These topics are becoming more mainstream. When I talk to the most sophisticated macro hedge funds and investors, the common refrain that comes back is they’ve never seen an environment as complicated as this. There is consensus around gold; it’s a safe bet, and everything else is very uncertain. This is a very unique environment. I think we need to take a very, very broad perspective to actively reimagine and rethink our understanding of the world, because things are changing fast. The dollar and the renminbi and gold and money and commodities. I think they are all going to get caught up.

There are a lot of moving parts in the global macro environment. The introduction of AI and the race for dominance is a wholly new development for example. The challenge with making big long-term predictions is that other events can happen before the prediction comes to fruition. 

Chinese company Longi Green Energy Technology Co. cut wafer prices by as much as 31% on Monday. Wafers are silicon squares that are wired up and pieced together to form solar panels. 

The reduction comes after solar silicon prices have plunged by almost half since early February. A slew of new factories have ramped up production, ending a shortage of the material that disrupted the industry’s supply chain last year. 

Longi President Li Zhenguo warned last week that aggressive expansion in the solar supply chain could lead to excess capacity that forces more than half the companies in the industry out of business in the next few years. 

China is the global heavyweight in solar panel manufacturing and not least because several provinces have the same ambition of dominating the sector. If they have decided to embark on a price war to drive the weakest domestic manufacturers out of business, that is near-term positive for consumers but is a significant challenge for global competitors who will not be spared from dumping of excess supply. 

"First, we believe the current growth rate is depressed by the overall softness in consumer discretionary spend," Mahaney wrote of Amazon's retail business, which he expected will grow revenue by 10% this year, compared with 13% last year. An improvement in macroeconomic trends "should enable an acceleration in North American Retail revenue growth."

Further, Amazon could see big revenue benefits as it continues making its shipping times ever speedier. As Mahaney wrote, "the faster the shipping, the greater the demand."

On the cloud-computing side of the business, Mahaney saw the potential for an even more dramatic slowdown in the near term. Revenue there could increase by only 10% or 11% in the second quarter and 16% for the whole of 2023, by his estimates, versus 29% in 2022.

But he also saw room for Amazon to drive a growth inflection after the second quarter of this year, driven by easier comparisons, traction for artificial-intelligence workloads and a relaxation of "optimization" efforts like discounts and bundled renewals.

The reason Amazon is rebounding is because investors are betting its AWS data centres will be used for AI computing resources. There is logic to that assumption since AI requires a multiple of the computing power devoted to cloud or search. 

BYD’s Qin Plus DM-i and Song Plus DM-i models use normal-pressure fuel tanks and therefore purportedly fail to meet the country’s vehicle emissions standards, Great Wall Motors said today, citing the filing it made to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, State Administration for Market Regulation and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on April 11.

Great Wall Motors is paying close attention to the case to see if legal action will be taken, the Beijing-based carmaker said. Environmental protection authorities need to conduct a probe and legal proceedings must be started should the results show any irregularities, it added.

BYD retorted that it reserves the right to carry out legal action of its own and is firmly against any form of unfair competition. All of the Shenzhen-based company’s autos conform with national standards and they have all passed verification by the country’s authorities.

Great Wall Motor bought the two cars and sent them to the China Automotive Technology & Research Center for testing, BYD said. They were not tested according to national-level standards, it said.

In normal times this kind of backbiting might be considered part of normal competition. However, the share prices of Chinese automotive companies suggest a scramble is one for market share amid slowing demand. 

“Many cities will become like Hegang in a few years’ time,” said Houze Song, an economist at US think tank MacroPolo, noting that China’s aging and shrinking population means many cities don’t have the workforce to sustain faster economic growth and tax revenue.
 
“The central government may be able to keep things stable in the short term by asking banks to roll over local governments’ debt,” Song said. Without loan extensions, he added, “the reality is that over two thirds of the localities won’t be able to repay their debt on time.” 

