Gavekal Research

Cedric Gemehl

Apr 11th 2018

Once again, French public sector workers are en grève—on strike. In the last couple of weeks, railway workers, air traffic controllers and teachers (and their students) have walked out in protest against Emmanuel Macron’s structural reforms. Inevitably such broad opposition to official policy has prompted memories of 1995, and even 1968. But as Cedric explains, times have moved on, and today the public is more ready than ever before to...

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Anatole Kaletsky

Apr 09th 2018

Believe it or not, there was good news, as well as bad, from the US markets last Friday. The bad news was obviously Donald Trump’s threat to escalate the trade war with China and the equally aggressive response from Beijing. The good news was the fall in March’s US payrolls growth to just 103,000 from February’s upwardly-revised 326,000. This slowdown has eliminated, at least until after the summer, the risk of an unexpected Federal Reserve...

Gavekal Research

Anatole Kaletsky

Apr 05th 2018

After spending many years as Gavekal’s equity permabull, I joined Charles and Louis last December in warning of the risks to what was then a roaring, and accelerating, bull market. But my way of thinking about these risks was rooted in a different analytical framework, and so I have come to a different conclusion about how investors should respond to this latest sell-off (for Louis’ take, see Following Yesterday’s Pullback). With the lows of mid...

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Apr 04th 2018

I see but through a glass darkly. Sometimes, however there are glimmers of light. Four months ago, in early December, I examined the signals being broadcast by the various investment rules I have long followed and concluded that: “While global markets have been stable for the past 18 months, we may soon be entering a period of greater instability.”

Gavekal Research

Tan Kai Xian

Apr 04th 2018

Strong US auto sales in March mask a stagnating longer term trend and rising auto loan delinquencies. Happily, as KX explains, neither has broader implications for overall US consumer demand. Although auto sales may no longer be contributing to US growth, rising bad loans in the sector do not prefigure a wider consumer credit crisis.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave, Anatole Kaletsky, Joyce Poon

Apr 03rd 2018

With its latest sell-off, the S&P 500 capped two months of volatility by moving officially into correction territory: down -10% from its January high, and below its 200-day moving average for the first time in two years. Is this the end of the long US equity bull market? In this edition of our Strategy Monthly, we offer three perspectives on how investors should position themselves in these more volatile times.

Gavekal Research

Joyce Poon

Mar 29th 2018

It’s been a rough few weeks, both for Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and for the Japanese stock market. Reelected just five months ago, Abe is facing growing demands for his resignation after an influence-peddling scandal that has been bubbling away for the last year boiled over with leaks about an official cover-up. In response, Abe’s approval rating has slumped towards 30%, traditionally a level from which Japanese prime ministers struggle...

Gavekal Research

Joyce Poon

Mar 29th 2018

A US-China trade war would disrupt trade, likely drive up inflation and potentially spark a general risk-off move in markets. This scenario would be pretty terrible for emerging markets, but Joyce reckons it is a tail risk and the general outlook remains decent. In this chartbook, she reviews EMs' vulnerability to a trade bust and explains why profits should drive a maturing cycle that increasingly favors commodity-focused markets outside...

Gavekal Dragonomics

Thomas Gatley, Rosealea Yao

Mar 28th 2018

The rebound in commodity prices since 2016 has been a boon for much of China’s industrial sector—but coal-burning power plants have been big losers. Coal prices cannot go much higher without causing serious financial distress. This means that policy should now be shifting to favor power producers, by ensuring coal prices do not climb further.

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Anatole Kaletsky

Mar 27th 2018

Once again, the volatility that rocked global financial markets in recent days was at least as interesting for what it didn’t tell us as what it did. Amid growing protectionism, rising rates and fiscal irresponsibility in the US government, the biggest and most important financial market of all—the US treasury market—isn’t bothered.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Arthur Kroeber, Long Chen, Andrew Batson

Mar 26th 2018

Last week’s sharp equity market sell-off followed the US effectively threatening China with a trade war. In this report, Arthur, Long and Andrew address China’s capacity to strike back and explore what it means for the relationship between the world’s two biggest economies.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave, Tom Miller, Cedric Gemehl, Anatole Kaletsky

Mar 23rd 2018

In our seminar in London this week Charles pondered the investment consequences of the US moving back into an inflationary period. Tom discussed Chinese politics in light of Xi Jinping’s elevation. Cedric presented on how investors can best benefit from the diversity of the European economy. Anatole explained why the long-running global bull market is likely to continue, but also where the risks are buried.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Mar 22nd 2018

In developing “Wicksellian” theory and applying it to portfolio management, readers may have noticed that Charles and Will Denyer have plowed slightly different furrows. The aim of this piece is to clarify points of agreement and highlight differences in their methodology. In so doing, Charles hopes to illuminate both approaches and help readers to navigate a subject that is fairly central to Gavekal research.

