Videos

Donald Trump’s attempts to lean on Federal Reserve policymakers to cut US interest rates are a reminder that central bank independence is not set in stone, and that monetary policy everywhere is potentially at risk of political interference. In this week’s interview, Gavekal European economist Cedric Gemehl assesses the vulnerability of the Bank of England and the European Central Bank in an age of rising political populism.

The White House seems set on packing the Federal Reserve with figures who will deliver easier monetary policy. As such, the lead up to this week’s policy setting meeting has seen a burst of activity involving Fed personnel. In this interview, Will discusses what all this means for near-term interest rate setting and for governance at the central bank in the longer term.

With France now on its fifth prime minister in two years, and protesters aiming to block the streets of French cities, commentators are increasingly asserting that France—and more broadly Europe—is now ungovernable. That may be overstating the case. But as Charles Gave points out in this video interview, with debt now rising faster than GDP in a number of major European economies, the continent is heading into a nasty debt trap.

Wednesday’s grand military parade through Beijing and the earlier Tianjin summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, hosted by Xi Jinping and attended by both Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin, have emphasized the growth of economic partnerships on the Eurasian landmass in defiance of the established US-led international order. In this video interview, Tom Miller assesses the depth of India’s diplomatic reengagement with China, and considers the economic implications of the strengthening Eurasian relations.

This week, US President Donald Trump met his South Korean counterpart at the White House in a summit intended to reset the two countries’ economic relations. For the American side, whose stated aim is to reestablish dominance as a maritime power, a key request has been engaging Korean specialists to invest in US domestic shipbuilding. This marks another instance of activist US industrial policy that promises to create winners and losers among the affected companies. In this interview, Kai Xian explains who is likely to benefit most from the initiative.

When Jerome Powell stands up on Friday to speak for the last time at the Jackson Hole symposium as Federal Reserve chair, he will have one eye on his legacy as principal defender of the Fed’s independence in troubled times. But investors will be focused at least as much on whether he offers any guidance on the Fed’s September 17th interest rate decision.

There is a difference between the typical story told about China in the West and the reality on the ground, says Tom, who just came back from a month-long visit. Tom lived in China from 2000 to 2015 and is impressed by the improvements made in recent years—despite several big policy errors—noting that the quality of life is approaching high-income-country status. On the flip side, the “anything goes” spirit that characterized the China of decades past, and encouraged people to take economic risks, has disappeared.

The past week has been eventful for those preoccupied with the US economy, with fairly weak data releases and the resignation of one Federal Reserve governor. In this week’s interview, Kai Xian examines what this might portend for interest rates and the performance of US equities through the rest of 2025 and into next year.

With €3trn in assets, Europe’s pension funds are investment giants. But they have long been lumbering and risk-averse giants. Now, Cedric Gemehl argues, they are about to discover a new-found appetite for risky assets, and that at the margin this shift will favor European equities over US equities and European government bonds.

In recent days, there’s been a flurry of trade “deals” between the US and Asian countries, ahead of the August 1 deadline to avoid the Trump administration’s punitive tariffs announced six months ago. Udith unpacks how these framework arrangements are shaping Asia’s macro environment—and what they could mean for markets, particularly the potential for a coordinated regional interest rate easing cycle.

Technological optimism seems to be doing what macroeconomic policy could not: change foreign investors’ minds about China. At the same time the nascent rebound in the property market is at risk of stalling out amid a policy vacuum. And signals of greater comity between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have not prevented the escalation of US tariffs on China. In this webinar, our China team assesses the conflicting signals for the outlook for 2025.

DeepSeek stunned the world with the release of two new AI models with performance comparable to models from the US market leaders, but which the Chinese company developed at a fraction of the cost and with less powerful chips. Tilly Zhang, Gavekal’s technology analyst, founding partner Louis-Vincent Gave and US economist Will Denyer assessed the extent of DeepSeek’s achievement and examined what it means for China’s AI development, US export controls, and the future of the US tech stock bull market.

All eyes were on the White House after Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday to see the initial flurry of executive orders that may indicate his governing priorities. Would he pursuse a maximalist trade-protection agenda, or invite allies and rivals alike to the bargaining table? Would he move quickly towards mass deportations of Illegal immigrants or be more surgical in his approach? Our team sat down to unpack the flurry of news from Trump's first days in office.

Crypto-currencies had a stellar 2024, with a particularly strong run after Donald Trump’s win in the November election. The president-elect has appointed crypto enthusiasts to his cabinet and mused on adopting a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. Our panel looked at both structural factors like the prospect of mass crypto adoption and more pressing cyclical issues such as how the vertiginously positioned asset class handles a likely more challenging liquidity environment in 2025.

With the fall of French prime minister Michel Barnier’s three-month-old government, reasons are mounting to be grumpy about Europe. Our panel considers all the relevant factors, yet also ask whether the gloom is overdone given that almost no one is asking what happens if things go right, or prove to be not as bad as expected.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January threatens to stir a trade war and potential upheaval in currency and capital markets. Our analysts assessed the impact from the perspective of economies in the US, Europe, China and major emerging markets.

As the dust begins to settle following Donald Trump's commanding victory in the US election, Gavekal Research partners Anatole Kaletsky, Arthur Kroeber and Louis-Vincent Gave assessed what the outcome implies for US growth and inflation, for global geopolitical risk and trade relations, and for financial markets around the world.

Markets are increasingly convinced that Donald Trump will win the US presidential race and Republicans may achieve a sweep of Congress. Yet with the key “swing states” still effectively in a dead heat between Trump and Kamala Harris, and well within the polling margin of error, the race remains highly competitive. Our panel assessed the underpinnings of the “Trump trade” but also explored macro and market scenarios in the event of Harris securing the White House.

A range of recent developments suggests that the world economy is moving into a period of higher nominal growth and persistent price pressures. China looks to be embracing a more concerted fiscal stimulus and, given the platforms of both presidential candidates, the United States is likely to stay in expansionary mode. Our panel assessed this situation and suggested investing strategies.

Chinese authorities have rolled out a raft of measures aimed at supporting the beaten-down domestic property and equity markets. This support package won’t miraculously revive China’s depressed consumer confidence overnight, but it does mean that China is set to adopt a reflationary policy stance. Our panel discussed what this shift means for growth, currencies, financial assets and commodities.