In Heilongjiang province, where Hegang is located, bond investors are already wary of the risks. The province’s outstanding seven-year bond had an average yield of 3.53%, 18.8 basis points higher than the average nationwide, ranking it among the top four most expensive.

The big question for everyone is just how much pain is the Chinese government willing to tolerate? The modest official debt to gdp ratio posted by the government does not include the debt owed by states, counties, or cities; all of which have a quasi-guarantee from the central government. When those debts are included China has one of the highest debt burdens of any major economy. 

Codelco’s production is down by about a fifth from only six years ago. After a double-digit-percentage drop in 2022, it’s expected to fall as much as 7% this year, to 1.35 million metric tons.

Ore quality is deteriorating around the world as existing deposits are depleted and new ones are more difficult and costly to develop. “There’s no easy mining left—not in Chile nor the rest of the world,” said Sougarret at a shareholders meeting on May 2.

Because Codelco is the world’s biggest copper supplier, its production wobbles have greater impact on a market where warehouse inventories are near their lowest levels in 18 years. The company’s travails also have tremendous impact on Chile’s economy: Copper accounts for more than half of the country’s exports and a significant share of the government’s income. President Gabriel Boric’s administration is budgeting a 40% drop in tax revenue from Codelco in 2023 at a time when it’s trying to boost social spending.

When the world is having difficulty sustaining production of a key commodity, it is reasonable to expect prices to rise. That’s generally the best way to attract the risk capital required to bring new supply online. It will not have escaped the notice of traders that copper prices are falling. That suggests one should be more concerned with demand than supply. 

Separately, data from the People’s Bank of China showed credit and new loans were much worse than expected in April as consumers and businesses curbed their borrowing.

“China’s credit data came in well below estimates, reinforcing the concerns over the sustainability of post-Covid recovery,” said Zhou Hao, chief economist at Guotai Junan International Holdings Ltd. Overall growth momentum “has been slowing significantly,” he said. 

Expectations of policy easing has been growing, and a “policy rate cut looks imminent in the second quarter,” he added.

China’s economic growth accelerated to a one-year high in the first quarter after pandemic restrictions were dropped, led by stronger consumers spending on travel and shopping. Recent data has been more mixed though, with manufacturing activity contracting in April and imports plunging.

China did not engage in the same pandemic spending as many western governments. That ensures inflation was kept under control. Instead they decided to use the pandemic as a means to curtail speculation in the housing sector which was the exact opposite of what happened in other countries. That has helped to keep government bond yields contained and the trend is still lower. 

With China’s reopening trade stalled, Chinese investors are betting on a pledge by Beijing to let state-owned firms have access to more capital and play a bigger role. New guidelines on bond sales by SOEs is seen as another step in the reform as President Xi Jinping reshapes the economy. The frenzied trading has also been attributed to moves by three nationwide lenders to cut deposit rates to boost profit margins. 

It’s a “valuation system with Chinese characteristics” story, said Willer Chen, a senior analyst at Forsyth Barr Asia Ltd. Some investors are also “seeing value in bank stocks because their valuation is cheap and dividend yields are attractive, despite the shrinking net interest margins and weak
Q1 results.”

For now, much of the gains may be driven by sentiment, rather than fundamentals. Chinese lenders posted a tepid set of first-quarter earnings as they faced deeper margin woes despite being sheltered from the recent global banking jitters. Analysts say the pressure may persist through the year as lending rates are lowered to revive the economy.

 

This is very defensive action from Chinese investors. The primary rationale for overweighting banks is the assumption that the government, through the state-owned enterprises (SOEs), is going to take a much more dominant position in the economy. That’s positive short-term but raises important questions about the welcome private enterprise will receive in China over coming years. 

Take not just Chile, with its revisions to fiscal policies for miners, but Peru, a country long considered crucial to the next wave of copper production, where the mining sector has been battered during lengthy social unrest. Rio in late March agreed to sell a controlling stake in its Peruvian mine La Granja to First Quantum.

