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China's Currency Struggles Spell Trouble Across Emerging Markets

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest. Here is a section:

“With the yuan set to weaken further, other emerging markets will face downward pressure on their currencies,” said Per Hammarlund, the chief emerging markets strategist at Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB. “The impact will be felt the most by nations which compete directly with China on exports.”

The yuan declined for a sixth consecutive month in August, capping the longest losing streak since the height of the US-led trade war in October 2018. It will fall even more and cross the psychological mark of 7 per dollar this year, banks including Societe Generale SA, Nomura Holdings Inc. and Bank of America Corp. say.

It’s a stunning reversal for a currency that stood out for its resilience at the outbreak of Russia’s war in Ukraine. In the days following the Feb. 24 invasion, the yuan was the only emerging-market exchange rate to avoid a decline, trading at an almost four-year high against MSCI Inc.’s benchmark index. Global demand for it deepened -- from countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia looking to reduce their reliance on the dollar to US bond investors seeking new havens.



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We Own It: The Chinese Homeowners Squatting in Unfinished Buildings

This article from sixthtone.com may be of interest to subscribers.  Here is a section:

As much as 5% of new residential developments in China’s major cities — or 71.5 million square meters of apartments — are in limbo as a result, the Shanghai Yiju Real Estate Research Institute found in a survey conducted during the first half of 2022.

The crisis is leaving buyers in a dire situation. Many are paying mortgages on properties that are still empty shells. Others have poured their life savings into a down payment on a home that may never be completed.

Jinling Apartment is an example of how desperate things can become — and how difficult it can be for homeowners to protect their rights. 

Wang, Zhou, and the other homeowners have been waiting for the developers to deliver their homes for over five years. They have tried pleading with the companies to complete the construction, asking the authorities to intervene, and taking the firms to court. None of it has worked.



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Entering The Superbubble's Final Act

Thanks to a subscriber for this article by Jeremy Grantham. Here is a section:

My theory is that the breaking of these superbubbles takes multiple stages. First, the bubble forms; second, a setback occurs, as it just did in the first half of this year, when some wrinkle in the economic or political environment causes investors to realize that perfection will, after all, not last forever, and valuations take a half-step back. Then there is what we have just seen – the bear market rally. Fourth and finally, fundamentals deteriorate and the market declines to a low.

Let’s return to where we are in this process today. Bear market rallies in superbubbles are easier and faster than any other rallies. Investors surmise, this stock sold for $100 6 months ago, so now at $50, or $60, or $70, it must be cheap. Outside of the late stage of a superbubble, new highs are slow and nervous as investors realize that no one has ever bought this stock at this price before: so it is four steps forward, three steps back, gingerly exploring terra incognita. Bear market rallies are the opposite: it sold at $100 before, maybe it could sell at $100 again.

The proof of the pudding is the speed and scale of these bear market rallies.
1. From the November low in 1929 to the April 1930 high, the market rallied 46% – a 55% recovery of the loss from the peak.
2. In 1973, the summer rally after the initial decline recovered 59% of the S&P 500's total loss from the high.
3. In 2000, the NASDAQ (which had been the main event of the tech bubble) recovered 60% of its initial losses in just 2 months.
4. In 2022, at the intraday peak on August 16th, the S&P had made back 58% of its losses since its June low. Thus we could say the current event, so far, is looking eerily similar to these other historic superbubbles.



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Copper and Aluminium Pace Metals Retreat on China Lockdown Fears

Copper and aluminium futures tumbled along with other industrial commodities on concerns that virus lockdowns in China will hurt demand and as supply constraints in the Asian powerhouse eased.

Beijing’s ongoing battle to contain virus outbreaks is damaging confidence in the nation’s economy, with the Covid Zero policy causing many US companies to delay or cancel investments. That’s on top of a property crisis that’s taken a hefty toll on metals demand in the top consumer. 

