Videos

For the past few years, US treasuries, the US dollar and the oil price have all broadly traded in a range. In fact, the only bankable trend for investors has been the outperformance of US equities, without which global stock indexes would still be trading at 2006 levels. However, there are signs that the investment environment is changing.

A tweet by the Reserve Bank of India caused a bit of a stir last week, saying that the “…Indian banking system is safe and stable and there is no need to panic…”. It was after a small regional bank had been effectively put into receivership. While this doesn't pose a systemic risk, it's another consequence of Indian banks’ decade-old bad loan problem.

Investors are nervous about weak US data and a liquidity squeeze in the US repo markets. They are now looking to the Federal Reserve for reassurance. In this video, Will tells us what policy changes to expect from the Fed at the end of this month and why.

Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam today begins a process of civic engagement aimed at bridging the divide between an unpopular government and a diffuse movement that has engaged in 17 weeks of violent protest. Simon discusses whether economic goodies can buy off dissent and assesses the chances of a compromise political settlement.

Washington views China as a strategic competitor, and the White House has promised a “whole of government” effort to constrain China’s development of key advanced technologies. Dan examines the three ways in which the US is making life difficult for Chinese tech companies, and explores other weapons the US could deploy should the tech war escalate.

This week’s sacking of John Bolton as White House national security advisor triggered a fall in the price of oil as traders concluded the notorious war hawk’s departure paved the way for a relaxation of US sanctions on Iranian oil exports. That may be unlikely; US officials insist their policy of “maximum” pressure on Iran remains in force.

Yesterday Italy’s new government took office, the 66th since 1946. Meanwhile, Italian bond yields have reached record lows. Nick attributes this to two factors. First the global bond rally. Second, the shifting winds of Italian politics away from the Euroskeptics to the Europhiles, which bodes well for Italian-European budget negotiations.

As yields fall to record lows, bond markets seem priced for some sort of global economic calamity. With Europe in dire straits and the US-China trade war remaining live, there is certainly cause for worry. But when things look like they can’t get any worse, Will reckons, they often don’t. As the US growth outlook appears steady, equities and cash are the better bet.

As more and more government bonds around the world slide into negative yield, investors can draw one of two conclusions: either the world faces an economic meltdown, or there is a buying panic in safe assets. But although there is indeed a synchronous global slowdown in growth, Louis favors the latter explanation.

Blurb

Andrew and Rosealea discussed China’s slow return to normal, the state of the property and construction sector, and warned of the global demand shock China will face due to Covid-19. Will outlined his view on asset allocation in light of the shock to the US economy and the asset price adjustments that have taken place so far.

To deal with the economic fallout from unprecedented lockdown measures aimed at halting the spread of Covid-19, governments and central banks in the US and Europe are pulling out all the stops to pop up financial systems and avoid economic collapse. Anatole Kaletsky and Charles Gave joined Louis Gave to discuss the long term consequences.

At Wednesday's webinar, Andrew Batson, Ernan Cui, Thomas Gatley and Wei He discussed how China is recovering from the lockdown imposed to deal with the Covid-19 outbreak, and the outlook for the economy.

At Thursday’s webinar, Arthur Kroeber, Louis-Vincent Gave, Anatole Kaletsky and Andrew Batson discussed the Covid-19 outbreak and the consequences for financial markets and the economy.

Partners and analysts present their core ideas for the big economic regions and global markets heading into the year-end and looking forward to 2020.

At our seminar in Shanghai, Chen Long presented the outlook for China’s economy and markets. Crucially, the credit cycle appears to have bottomed out, and credit growth should accelerate towards the end of the year. He expects the overall economy to follow suit. He also covered the outlook for capital markets, equities and the renminbi.

Louis Gave examined the reasons for equity markets' good performance amid a global trade slowdown; Thomas Gatley assessed the state of the Chinese economy and whether the current Chinese equity bull market still has legs; Udith Sikand reckoned it is time to be positive on emerging markets, especially EM Asia.

Cedric Gemehl examined the possibility of a European rebound; Charles Gave argued the world is splitting into three distinct monetary zones; Tom Miller presented on the state of the US-China trade talks and the health of the Chinese economy; Anatole Kaletsky examined the risks to the bull market, and arrived at a bullish conclusion.

At Gavekal’s seminar in Hong Kong this week, Yanmei Xie, Arthur Kroeber and Will Denyer presented their latest views on China's economy, trade war, and how to approach asset allocation in the US.

At Gavekal’s seminar in London last month Charles Gave and Anatole Kaletsky presented on whether the world is breaking up into three different monetary zones, and whether this is a correction to, or an end to, the long-running global bull market. Micahel Clendenin of Gavekal RedTech explained how they conduct research on the Chinese technology and internet sector.