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Gavekal Dragonomics
Xiaoxi Zhang
Jun 22nd 2020
The Most Cautious Of Central Banks
China’s medium-term lending facility rate and the loan prime rate were left unchanged in June, while short-term market interest rates have risen. In this Quick Take, Xiaoxi argues that, though the PBOC is likely to cut policy interest rates further this year, the pace of rate cuts is likely to be slower in the second half than in the first.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Rosealea Yao
Jun 19th 2020
Explaining The Iron Ore Surge
Chinese iron ore prices have surged by 30% since May due to growing Chinese demand, shrinking Brazilian supply and increased logistics costs. In this Quick Take, Rosealea explains why prices are likely to remain elevated in the coming months but might fall precipitously in the second half of the year.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Dan Wang
Jun 18th 2020
The Range Of US Sanctions
US President Donald Trump has pledged a response to Beijing’s decision to impose national-security legislation on Hong Kong, and has now signed legislation to sanction officials involved in the crackdown on Uighurs in Xinjiang. In this piece, Dan outlines the various legal tools that the US can bring to bear and their possible effects.
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Gavekal Research
Udith Sikand
Jun 18th 2020
Video: High Stakes In The Himalayas
In this video, Udith argues that the mayhem seen on the India-China border this week will provide another catalyst for Indian nationalists who want to lessen the country’s reliance on China, even if that means accepting far slower economic growth.
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Gavekal Research
Tom Miller, Udith Sikand
Jun 18th 2020
Sticks And Stones May Break A Trade Relationship
Monday night’s deadly face-off between Indian and Chinese soldiers in the Himalayan mountains threatens to rupture a burgeoning trading relationship between Asia’s two largest nations. Diplomats should be able to deescalate military tensions between the two nuclear-armed countries, but it may be harder to normalize economic ties.
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Gavekal Research
Louis Gave
Jun 18th 2020
The Market’s Perception Of Scarcity
It is a long-running trope of Gavekal’s research that assets can have value either as tools or as jewels. Tools have efficiency value and jewels have scarcity value. The rule that seemed to govern the relative performance of these over the last 50 or so years appears to have broken down. Louis wonders if this is because investors have reversed their perceptions of what is "scarce" and what is "abundant".
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Xiaoxi Zhang
Jun 16th 2020
Arbitrage Comes Out Of The Shadows
The Covid-19 pandemic has shocked China’s financial regulators into allowing a substantial rebound in total credit growth. But they are not worried enough to abandon their strict control of shadow finance. As Xiaoxi explains in this piece, a recent bounce in the shadow finance numbers is due to a popular arbitrage which is now being contained.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Thomas Gatley, Rosealea Yao, Xiaoxi Zhang
Jun 15th 2020
The Beginnings Of A Plateau
China’s economic data for May continued April’s wider recovery; however, Thomas, Rosealea and Xiaoxi argue that this upward momentum is losing steam. Weak external demand, tapering industrial production and Beijing’s aversion to further monetary easing all support the idea that China’s post-Covid bounceback is starting to plateau.
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Gavekal Research
Louis Gave
Jun 12th 2020
The Froth Comes Off
Recent weeks saw telltale signs of markets getting silly: firms with no sales reaching U$26bn valuations; airline-focused exchange traded funds jumping from US$50mn in size in January to US$1.5bn, and bankrupt firms becoming five and 10 baggers. This kind of activity may lead to one of three conclusions.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Xiaoxi Zhang
Jun 12th 2020
Can Small-Business Lending Be Fixed?
As China tries to get the economy back to normal, it is focusing more on the plight of small businesses, who have lost weeks or months of revenue to the pandemic. Yet it has resisted offering the loan guarantees other countries have employed. In this piece, Xiaoxi assesses the other tools China is using to boost lending to the smallest firms.
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Gavekal Research
Tom Holland
Jun 11th 2020
The Derating Of The Dollar
In the last four weeks as market participants have reassessed relative risk premiums, they have found it increasingly easy to identify currencies which at the margin are looking more attractive than the US dollar. As a result, the dollar has weakened both against developed world and emerging market currencies. This weakness is acquiring momentum, and may have further to run.
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Gavekal Research
Dan Wang
Jun 11th 2020
Video: The Threat To Chinese Tech
The US is deepening its effort to limit Chinese technology giant Huawei’s access to components that rely on American design, which may prevent Huawei from rolling out 5G networks. The US is also broadening its efforts to constrain Mainland tech firms by using sanctions that impact suppliers to China’s government and military.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Rosealea Yao
Jun 10th 2020
The Property Balancing Act
Local governments are balancing between encouraging housing construction and containing excess housing inventory. Although they have struck a balance so far, Rosealea argues that the growing vacancies in lower-tier cities coupled with depressed household consumption render current policies unsustainable in the long run.
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Gavekal Research
Charles Gave
Jun 10th 2020
Accelerating Into Inflation
Long-time readers will be familiar with Gavekal’s Four Quadrants framework, which describes how the economy alternates between periods of inflation and deflation, and cycles from boom and bust and back again, and which we use to illustrate which asset classes investors should favor and when. Although this is one of Gavekal’s oldest frameworks, it provides an extremely useful way to think about how the macroeconomic environment is set to evolve...
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Thomas Gatley
Jun 08th 2020
US Politics Versus Chinese Stocks
Financial markets are the latest field in which US-China political tensions are playing out. Thomas describes two lines of attack US hawks are pursuing against China: blocking Chinese firms from US equity markets and pressuring US asset managers to avoid Chinese equities. The risk associated with Chinese stocks has therefore materially increased.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Dan Wang
Jun 05th 2020
A Charm Offensive For Supply Chains
As multinationals in China face growing pressure to shift their supply chains elsewhere, China’s government is doing everything it can to hold on to them. As Dan explains in this piece, China’s ability to get businesses back on their feet after the Covid-19 lockdown is a great advertisement for its attractiveness as a place to do businesses.
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Gavekal Research
Tom Holland
Jun 04th 2020
Video: The Upsurge In Oil
The price of Brent crude oil has doubled in the past six weeks, supported by the beginning of a recovery in demand as economies come out of lockdown and by expectations that the Opec+ cartel will extend the deep production cuts it agreed in April. Tom weighs the forces likely to drive the oil market over the coming months.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Andrew Batson, Wei He, Vincent Tsui
Jun 03rd 2020
Webinar: China's Economic Outlook After The NPC
China research director Andrew Batson was joined by China macroeconomist Wei He and Asia analyst Vincent Tsui to discuss the news from the National People's Congress and what it means for China's economic recovery, the likely direction of fiscal and monetary policy, and the consequences of Hong Kong's national security law.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Rosealea Yao
Jun 02nd 2020
A Property Rebound In May
Property sales are quickly recovering from their Covid-19 crash, with upward momentum that should continue for several months to come. However, Rosealea argues there are growing risks that China’s property market will start overheating, forcing policymakers to step in and leading to a downwards drift by July/August at the earliest.
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Gavekal Research
Pierre Gave
Jun 02nd 2020
The Case For Commodities
For most of the last decade, we have been in a period of low investment in the commodity sector. Yet, over the next 20 years the global population will grow by almost 2bn—a 25% increase. Migration into cities will continue, with the world’s urban population growing by almost 50%, creating enormous demand for infrastructure.