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.

Will and KX have been in the camp arguing that such trends point to a US economy heading towards recession. They update their view with a particular focus on the strength of the US consumer and in light of this week's Federal Reserve’s policy meeting.

China’s economic rebound is well under way, with GDP growth in the first quarter beating expectations on the back of strengthening household consumption and property sales. But many still have doubts about the strength of the recovery. Thomas Gatley and Wei He assess what the data tell us about the recovery so far, as well as the outlook for economic growth and asset markets.

In last week's seminar in Beijing, Will Denyer discussed the outlook for the US economy and Federal Reserve policy; Arthur Kroeber spoke on China’s long-term growth trajectory and the strategy to counter US efforts to hinder its technological development; Andrew Batson presented an update on China's post-Covid recovery and answered audience questions along with Rosealea Yao and Xiaoxi Zhang.

After global frontier markets went on a borrowing spree between 2008 and 2020, tighter global liquidity has pushed countries from Pakistan to Zambia into financial crisis. China is a major creditor, sometimes at odds with other bilateral and multilateral lenders.

Louis examined the global macroeconomic landscape to find the key trends and structural changes that matter for investors; Wei discussed China's economic recovery and outlined the near-term growth and policy outlook; and Arthur spoke on China’s long-term growth trajectory geopolitical strategy.

As markets stabilize after the ructions caused by the US’s banking travails, it is time to take stock of what has changed for investors. In this webinar Charles and Louis update their views on the global macro situation with a particular focus placed on an accelerated “dedollarization” that both of them see as a major factor now influencing markets and investment returns.

As US firms operating in key industries get huge subsidies under the sprawling Inflation Reduction Act and Chinese firms consolidate their dominance in sectors like battery technology, European firms feel hemmed in on all sides. In this webinar, our team assesses the options open to Europe and what it all means for the region’s longer-term growth outlook.

Hoping to turn the page on a traumatic 2022, China’s government has unveiled a new agenda to be carried out by fresh faces in 2023. In this webinar our China team discusses the outlook for the economy, the political risks and the drivers for markets.

Will Denyer discussed the banking trouble in the US and how it might affect the Federal Reserve’s course of action, Arthur Kroeber presented on China’s economic outlook and geopolitical strategy, and Louis sought to identify the key themes for investors in 2023.

In this webinar, Will Denyer, Tan Kai Xian and Cedric Gemehl reviewed the state of the US and European banking systems, and explored what the SVB debacle means for the economy, central bank policy and portfolios.