Videos

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.

Even as US employment growth has remained strong in recent months, wage growth has continued to ease. Kai Xian attributes this paradox in part to rapid immigration into the US, which is supporting the supply of new workers. This implies that immigration policy will have a significant influence on the US labor market, wage growth and inflation over the coming years.

Tom recently conducted a research trip to Vietnam and found that the key issue vexing foreign investors in the country is fallout from an escalating “anti-corruption” campaign, which has paralyzed economic policymaking. In this interview, he discusses whether the resulting power struggle within the ruling Communist Party could upend what has been one of the world’s best development stories over recent years.

As China’s government has doubled down on industrial development as its driver of growth, economies elsewhere have grown increasingly concerned about their ability to compete as Chinese producers move rapidly up the value chain. In this short video interview, Yanmei Xie assesses the risks posed by rising protectionism, and identifies potential winners and losers.

Over the last two decades, the share of nuclear power in the US energy mix has flatlined. Yet with the US signed up to carbon emission reduction targets and power-hungry tech firms looking for clean energy sources to power their vast server farms, there is a renewed impetus to develop modern nuclear options.

The US House of Representatives’ approval of a bill aimed at forcing China’s Bytedance to divest TikTok has implications in areas far beyond the future of the wildly popular video-sharing platform. In this short video interview, Louis Gave examines the potential consequences for media freedom, for US-owned big-tech platforms, and for foreign investment in the United States.

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.

Emerging market analysts Udith Sikand and Vincent Tsui outlined the two big forces that will drive EM performance over the rest of 2023, and explored the three main macro scenarios EM investors are likely to face.

Global investors fled Chinese assets in 2022, believing there were simply too many risks from China’s confrontation with the West and domestic policy missteps. But since last November, portfolio money has poured back in, casting doubt on the idea that China is permanently uninvestible.

For the last decade, China has been working slowly but surely to establish a new Asian monetary system as an alternative to the US-dollar-based system Asian economies have used since 1945. In this webinar, Charles Gave assesses its progress.

The reordering of the global automobile manufacturing industry is upending national economies and forcing many governments into avowedly protectionist industrial policies. Our team explored these dynamics and also addressed the supply chain for battery metals, with a focus on Indonesia.

Looking further into 2023, our US team of Will Denyer and Tan Kai Xian have become increasingly concerned that there could be an impending deflationary bust in the US. Both Louis Gave and Anatole Kaletsky disagree with this stance, although for different reasons.

With India’s next national election due in the second quarter of 2024, the budget released on February 1 seems firmly focused on winning votes. Udith Sikand and Tom Miller put India’s budget into context and chart the implications for investors.