Videos

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.

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.

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.

A mild winter has averted Europe’s long-feared energy crisis, and the prospect of a demand boost from China’s reopening has raised hopes for growth and lifted European markets. Cedric and Nick review the continent’s macro and market conditions and chart a course to navigate the coming quarters.

China continues to reel from a massive wave of Covid infections, but cases may have already peaked in most places. In this webinar our China team discussed the pace of reopening and its market implications. Ernan Cui provided the latest updates on the Covid situation, and Thomas Gatley assessed how far the reopening rally has to run.