Videos

The surprise election announcement by French president Emmanuel Macron last week was followed by market turmoil as investors priced in greater political uncertainty in France. Setting the politics aside for a moment, Cedric assesses the new environment for equities and bonds, and invokes the old Gavekal concept of “national victims” to chart the potential outcomes for listed companies exposed to the French market or who operate in heavily regulated sectors.

As the European Union slaps punitive tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles, Louis ponders the problem with the developed world’s responses so far to China’s rapid climb up the global value curve: they are all inflationary for developed-economy consumers. One—admittedly speculative—alternative would be a new Plaza Accord. That would depend on a change of political direction in the US, but the implications for financial markets would be earthshaking.

Saudi Arabia’s US$11bn follow-on offering for oil giant Aramco follows a spate of Saudi sovereign issues this year in domestic and international debt markets. Nevertheless, talk that Riyadh is facing a mounting fiscal squeeze as it attempts to fund a list of expensive mega-projects as part of an unrealistic economic transition program are exaggerated.

Mexicans go to the polls this Sunday to elect a new president after several years in which the Mexican economy has benefited from the realignment of global supply chains. Fresh back from a trip to Mexico’s China-invested factory lands, Tom Miller assesses how the new president will endeavor to attract fresh inward investment while navigating mounting criticism from Washington that Mexico is acting as a back door into the US for unfairly underpriced Chinese goods.

China’s policymakers announced several new property policies last week, including a call for local governments to buy back residential land from developers and purchase housing inventories for conversion into affordable homes. Christopher examines this latest attempt to bolster the ailing property sector and evaluates whether it might succeed where earlier efforts have failed.

Vladimir Putin visited Beijing this week a few weeks after senior US officials were in town to berate Chinese policymakers over their alleged supply of “dual-use” products to Russia. Chinese sales of machine tools, industrial widgets and microchips are reportedly key to Russia’s reinvigorated weapons production program but Xi Jinping is likely to preside over a relatively cautious approach to the trade.

Data centers are emerging as massive users of electricity that power-producers in many economies are struggling to serve. Data centers are also large-scale users of water, which is a scarce resource in many regions. In this video, Kai Xian discusses whether such constraints will impede the rollout of AI applications and thus hinder the hoped-for productivity improvement they promise to deliver.

A sharp strengthening of the yen late Wednesday suggested the Bank of Japan was again intervening in the foreign exchange market after it spent an estimated US$35bn to counter yen weakness on Monday. In this video interview, Udith Sikand examines the currency market dynamics to gauge the likely effectiveness of the Japanese authorities’ campaign to limit further yen weakness.

France’s government debt readings keep going from bad to worse, yet sovereign bond investors do not seem to be punishing policymakers for their spendthrift ways. In this video, Cedric explores different political scenarios that could upset the French apple cart.

As confrontations have flared between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the South China Sea, US president Joe Biden has declared an “ironclad” commitment to the Philippines’ defense in a trilateral security pact along with Japan. Gavekal geopolitical risk analyst Yanmei Xie delves into the background of the tensions, and assesses the potential for future clashes drawing in US forces in the region.

In our London seminar, Anatole Kaletsky assessed the outlook for global markets, Cedric Gemehl updated his view on Europe, Tom Miller considered the effects of China's National Party Congress and Charles Gave considered the possibility that this time really could be different.

Over the last decade, Asian property markets have done especially well on a cocktail of cheap money and solid macroeconomic fundamentals. Yet as policymakers in Asia struggle to catch up with the US Federal Reserve by raising interest rates, Asian property markets look exposed.

As fears mount for the growth outlook around the world, Arthur Kroeber examined the state of China’s economy and what to expect (and what not to expect) from China’s upcoming Communist Party Congress. Anatole Kaletsky presented his latest views on growth and inflation. And Charles Gave discussed optimum portfolio construction for troubled times.

The speakers discussed the global investment outlook, provided an update on European markets and outlined the latest research on portfolio construction.

The US dollar continues to make new highs, dragging the rest of the world’s currencies lower and forcing central banks to tighten monetary policy to deal with resulting threats of financial instability and heightened inflation. In this webinar, our team of currency-focused analysts looked at the effect of the current global liquidity crisis in their regions.

Thomas Gatley discussed his in-depth research into who owns China’s listed firms and answered viewer questions. Over the past decade a new hybrid form of ownership has emerged, which arguably represents the corporate form best adapted to succeed in China’s state capitalist economy. But there are risks to this new model.

With European energy prices for the coming winter up by 500% or more, inflation broadening, and businesses and consumers pessimistic, Europe’s economies are in for a troubled few months. Cedric Gemehl and Nick Andrews discuss what it all means.

China's economy faces two critical challenges: A property sector is in its worst slump in years. And the economic impact of persistent Covid lockdowns caused by sporadic outbreaks from more transmissible Covid variants. In this webinar, Dragonomics analysts discussed the challenges.

Anatole outlined the global growth and inflation outlook, and why financial markets have yet to fully adjust; Charles presented his thinking on the dissolution of the post-World-War-Two order and what this means for assets; and Arthur gave an update on China ahead of the 20th Party Congress.

In this webinar Anatole Kaletsky and Will Denyer discussed the outlook for the US economy and markets over the next 18 months. Additionally, Charles Gave gave an update on the evolving international US dollar liquidity crisis.