Prices of copper, seen as a bellwether for economic growth, have wavered in recent weeks after recovering from a 20-month low in July as traders weigh supply constraints against a darkening outlook for demand. Outside China, Europe’s energy crisis is set to undercut consumption, while higher US Federal Reserve interest rates are pressuring non-yielding assets like metals.



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Powell Talks Tough, Says Rates Likely to Stay High for Some Time

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

“Restoring price stability will likely require maintaining a restrictive policy stance for some time,” Powell said Friday in remarks at the Kansas City Fed’s annual policy forum in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “The historical record cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy.”

He said restoring inflation to the 2% target is the central bank’s “overarching focus right now” even though consumers and businesses will feel economic pain. He reiterated that another “unusually large” increase in the benchmark lending rate could be appropriate when officials gather next month, though he stopped short of committing to one.

“Our decision at the September meeting will depend on the totality of the incoming data and the evolving outlook,” he said.



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Email of the day on delisting Chinese shares from the US

Any opinion of BABA US delisting or Chinese Tech Stocks delisting and impact to their stock performance in HKEX



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Beijing Faces 'Liquidity Trap' as Lending Collapses

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

Three things we learned last week: 

1. Shockingly weak Chinese credit growth shows that monetary policy is pushing on a string. Friday’s data showed aggregate financing, a broad measure of credit, was almost half of what economists expected. Bank loan growth slowed to 11%, near the historical low. That’s occurring at a time when the financial markets are flush with cash and interbank interest rates are falling well below the central bank’s benchmark.

In other words, money is aplenty, but no one wants it. It reflects weak confidence among businesses and households amid the housing slump and the Covid restrictions. It’s “a classic sign of a liquidity trap,” Craig Botham at Pantheon Macroeconomics remarked.

What’s more, Beijing is facing a fiscal cliff as the local governments have pretty much used up their special bond-issuance quota for the year. Unless Beijing makes more funding available, the fiscal support may be waning.



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China Orders Surprise Audit of $3 Trillion Trust Industry

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

These investors have joined homebuyers and bond fund managers in feeling the pain of a liquidity crisis that’s driven dozens of developer defaults and frozen construction of hundreds of projects across the country.

China’s trust industry, after at least six rounds of restructuring since its inception in 1979, combines characteristics of commercial and investment banking, private equity and wealth management. Firms in the sector pool household savings to offer loans and invest in real estate, stocks, bonds, commodities, and even bottles of sorghum liquor. No other firms in the financial industry operate across all these asset classes.

Trusts were once a popular avenue of funding for the property sector. Until recently, trust products were seen by wealthy Chinese individuals and institutions as a safe place to park their money.



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BOE Gives a Lesson in Honest Central Banking

This article by Mohamed El-Erian for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The Bank of England is reminding the world what a politically independent central bank can and should do: act as a “trusted adviser,” willing to share analytically honest views that other more politically sensitive institutions are either unable or unwilling to do.

Of course, this is not a risk-free approach. Such honesty — rather than catalyzing appropriate responses from policy-making agencies that lead to better economic and social outcomes — can provoke household and corporate behaviors that accelerate the bad outcomes. Yet the risks involved are worth taking, especially when the alternative is a central bank that loses institutional credibility, sees the effectiveness of its forward policy guidance erode and becomes even more vulnerable to political interference.

It should also be noted that the UK’s situation differs in some important way from those of other countries. The country’s economic challenges are complicated not only by the energy price catch-up but also by the political transition and the changing nature of the country’s relations with its trading partners.



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Pelosi's Roundabout Flight to Taiwan Shows China's Long Reach

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Instead of traveling northeast from Kuala Lumpur directly across the South China Sea -- a journey that might have brought her jet close to Chinese military facilities built on reclaimed land on islets and reefs including in the Spratly Islands -- Pelosi’s plane flew southeast over the Indonesia part of Kalimantan, or Borneo, before turning north and then to the east of the Philippines, according to imagery provided by Flightradar24. 



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