Gavekal Research

Louis Gave

Mar 20th 2018

A client recently told me that he had wanted to give up “value investing” for Lent. Unfortunately, his priest pointed out that this was like forgoing boiled spinach as Lent commemorates Christ’s 40 days in the desert and requires doing without something that feels good: think of giving up Amazon, Nvidia or Tencent (at least until this week) for energy stocks, Japan and emerging market financials. Our client chose self-flagellation and stuck with...

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Long Chen

Mar 19th 2018

China’s top economic team for the next five years was released this morning, and the theme seems to be “steady as she goes”, with a vote of confidence for experts in their fields. Chen Long has looked at the list, which includes a new PBOC governor, and offers his take on what this means for financial policy in the years ahead.

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Tan Kai Xian

Mar 16th 2018

With high-yield and investment grade spreads having shrunk to historically low levels, US corporate bonds are hardly cheap. Yet the combination of favorable tax policy and fiscal incontinence recommends them to any US bond portfolio. As the US economy is likely in the dog days of this cycle, the tricky question is what duration investors should focus on.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Andrew Batson, Rosealea Yao

Mar 15th 2018

China’s first data release of 2018 delivered a couple of surprises, with a big jump in industrial value-added and a pickup in real-estate investment. But neither amounts to a convincing signal that the economy is actually re-accelerating. The most likely outcome is still a moderate growth slowdown driven by a shallow downcycle in property.

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Tom Miller

Mar 15th 2018

Given its size and comparative advantages, India should have more than a hundred million people working in the garment industry. Bad policies and missed opportunities means it has about half that number. The government has big plans to fix this situation and Tom recently spent time meeting with textile entrepreneurs in and around Delhi to see if this is changing. This is his report card.

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Nick Andrews

Mar 14th 2018

In the first half of last year making money in European stocks was easy as benchmarks steamed higher on hopes that less political risk would allow an economic surge into sunlit uplands. It has not exactly worked out that way. Such has been the loss of momentum that both the MSCI EMU and broader MSCI Europe indexes have plunged below their 200-day moving averages (just as worrying for tea leaf readers, the 50-day moving average for the narrower...

Gavekal Research

Tom Holland

Mar 13th 2018

One of the longest awaited adjustments in financial markets may finally be about to happen. Last year, betting that Hong Kong dollar interest rates would rise to converge with US dollar rates was reckoned to be among the surest trades in world markets. Yet the convergence never happened. Over the last 12 months, one-month Hong Kong dollar Hibor has consistently traded at a discount to one-month US dollar Libor of more than 30bp. And since the...

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Tan Kai Xian

Mar 12th 2018

Since early February, global markets have had a volatile ride. The big exception has been the US dollar, which has stayed stoically range-bound. This is odd considering the Federal Reserve’s fairly hawkish outlook for monetary policy and the fact that imposing tariffs on metal imports should lessen the US trade deficit. Not to pat ourselves on the back, but the general Gavekal view on the US dollar has in recent times been fairly bearish (see...

Gavekal Research

Cedric Gemehl

Mar 12th 2018

The result of this weekend’s Russian presidential election is not in doubt. But investors in Russia face considerable uncertainty. Despite monetary policy and exchange rate liberalization, Russia has made little progress towards the structural reforms needed to boost its potential growth rate above rock-bottom levels. Nevertheless, cyclical tailwinds mean there are still some attractive pockets of opportunity for international investors.

Gavekal Research

Arthur Kroeber

Mar 09th 2018

In the aftermath of the past week’s to-ing and fro-ing over steel and aluminum tariffs, there is one thing we can be certain of this year: we are going to see a lot more protectionist theatrics coming out of the White House. What is much less certain is how worried we should be.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Rosealea Yao

Mar 08th 2018

A property tax is back on the Chinese government’s agenda: after being postponed in 2017, the long-discussed tax was brought up again at this week’s legislative session. The draft law could come in 2018, with actual taxes being levied by late 2019 at the earliest. But Rosealea expects this to be largely a non-event for the property market.

Gavekal Research

Will Denyer, Tan Kai Xian

Mar 07th 2018

The last economic cycle in the US was marked by excesses in residential investment and a dearth of business investment, which proved negative for productivity growth. As the current cycle gets a pro-cyclical boost in its mature phase from last year’s tax reforms, that imbalance will be at least partially reversed.

