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Gavekal Research
Tom Holland
Mar 21st 2019
Video: Intervention To Support The HKD Signals Strength, Not Weakness
In the last two weeks, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority has been forced to sell US dollars in the foreign exchange market to maintain the Hong Kong Dollar's peg to the US dollar. Yet far from signaling a crisis, the interventions are a symptom of confidence in Hong Kong’s financial system, which is swimming with liquidity.
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Gavekal Research
Tan Kai Xian
Mar 20th 2019
Believe In The US Consumer, Still
Just as the Federal Reserve eases up on monetary tightening and negotiators struggle to avert a trans-Pacific trade war, the US consumer is emerging as the next source of worry. Americans are deferring big-ticket purchases, consumer confidence readings have softened and retail sales growth has slowed. Suddenly, the picture looks similar to the 2015-16 soft patch, or worse still it resembles the phase leading up to the 2008 crisis, when an...
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Lance Noble
Mar 20th 2019
The Industrial Policy That Dare Not Speak Its Name
The Made In China 2025 initiative was omnipresent after its launch in 2015, but it has now become officially invisible, a casualty of the vocal concerns expressed by the US and others. In this piece, Lance explains how China will pursue industrial policy in the aftermath: with less transparency, but also, perhaps, with less discrimination.
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Gavekal Research
Nick Andrews
Mar 19th 2019
A New Era For European Banks
European banking stocks have been battered for much of the last four years by negative interest rates and a Brussels plan to impose market discipline through shareholder bail-ins rather than public bail-outs. This approach is now in question as Germany embraces a new industrial strategy that will rely on strong state-backed banks taking political direction.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Tom Miller
Mar 18th 2019
The End Of China's ODI Party
Beijing’s decision to use foreign acquisitions as a tool of state industrial policy has badly backfired. With advanced economies stiffening their resistance to Chinese investment, China’s decade-long outward direct investment spree looks spent. In this piece, Tom explains how the boom ended and where funds will flow in the future.
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Gavekal Research
Louis Gave
Mar 18th 2019
A Marxist Take On The Gilets Jaunes
The "yellow jackets” still protesting in France have so far received only tepid support from the country's usually vocal trade unions. Similarly, left-wing parties have also been very slow to take to the street. This begs the question of what the oracle of the French intelligentsia, Karl Marx, would have made of this protest movement.
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Gavekal Research
Cedric Gemehl
Mar 15th 2019
The Trouble With Champions
When last Sunday, Angela Merkel’s heir-apparent published an opinion piece on the EU’s future, she left the door open to an EU industrial strategy and competition policy focused on creating European champions intended to compete in global markets. Such a policy may be attractive to politicians, but it is less appealing to investors.
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Gavekal Research
Will Denyer
Mar 15th 2019
Video: The Fed's Potential Paradigm Shift
The Federal Reserve is debating a fundamental shift in its inflation targeting. Right now it's targeting 2% inflation no matter what it has been in the past, a so-called "bygones" policy. In this video interview Will discusses the consequences of switching to price-level targeting, where the aim is to keep average inflation over time at 2%.
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Gavekal Research
Udith Sikand
Mar 14th 2019
The Central Banker Who Cried Wolf
In January, the BoJ governor promised more monetary easing if that was what it took for inflation to reach 2%. Investors increasingly doubt the fortitude of Japan’s financial sector as it endures the pain inflicted by the world’s easiest central bank. If that suspicion grows, the variable of adjustment may be a rising yen, which would be a big headache for the BoJ.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Andrew Batson
Mar 14th 2019
That Wasn't So Bad, Actually
China watchers have been bracing themselves for some ugly economic indicators in January and February. Yet the first official data for 2019 were not actually that bad. As Andrew explains, the economy is clearly slowing, but it’s not going into an uncontrolled dive. The government’s moderate policy response is thus still on track to steady growth.
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Gavekal Research
Anatole Kaletsky
Mar 13th 2019
The Brexit Impasse
Political commentators and European leaders are bewailing Britain’s descent into ungovernability after the UK parliament again rejected the new and supposedly improved Brexit deal. But markets reacted calmly. In fact, for investors, the seemingly chaotic Brexit saga is unfolding roughly along the bullish lines suggested here since early January.
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Gavekal Research
Charles Gave
Mar 12th 2019
The Locus Of Capital Destruction
Germany is going through one of its periodic bouts of angst as its industrial economy faces up to cyclical headwinds, unwanted structural change and the threat of protectionism. I too have concerns about the fate of corporate Germany, but would approach the problem from the perspective of an equity investor.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Rosealea Yao
Mar 11th 2019
Springtime For Steel
It’s looking like a good spring for China’s steel industry. In this piece, Rosealea reports on her findings from a recent visit to the steelmaking capital of Tangshan. Steel and iron ore prices are being supported by a combination of stable demand from property, recovering demand from infrastructure and supply constraints from scrap shortages.
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Gavekal Research
Tan Kai Xian
Mar 11th 2019
Productivity To The Rescue, For Now
On first reading, Friday’s US payroll report for February made grim reading for most investors. The screeching slowdown in non-farm hiring seemed to point to a US economy that is flirting with recession. To compound matters, wage growth seemes to point to a very tight labor market. On closer inspection, however, a less concerning picture is revealed.
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Gavekal Research
Nick Andrews
Mar 08th 2019
When You're In A Hole, Stop Digging
The first law of holes states: when you are in one, stop digging. It’s sound advice, which central bankers would do well to heed. Unfortunately for Mario Draghi and his colleagues at the European Central Bank, things are not so simple. It is one of the quirks of negative interest rates that the longer rates remain in negative territory, the less accommodative policy becomes.
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Gavekal Research
Andrew Batson, Chen Long
Mar 08th 2019
Audio & Transcript — Gavekal Research Call March 2019
In this research conference call, Andrew Batson and Chen Long discussed the improving outlook for the Chinese economy in 2019 and the implications for financial markets. Confirmation that the government is both willing and able to support growth has ignited an equity rally, while expectations of further easing measures still support bonds.
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Gavekal Research
Charles Gave
Mar 08th 2019
Not Modern, Not About Money, And Not Really Much Of A Theory
Charles has had enough of all the talk going round about Modern Monetary Theory. In this forceful polemic he lets fly with both barrels at the proponents of MMT, arguing that they have no knowledge of financial history, little understanding of the nature of money, and are clueless about what constitutes a theory.
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Gavekal Research
Charles Gave
Mar 07th 2019
Keynes Is Dead; This Is The Long Run
“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is,” Yogi Berra said. Take cutting interest rates as an example. According to Keynesian theory, reducing interest rates is a way to borrow from future demand in order to prevent a recession today.The theory is sound, but then comes the practice. And in Europe today, we are in practice up to our necks.
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Gavekal Research
Will Denyer
Mar 07th 2019
An Investor's Rough Guide To Modern Monetary Theory
Modern Monetary Theory—the idea that governments can spend as much as they want, free from funding constraints—is attracting more and more attention. Will examines the precepts of the theory, explores whether it really brings anything new to the table, and outlines some of the implications for investors should it ever be applied as practical policy.
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Gavekal Research
Will Denyer
Mar 06th 2019
Video: Shifting Sands At The Fed
The US Federal Reserve has said it is likely to end its process of balance sheet “normalization” sooner than previously planned. This sounds like an obscure monetary technicality, but it has important implications for investors. In this video interview Will explains why.
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