local policies, and evaluates the risks to the market.

Gavekal Research

Cedric Gemehl

Jul 03rd 2019

After three days of intense maneuver and counter-maneuver, on Tuesday the European Union’s heads of government announced their choice of names to lead the EU’s central institutions for the coming years. The result is a remarkable clean sweep for the favored candidates of French president Emmanuel Macron.

Gavekal Research

Anatole Kaletsky

Jul 02nd 2019

Record-high US equity prices seem hard to reconcile with the message sent by the lowest bond yields since 2016. Should investors hunker down due to the inverted yield curve, or jump aboard the equity bandwagon? In fact, both markets may be right in their own way.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Chen Long

Jul 01st 2019

It was a rocky second quarter for China, with trade tensions escalating and then easing, and domestic growth disappointing. In his latest chartbook, Chen Long assesses the current lay of the land. The growth slowdown is not over yet as macro policy has stayed relatively cautious, but easing trade tensions should boost equities and the currency.

Gavekal Research

Tan Kai Xian

Jun 28th 2019

When Donald Trump declared his trade war against China in the spring of 2018, investors could have been forgiven for expecting the resulting uncertainty and additional economic friction to add both to US equity market and GDP growth volatility. In fact, equity market volatility has generally been low, and US economic growth has remained stable.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Jun 26th 2019

After the opening Twitter salvo in "Trade War II" by Donald Trump in May, markets have reacted quite differently from "Trade War I" in the spring of 2018. This time, the Federal Reserve is sounding more dovish, US bond yields have fallen back to 2%, the dollar seems to be rolling over, and gold and EMs are doing well. This raises the question whether the investment environment is changing before our eyes.

Gavekal Research

Tom Holland

Jun 25th 2019

Of the many risks besetting investors right now, the hardest to assess is the confrontation between the US and Iran. Should tensions escalate into a shooting war, the consequences would be far-reaching and severe. However, looking beyond the bellicose rhetoric there are reasons to believe that the balance of probability still weighs against a marked escalation.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Thomas Gatley

Jun 24th 2019

China’s policymakers are pushing banks to offer more financing to private-sector firms, trying to solve their liquidity squeeze. In this piece, Thomas inspects the data for the effects of that push, and finds that new credit is flowing mainly to the largest and smallest firms. The mass of medium-sized private firms are still in a tough spot.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Jun 21st 2019

Even if Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping leave the G-20 meeting in Osaka next week with a trade deal in hand, the broader rivalry will continue. In this extensive video interview Louis identifies three ways in which China is vulnerable to US pressure and explains how this may impact investors.

Gavekal Research

Will Denyer

Jun 20th 2019

After the Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting, chairman Jay Powell told the market what it wanted to hear. Policymakers see rising risks and stand ready to cut interest rates, but there is no reason to panic—just yet. Real growth is solid, which is good for earnings, but inflation pressures are muted, allowing the Fed to be more accommodative.

Gavekal Research

Andrew Batson

Jun 19th 2019

As China hunkers down for an extended trade conflict with the US, it is sending reassuring signals about its ability to withstand the pressure. Officials argue the economy has “rebalanced” away from external to domestic demand, so it is less vulnerable. In this piece, Andrew explains how this misreads the role of exports in longer-term growth.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Dan Wang

Jun 17th 2019

It is easy to forget that the US trade war with China is founded on the issue of intellectual property—and to miss the fact that, despite the breakdown in trade talks, China is pushing through many legal changes to improve IP protection. But as Dan explains, while the technical improvements are real, so is political pressure on the legal system.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Chen Long

Jun 14th 2019

China’s growth momentum faded noticeably in May, and while the government rolled out new supportive measures, they are fairly modest. The data over the next couple of months could be pretty uninspiring. But as Chen Long argues in this report, policymakers still prefer to soften the slowdown rather than try to generate a big cyclical upswing.

Gavekal Research

Tan Kai Xian

Jun 14th 2019

There is a schizophrenic quality to commentary on the health of the US consumer. On the bright side, sentiment readings are cheery and the labor market is generally solid. Yet on the other hand, Cassandras point to rising credit card delinquency rates, and weakness in sales of autos and homes as early signals of a recession. So what gives?

Gavekal Research

Anatole Kaletsky

Jun 13th 2019

The US economic expansion is entering its 11th year, which makes some wonder whether the end of the business cycle is nigh. Anatole thinks that’s asking the wrong question, because bull markets don’t die of old age. They are, however, more susceptible to diseases of old age. He identifies three events that would cause an economy to keel over. Also on the docket is the seemingly contradictory signals sent by bullish US equity markets and bearish...

Gavekal Research

Simon Pritchard

Jun 11th 2019

On Sunday, a million Hong Kongers protested a planned law change that will let individuals be extradited to face trial in China, the city’s biggest political protest in more than 15 years. On Monday, the city’s equity benchmark rose 2%. The betting is that this political furor will pass. But the broader context puts the city at risk of becoming collateral damage in the US-China confrontation.