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Gavekal Research
Louis Gave
Sep 12th 2014
5C China: RMB Bonds Are Still The Place To Be
In 2008 China’s leaders learnt the hard way that US bankers were no smarter and US regulators no more capable than bankers and regulators anywhere else. With the instability of the US financial system brutally exposed by the crisis, it no longer looked sensible for China to depend on the US dollar for 100% of its foreign trade. In response, Beijing invited other developing economies—Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia—to settle their trade...
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Gavekal Research
Joyce Poon
Sep 11th 2014
Asia’s New Credit Cycle
The US dollar’s renewed strength has seen most major currencies swoon before it in recent weeks. A notable exception has been the emerging Asia basket which has seen declines of less than 1% against the dollar compared to falls of up to 5% for the euro, yen and sterling. We don’t think this is a case of emerging Asia being the next shoe to drop. Instead, under-owned Asian markets look to be in an early phase of a new credit cycle following the...
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Rosealea Yao
Sep 08th 2014
The Slums Are Still With Us
One of the paradoxes of China’s housing market is that excess supply in many areas coexists with a shortage of housing for the worst-off. We have long argued that a significant portion of the Chinese urban population is under-housed, lacking access to modern living arrangements. Given continued worries over excess housing supply in China, we recently decided to test this analysis by re-estimating the housing stock from different data sources....
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Research Team
Sep 04th 2014
CEQ: Is It Safe? Pollution And Food Safety
Unbreathable air and toxic food top the list of urban China's anxieties, and the government has finally started to take notice. Since taking office in 2013, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang have aggressively stepped up efforts to clean up the polluted skies and improve the safety of the food supply. The air pollution efforts have borne some fruit: average levels of fine particulates fell by 9% in the first half of 2014. But a lot...
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Gavekal Research
Research Team
Sep 03rd 2014
Five Corners (3 September): World Labor Markets
In our latest bi-weekly review of global economics, we take a searching look at the forces affecting labor markets in the world’s major economies. How robust are the medium term prospects for wage growth? And how will the longer term forces of ageing populations and increasing automation affect the outlook for jobs? Overview: Arthur Kroeber examines how the wage-positive influence of developed world demographics will balance the job-negative...
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Gavekal Research
Tom Holland
Sep 02nd 2014
Killing Democracy To Save Capitalism
Beijing is tightening its control over Hong Kong’s institutions and political processes. Last week anti-corruption agents raided the homes of three of the city’s prominent pro-democracy figures. Then on Sunday Beijing handed down a long-awaited decision on constitutional development which crushed the city’s hopes for open elections. China’s increasing influence over the nominally-autonomous territory is deeply resented by many in the former...
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Gavekal Research
Anatole Kaletsky
Sep 02nd 2014
Market Review: A Summer Series
In late July and early August Anatole went up the mountain so to speak and penned a series of articles that aimed to explain where we were in the current market cycle, and more importantly where we are likely headed. With most major asset classes continuing to head higher we thought it worth republishing Anatole’s consolidated thinking in a single document. Please click on the pdf link above, or, alternatively, the articles can be read...
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Gavekal Research
Pierre Gave
Sep 02nd 2014
Growth & Markets Monthly (September 2014)
This month we note a slight deterioration in our global growth indicators, which probably mirrors the significant economic deceleration seen in Europe. On the risk side, markets do not appear stressed, although there has been a slight widening in the US corporate spread (albeit from very low levels). On the question of inflation vs deflation our indicators offer a mixed picture: on the one hand our diffusion index of US CPI components keeps...
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Research Team
Sep 01st 2014
CEQ Q3 2014
“Selective easing” of monetary policy temporarily boosted GDP growth. Premier Li Keqiang has shifted emphasis away from structural reform and toward supporting growth. Credit growth picked up in Q2 and fiscal spending accelerated, enabling GDP growth to rebound modestly to 7.5%. But the cyclical support is not enormous and growth will likely slow again in early 2015.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Tom Miller, Research Team
Sep 01st 2014
CEQ Q3 2014 - Stirring Dragon, Nervous Neighbors
Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific by Robert D. Kaplan (Random House, 2014)
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Research Team
Sep 01st 2014
CEQ Q3 2014 - Food Security, China Corruption, Asia Pacific High Anxiety
A New Line On Food Security
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Tom Miller, Research Team
Sep 01st 2014
CEQ Q3 2014 - Beijing Eyes The Bay Of Bengal
China wants to build road and rail links from Yunnan all the way to Kolkata, thus securing a virtual western seacoast. Myanmar and India want the investment but are wary of the strategic implications.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Research Team, Ernan Cui
Sep 01st 2014
CEQ Q3 2014 - Keeping The Dinner Table Healthy
After enduring milk powder laced with industrial chemicals and pork tainted with dangerous steroids, Chinese consumers are ramping up demand for imports and organics. Local firms are responding by consolidating markets and upgrading their technology, and the government is tightening food safety rules.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Research Team
Sep 01st 2014
CEQ Q3 2014 - Bringing Back The Blue Sky Days
After Beijing’s infamous Airpocalypse, Premier Li Keqiang declared war on air pollution. Official data show surprising progress in the past year. To sustain this progress, the government must embrace more systematic and market-oriented approaches.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Research Team
Sep 01st 2014
CEQ Q3 2014 - A Real War, More Ammo Required
China’s pollution problems may not be the worst in history, but they are bad enough. Progress in correcting them has been real but inconsistent. Loud commitments by the new leadership, and a tough new environmental law, offer hope of a faster clean-up.
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Arthur Kroeber, Research Team
Sep 01st 2014
CEQ Q3 2014 - Summertime, And The Jailin' Is Easy
Xi Jinping’s war on corruption is far more than just a cynical power-play. Will it work?
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Gavekal Research
Andrew Batson
Sep 01st 2014
5C China: Wage Growth Still Solid For Now
As China’s economic growth has downshifted over the past few years, one of the big surprises has been the absence of bad news from the job market. Wages are still rising at double digit rates, and employers still have trouble filling vacancies. The reason, as is now widely understood, is that the structural slowdown in investment growth is happening at the same time as a structural shift in the labor market. Changing demographics and the...
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Gavekal Research
Arthur Kroeber
Sep 01st 2014
5C Overview: Demography vs Technology
We have written a lot about two trends with big potential impacts on the balance of power between labor and capital. The first is demography, which since World War II has been a tailwind for growth, but is now turning into a headwind. Virtually every major economy faces a steep fall in its worker-to-retiree ratio, even the US which is often thought to be exempt from demographic destiny because of its relatively high birth rate and openness to...
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Gavekal Dragonomics
Andrew Batson
Sep 01st 2014
CEQ Q3 2014 - Small Business To The Rescue?
Premier Li Keqiang’s most successful economic reform so far is deregulation that has led to a surge in registrations of new private businesses. The next step will be to let these little companies become big ones.
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Gavekal Research
Thomas Gatley
Aug 28th 2014
China Avoids A Summer Soft Patch
Has China’s growth hit yet another soft patch? Growth disappointed early in 2014 as a property downturn led to severe pain in construction and heavy industry, prompting the government to ease up on fiscal and monetary policy. Better data in May and June seemed to show that looser policy had succeeded—until a suite of surprisingly weak readings in July raised the prospect that the mini-recovery had just been a mirage. Particularly concerning was...
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