Videos

Just days after securing another five years in power at the ballot box, Singapore’s government announced that the island republic’s gross domestic product contracted a worse-than-expected -12.6% year-on-year in the second quarter. However, with large accumulated fiscal reserves, the government has considerable scope to spend in order to stimulate Singapore’s economy.

This week UK Chancellor of the Exchequer “Dishy” Rishi Sunak lived up to his media nickname, dishing out an additional £30bn in fiscal support and stimulus measures. In this short video interview, Nick assesses their likely impact.

Although a new opposition political party is making Singapore’s current election season somewhat more interesting than past campaigns, the outcome is not in doubt: the ruling People’s Action Party will be confirmed in power for another five-year term. In this short video interview, Vincent looks beyond the July 10 poll to survey the economic and market outlook for the island republic.

Hong Kong has been beset by a string of bad news, from mass street protests, through Covid-19, to national security legislation of unknown scope and severity imposed by the mainland. Yet you wouldn’t guess it from looking at the city’s property market—the world’s priciest—or its stock market where several mainland tech companies are lining up to do their initial public offerings. Vincent explains the disconnect.

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.

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.

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.

Having long resisted the lure of negative interest rates, policymakers at the Bank of England have recently admitted that they are considering a cut in the UK’s main bank rate to below zero.Nick examines the pros and cons of negative interest rates, and weighs the probability that the Bank of England will indeed enter negative rate territory for the first time.

Emerging markets have broadly weathered the liquidity squeeze that threatened to engulf them in March, however Udith is not convinced they are out of the woods. Growth shocks associated with the Covid-19 crisis mean that many smaller markets on the frontier are at risk of debt defaults, which could end up spurring forced selling by foreign investors.

With most big US firms having reported their first quarter earnings, the picture is not pretty and worse may follow in 2Q20. Yet the stock market rally of the last six weeks suggests that investors have a fairly cheery view about US firms’ prospects. So what gives? Near-term expectations are, in fact, appropriately set and the fundamentals of the US market are better than they appear.

India has taken a bigger economic hit from the pandemic than any other major economy, exacerbating a slowdown that was already underway. In addition, India is engaged in a high-stakes standff with China over its Himalayan border, which may force an economic decoupling of the two countries.

Anatole and Will presented their views on the efficacy of US fiscal and monetary policy in response to the Covid crisis, and outlined the prospects for the economy and asset markets.

In a turbulent economic environment, Louis sought to identify assets with “anti-fragile” qualities; Cedric deciphered the message from European markets; Didier Darcet refreshed refresh an old Gavekal framework with “Four Quadrants 2.0” and Charles moderated the discussion.

Charles Gave, Louis Gave and Will Denyer joined Arthur Kroeber at the global investment roundtable to discuss what's going on in the global economy. Charles identified three big trends that will affect the investment environment in the long term, Will gave an in-dept update on the US economy, and Louis examined where to find assets with “anti-fragile” properties.

In our monthly Global Investment Roundtable, US analyst Tan Kai Xian analyzed the latest US data and assessed the risk that the present economic stall-out turns into a double-dip recession. Arthur Kroeber explained why the Trump Administration has amped up its Cold War rhetoric on China. Anatole Kaletsky tied it all together and tried to explain the recent movements in global markets.

Anatole Kaletsky, Cedric Gemehl and Nick Andrews joined Louis Gave to talk about what lies in store for the European Union in light of Tuesdays agreement on a €750 billion Covid-19 recovery fund.

On Tuesday morning Thomas Gatley and Wei He joined Arthur Kroeber to discuss the Chinese equity bull market and the major reversal in the bond market.

Yesterday Nick and Cedric presented on the topic of their latest Strategy Monthly: A New European Dawn. In this they argue that Europe is finally embracing fundamental reform that should change the investment environment. Anatole offered his take on why the European Union is heading in a “Hamiltonian” direction.

Yesterday Louis Gave, Will Denyer and Andrew Batson joined Arthur Kroeber at the Global Investment Roundtable. They discussed the economic growth and market situation in the US, the state of the Chinese recovery, and what a post-Covid-19 world might look like.

In yesterday's webinar for our Francophone audience, Charles and Louis Gave, Cedric Gemehl and Didier Darcet updated viewers on their views of asset markets and government responses to the economic calamity caused by Covid-19.