Gavekal Research

Charles Gave

Mar 06th 2018

At Gavekal, we have no house view, but in recent weeks something of a united front has formed among my erudite colleagues on the subject of Europe and her politics. Just to be sure that clients don’t conclude that we have all imbibed the Brussels-dispensed Kool Aid, let me offer my take on the situation and the implication for financial asset values.

Gavekal Research

Anatole Kaletsky, Cedric Gemehl

Mar 05th 2018

Is it time for investors to finally forget about “political risk” in the eurozone? Judging by the weekend’s events in Germany and Italy the answer is an emphatic “Yes”. The big event was the overwhelming vote by Germany’s Social Democratic Party to participate in a “grand coalition” with the center-right. This means that Angela Merkel will be reappointed for a fourth term as chancellor. Thus Germany will have a stable government with no serious...

Gavekal Research

Tan Kai Xian

Mar 05th 2018

US president Donald Trump’s announcement last week of tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum are just the first salvo of a trade war aimed at reducing the US$566bn annual US trade deficit. Yet even far more extensive tariffs than those announced on Thursday will do nothing to narrow the US trade gap. As KX argues in this report, more powerful economic forces are working to widen the US trade and current account deficits over the coming...

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Long Chen

Mar 02nd 2018

Scarcely a week goes by without word of some new regulatory crackdown on China’s financial services industry. After years of financial liberalization, runaway growth in the shadow banking market, and rampant regulatory arbitrage, the authorities are now moving to unify a fragmented regulatory regime and contain the risks posed by excessive leverage and complexity. In this video interview, Chen Long makes sense of the about-face and explains what...

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Joyce Poon

Mar 01st 2018

The best performing currency in the world so far this year is... the Japanese yen. Over the first two months of 2018, the yen has climbed 5.5% against the US dollar, remaining well bid even as the US dollar itself has found support in recent days. At the same time, the Japanese equity market has taken a beating, falling -4.3% in local currency terms over the year to date. As a result, even though Japanese stocks are still up in US dollar terms...

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Louis Gave

Feb 28th 2018

The foreign exchange market, I’ve often said, is a serial monogamist. There are multitudes of potential drivers out there. But the market likes to step out with just one at a time. Its relationships can last anywhere from a few quarters to a couple of years. But sooner or later, it gets bored and switches its affections. So, in 2005-07, the main driver was the growing US current account deficit and the perception that the US was flooding the...

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Louis Gave

Feb 27th 2018

Few in the markets will be sorry to see the back of February. But as a tough month draws to a close, this seems a reasonable time to take stock and draw lessons for the future. It is perturbing that lesson Number One must be that there really was nowhere to hide. Geographical diversification served little purpose, as all markets fell and then rebounded in unison. The same held with sectors, for those that performed worst in 2017 (energy and...

Gavekal Research

Yanmei Xie

Feb 26th 2018

By removing term limits from his office of president, Xi Jinping has shown there are no constraints left on his political power. As he strengthens his grasp on the top of China’s political pyramid, he is also enforcing his will more effectively at the bottom. For better or for worse, he is moving China to a more centralized and top-down system.

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Cedric Gemehl

Feb 23rd 2018

European growth was always going to soften at some point; the question is whether this week’s squishy data releases reflect a fizzling out of the upswing, or merely an inevitable maturing of the cycle. The fact that the deterioration unfolded during a market dislocation that did not originate in Europe certainly gives succor to skeptics who see the single currency area as the soft underbelly of the current global synchronized upturn.

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Anatole Kaletsky

Feb 22nd 2018

Last Monday, I pointed to three reasons why the recent turmoil in global equities would probably prove nothing worse than a counter-trend “buy on dips” correction, rather than the start of a serious bear market. That's not to say that worries about inflation and overheating are unfounded. But investors are still quite relaxed about both growth and inflation, as evidenced by historically modest bond yields.

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Udith Sikand

Feb 21st 2018

As most emerging equity markets have clawed back a good portion of the losses they suffered in early February’s risk-off, there has been one notable exception. Far from rebounding, Indian stocks have taken another leg down following revelations of a US$1.7bn fraud at Punjab National Bank, the country’s second-largest state-owned lender. The scale of the fraud—roughly twice the amount promised to the bank by the government in the first tranche of...

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Tom Holland

Feb 20th 2018

It made headlines around the world earlier this month when the US government’s Energy Information Administration announced that US oil production had hit 10.25mn bpd in the last week of January. At that rate, the US was not just pumping more crude than at its previous production peak in 1970, it was very likely pumping more than Saudi Arabia, lifting the US into second place in the global production league table behind Russia.

