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Gavekal Research
Tom Holland
Feb 05th 2020
Don't Count On Oil To Fall Further
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.
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Gavekal Research
Nick Andrews
Jan 31st 2020
Britain’s Soggy Prospects
Despite a worsening coronavirus situation and worries that a Brexit bounce could be short-lived, the Bank of England defied the expectations of many by not cutting interest rates. The UK’s weak medium term growth outlook and difficult impending trade talks with the EU means that policy will remain dovish and sterling’s upside prospects are likely capped.
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Gavekal Research
Nick Andrews, Cedric Gemehl
Jan 24th 2020
Playing The ECB Strategic Review
When a government agency announces a “strategic review”, the presumption is that some knotty issue is being kicked into the long grass. That was the vibe yesterday when Christine Lagarde kicked off the European Central Bank’s year-long navel gazing exercise. In this case, however, investors would do well not to check out entirely from ECB watching.
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Gavekal Research
Cedric Gemehl
Jan 23rd 2020
Italy Gets Interesting Again
After almost five months of calm, there is a quickening in Italian politics. Luigi Di Maio yesterday stepped down as head of the governing Five Star movement as it faces the prospect of a drubbing in a regional election this weekend. The man most likely to capitalize on his troubles is Matteo Salvini, whose Lega Party is the most popular in Italy, polling 30-35%. The result may be more volatility in Italian assets, but a return to crisis...
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Gavekal Research
Louis Gave
Jan 22nd 2020
How Sturdy Are The Zeitgeist's Five Pillars?
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.
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Gavekal Research
Charles Gave
Jan 17th 2020
Chickens Coming Home To Roost
French workers last weekend won a reprieve from the government’s plan to nudge the retirement age higher, but that does not mean they can breathe easy, thinking their financial futures are secured. With much of pension assets invested in government bonds, an interesting question is what the return will be of a 10-year constant duration OAT in the next decade.
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Gavekal Research
Pierre Gave
Jan 15th 2020
Reasons To Catch A Swedish Knife
After Sweden's Riskbank in October said it would end negative interest rates as the dangers from the policy outweighed the waning advantages, the krona rose 5.3% against the euro and 3.8% against the US dollar until the end of the year. Since then, however, the unit has slumped -1.2% on a trade-weighted basis. This looks to be a good chance to buy the dip.
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Gavekal Research
Cedric Gemehl, Nick Andrews
Jan 13th 2020
The European Recovery Lives, Just
On the face of it, Germany’s industrial slump is still worsening. The worry has been that a cratering of Europe’s industrial economy proves bad enough to reverse the “internal” recovery spurred by super-easy monetary policy. In fact, such a contagion is unlikely in 2020 and the eurozone should see overall growth stabilize at around its potential level.
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Gavekal Research
Vincent Tsui
Jan 10th 2020
Video: Taiwan Chooses, Hong Kong Reacts
Taiwan goes to the polls on Saturday in a presidential election where pro-independence incumbent Tsai Ing-wen looks like a shoo-in against the more China-friendly Kuomintang candidate. Tsai is unlikely to push China’s red lines and cross-strait relations should not be imperiled. Vincent also addresses the related issue of Beijing replacing its top representative in Hong Kong with a senior apparatchik.
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Gavekal Research
Anatole Kaletsky
Jan 09th 2020
Ten Bears That Could See Off Goldilocks In 2020
With interest rates low, and growth that is neither too hot nor too cold, Anatole remains firmly in the “Goldilocks lives on” camp. But while a continued bull run is the most probable outcome for 2020, bears still lurk in the shadows. In this paper Anatole identifies the 10 main macroeconomic, political and sector risks that could derail markets in 2020.
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Gavekal Research
Louis Gave
Dec 27th 2019
The Surprises Of 2019
As the year draws to a close, Louis has decided to review the key events of 2019 that he either didn’t see coming, or whose ramifications he under estimated. Such events could cast a long shadow in the coming quarters as their impact on markets may not yet be fully digested.
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Gavekal Research
Charles Gave
Dec 19th 2019
Nonsense Anatole, Boris Deserves Three Cheers
In 2017, as the Brexit negotiations between London and Brussels got going in earnest, I wrote a paper explaining why the European Commission’s officials and their counterparts across the continent were going to do everything in their power to make the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union as difficult as they possibly could (see May’s Misguided Brexit Speech). And over the next two years, they did just that.
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Gavekal Research
Louis Gave, Anatole Kaletsky, Arthur Kroeber, Will Denyer
Dec 19th 2019
Audio — Gavekal Research Call December 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.
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Gavekal Research
Anatole Kaletsky
Dec 18th 2019
Boris's Bearish Brexit
We now know why markets reacted so nervously to Boris Johnson’s election landslide last Thursday. The lack of follow-through after that evening’s exit poll and the retreat when trading resumed on Friday morning was suspicious. But there were no clear explanations until Monday evening, when everything became clear. At 10.30pm Downing Street restated Johnson’s promise to finish negotiating a new UK-European Union trade deal within 12 months and...
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Gavekal Research
Louis Gave
Dec 18th 2019
Why Aren’t Markets Pricing In Global Reflation?
Back in October, when the Fed said it would start expanding its balance sheet at the same time as the ECB and BoJ, Louis reasoned that powerful forces were aligning for a global reflation trade. A little over two months later, markets have ripped higher, but the reflation trade has not materialized quite as anticipated. In this paper, Louis examines why not, and asks what conditions will be needed for it to come good in 2020.
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Gavekal Research
Louis Gave
Dec 13th 2019
Is Brexit The Midwife To A New Investment Environment?
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.
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Gavekal Research
Research Team
Dec 13th 2019
Our 2019 Holiday Reading List
“So many books,” lamented the late Frank Zappa, “so little time.” For readers wondering which of the 130mn books published since the invention of the printing press they should curl up with over the coming break, hopefully Gavekal’s annual holiday reading picks may help.
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Gavekal Research
Cedric Gemehl
Dec 12th 2019
Towards A Green Supply Shock
The “European Green Deal” announced with much fanfare on Wednesday was long on ambitious targets, short on implementation details about how they will be achieved. The lack of detail leaves investors to ask how Brussels’ green deal will affect the continent’s growth prospects. Here it is possible to set out some pointers.
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Gavekal Research
Udith Sikand
Dec 12th 2019
Video: India’s Economic Malaise
India’s economy has slowed down dramatically from around 8% growth a little over a year ago to 4.5% in the most recent quarter. Udith reckons the primary causes of this are domestic factors, as the financial system has continued to struggle while the policy response is too weak to be effective. The risk for the rupee is to the downside.
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Gavekal Research
Cedric Gemehl
Dec 11th 2019
The French Resistance
While most of the rest of Europe, including Germany, has run into stiff headwinds from the slowdown in global demand, the French economy has continued to trundle along largely untroubled, with growth closely in line with potential. Cedric argues France’s economy will continue to grow in steady, if unspectacular, fashion over the medium term.