Videos

On the eve of the Paris Olympics, France’s political class has taken a welcome break from trying to resolve the parliamentary dilemma thrown by a deeply divided electorate. In this video, Cedric discusses the state of France and whether its economy can expect to benefit from an Olympic bounce to chase away the summer blues.

A new spirit of mercantilism is abroad in the US, with Donald Trump’s Republican Party proposing a “baseline tariff” on all goods imports, as well as targeted higher tariffs on imports from China, should it capture the White House in November’s election. In this interview, Yanmei assesses what this means.

Two months ago, Kai Xian made a cautiously bullish call on the US housing market, as a downturn in activity had looked to be bottoming out. In the intervening period, however, conditions for US homebuilders continued to worsen. In this interview, he explains what happened and what he expects to happen next.

Over the past month, the frequency, intensity and severity of clashes between Israel’s military and Hezbollah has ramped up on the Israel-Lebanon border. That may already have been responsible for pushing the oil price higher. In this interview, Yanmei assesses the forces of escalation against the strength of the guardrails that have kept the conflict fairly contained so far.

The electrification trend in the US economy means that electricity is accounting for a growing share of total energy consumption. KX reckons this is a multi-year development, but there are limited useful ways for investors to play it. In this interview, he outlines the best options.

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.

Most investors and financial analysts take the stability of the global monetary system for granted. However, each of the distinguished speakers in this three-way conversation thinks that China will change the global monetary system, they just don’t agree on how, and how fast it will be changed.

The policy approaches of major economies are diverging, leading to unstable currency markets with more than a hint of beggar-thy-neighbor at work. Our team of country specialists seek to explain what comes next.

China’s property market is off to an awful start to 2024, and the government’s efforts to shore up the sector appear to be gaining no traction. Rosealea Yao and Xiaoxi Zhang join Christopher Beddor to unpack what exactly is driving the recent weakness and why policymakers are not doing more to help, as well as what it all means for commodity markets, the financial sector and economic growth ahead.

In this webinar Gavekal’s analysts review the themes driving growth across the world’s major economic regions, and discuss how macro developments are likely to drive financial markets over the remainder of 2024.

With inflation reaccelerating in the US, energy prices rising and escalating conflict in the Middle East, 2024 is beginning to feel uncomfortably reminiscent of the early 1970s. In this webinar, Gavekal’s founding partners examine how investors have mispriced the risk of permanently higher inflation, and discuss how to structure portfolios for a less forgiving macro environment in which bonds no longer serve to hedge exposure to equities.

This webinar examines the probable extent of anti-China protectionism around the world, assesses the consequences for China's manufacturing industries and growth outlook, and gauges the risk to other economies of Chinese retaliation.

While US tech stocks have been getting all the publicity, capital has quietly been flowing into emerging market investments over recent months. To gauge market prospects over the rest of 2024, Udith Sikand examined the macroeconomic outlook for the major emerging markets ex-China, while Thomas Gatley assessed the chances of a revival of animal spirits in the Middle Kingdom.

In recent years, Charles Gave and Didier Darcet have headed an initiative in Paris to develop a more perfect form of asset allocation. In this webinar, they review how their asset allocation strategy works during phase changes in the economic environment, as now seems to be the case.

So far in 2024, yields have rebounded on stronger-than-expected growth and inflation, along with heavy issuance by the US Treasury. Yet the rally in equities has continued undismayed, with especially strong gains in big US growth stocks. With the bond market and equity market sending conflicting signals, Anatole and Louis examined the macro and market scenarios for the rest of the year and drew conclusions for asset allocation.

A soft-landing scenario looks to be playing out in the US, with inflation heading towards the Federal Reserve’s 2% target and growth humming along. Across the pond, the eurozone seems to be headed the same way, albeit with lower growth. Our team of specialists asked if such an “immaculate disinflation” is possible on both sides of the Atlantic and explored what it means for relative monetary policy settings and asset price performance.