Gavekal Research

Udith Sikand

Feb 19th 2018

On Thursday, my colleague Joyce Poon argued that strong global growth and favorable financial conditions should allow emerging markets to sustain their outperformance. In the immediate run-up to the recent global sell-off, Latin American markets like Brazil and Mexico had charged hardest on the back of higher commodity prices and an incipient global shift from growth stocks toward value plays. But once the dust settles and EMs get their mojo...

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Nick Andrews

Feb 16th 2018

Last week, the Bank of England upped its UK growth forecast and signaled that interest rates may be raised harder and faster than expected. This week, Theresa May’s government maintained its muddled passage towards a European Union exit, which has increasingly fretful multinationals warning that Britain’s economy could be headed for the rocks. Even, if like me, you think the UK will secure an eventual squishy-type deal with the EU that involves...

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Charles Gave, Didier Darcet

Feb 15th 2018

On Monday, in CSI Wall Street Anatole morphed into Sherlock Holmes to investigate the crime scene following the market correction. He concluded that: “There’s nothing to see here. Please move along.” And the markets promptly did. Over the past week, equities have rallied around the world while volatility has gradually ratcheted down. A few more weeks like the past one, and the market moves of late January and early February will quickly be...

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Yanmei Xie

Feb 14th 2018

It has been a week of confusing signals from the Korean peninsula. Even as North Korea has paraded its missiles, and the US and its allies have sworn to exert “maximum pressure” against Kim Jong-Un’s rogue regime, both sides have hinted at their readiness to return to the negotiating table. Yanmei cuts through the fog to assess the future trajectory of North Korean event risk.

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Anatole Kaletsky

Feb 12th 2018

Bear market massacre or harmless buy-the-dip correction? Financial investigators have spent the weekend sifting through, dismantling and reassembling dozens of clues to determine the true nature of the shocking crime committed on Wall Street last week, as stock prices suddenly went down instead of up. But amid the righteous indignation inspired by this offence against morality and natural law, possibly the most important forensic evidence has...

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Louis Gave

Feb 09th 2018

“A week is a long time in politics”, Harold Wilson was said to have once quipped to a young aide. The former British prime minister should have tried working in the US equity market. In recent days, it has sometimes felt as if time stood still. So what should we make of stocks’ inability to mount a rally after they again closed on their lows?

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Cedric Gemehl

Feb 08th 2018

On the face of it, yesterday’s coalition deal between Angela Merkel’s center -right grouping and the Social Democratic Party differed little from that agreed last month. In addition to domestic stimulus measures it backed more European integration. Yet look closer and the German political landscape may just have been roiled by an earthquake, for while Merkel should stay chancellor the new man at the finance ministry is set to be Olaf Scholz, the...

Gavekal Dragonomics

Long Chen

Feb 06th 2018

China’s regulators have done a remarkable job of de-leveraging the financial sector without hurting economic growth or disrupting markets. But was this smooth trajectory due to luck or skill, and can it continue? In this piece, Chen Long explains how the central bank used its monetary policy tools to defuse the risks from tighter regulation.

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Will Denyer, Tan Kai Xian

Feb 05th 2018

The US posted a solid employment report on Friday, and the markets didn’t like it one bit. Some 200,000 jobs were added in January, better than the expected 180,000 and prior month gain of 160,000. But what really spooked investors was the faster than expected pickup in wage growth to 2.9% YoY. On the face of it, this is good for economic growth (certainly in nominal terms) and top-line corporate revenues. The worry is that without productivity...

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Will Denyer

Feb 02nd 2018

Will outlines his view that real growth in the US will remain stable this year and that inflation will pick up, and discusses what this means for asset prices and portfolio construction.

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Tan Kai Xian

Feb 01st 2018

In her valedictory meeting yesterday, Janet Yellen presided over a slight tightening of language to indicate that the Federal Reserve’s official inflation target of 2% should be hit some time this year. Investors were not surprised as break-even inflation rates have risen to 2% from about 1.8% late last year, while the chance of four rate hikes materializing in 2018 is now priced at 22%. The fly in the ointment is still sluggish wage growth,...

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Nick Andrews

Jan 31st 2018

“I can’t stand London,” one US economist who last year relocated to the UK capital recently complained to Gavekal. “It’s grey and miserable, and all anyone ever talks about is Brexit.” It’s easy to sympathize. Political infighting over the Brexit process dominates UK headlines. However, there are growing reasons to feel more positive about the outlook for UK consumers.