“What the market never predicted was how difficult South America would become,” said Radclyffe. “The uncertainty out of both Chile and now ongoing in Peru, that’s just added an extra level of complexity that the market never expected, and that hasn’t really been resolved.”

The classic basis for a big bull market in commodities is supply inelasticity meets rising demand.

The promise of a big bull market in copper is heavy on the supply inelasticity argument. I think everyone understands, there is limited supply and sufficient increases to meet the expected demand from renewables is not feasible. 

As a HK subscriber to your excellent service, I like to give a few on the grounds observations. In my view, the reason why LVMH is making the shift is 1) China opened Hainan tax free shopping and Shenzhen also exploring the same makes shopping high end products less unfavorable in the mainland. 2) Chinese tourist since reopening find HK less attractive relatively for tourism than before.

On HK becoming just another Chinese city, on recent trip to UK, found some general public perception of HK over the last few years seriously incorrect, I suppose due to the sensational and misleading journalism on HK from the press in the west. While there are changes in HK in last few years, that it is becoming another Chinese city I think is very much misplaced.

On the HKD peg, from what I heard from current and prior HK central bank chiefs and top officials from PRC, there is no desire or rationale to change the peg for the foreseeable future. Also that HKD in circulation is back by about 5X USD reserve and that the peg is setup unilaterally by HK, risk of interference by US due to geopolitical concern is low.

Thank you for this generous and insightful email and your kind words. The efforts underway to boost the international credentials of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Macau and Hong Kong to create a “Bay Area” innovation hub to rival Silicon Valley were the stated government policy ahead of the pandemic 

LVMH is shifting resources out of Hong Kong, reflecting waning interest in what used to be Asia’s premium shopping hub as mainland Chinese consumers switch to shopping at home.

The top global luxury conglomerate wants to focus more of its investment in burgeoning metropolises such as Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shenzhen as Hong Kong loses its relevance in the Greater China region, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. 

To that end, it’s already moved the regional headquarters of some brands, including the group’s local head office, to Shanghai, and relocated some senior executives to the mainland, the people said.

The question Hong Kong has to answer is why? The gateway to China rationale is wearing thin as the mainland deals easily with most of its counterparties and expertise is migrating to other cities. The fear of Hong Kong becoming “just” another Chinese city was at the centre of concern about the security law a couple of years ago and the reality is now coming to fruition. Greater geopolitical tension between China and the developed world is not good news for Hong Kong exceptionalism. 

China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., known as CATL, unveiled its strongest battery to date Wednesday, saying that it could one day be used to power electric aircraft.  

The battery, which loads more power into a smaller package, has an energy density of 500 watt-hours per kilogram, CATL’s Chief Scientist Wu Kai said during a presentation at the Shanghai auto show. CATL’s most recent battery, called Qilin, has an energy density of 255 Wh/kg and can power an electric vehicle for 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) on one charge. 

The technology, which CATL calls a condensed state battery, is potentially a breakthrough that will help electrify sectors wed to fossil fuels because existing batteries are either too heavy or unsafe. Still, questions remain about the materials it will use, its cost and ultimate market impact.
 

CATL has a strong record of leading the way in both scale of manufacturing batteries and innovating on design. The Qilin battery sounded too good to be true when it was announced eighteen months ago but it is going into mass production this year. If China successfully puts a battery in the market with the promised characteristics of a solid state battery it would be a significant technological coup akin to the impact of the iPhone on legacy mobile phone manufacturers. 

Warren Buffett called electric-car maker BYD Company Ltd. “extraordinary” and said chip manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is a “fabulous enterprise.” That hasn’t stopped him from selling shares of both firms.

“We’ll find things to do with the money that I’ll feel better about,” the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chairman and chief executive officer said of BYD in an interview with CNBC in Tokyo Wednesday. He said Berkshire wasn’t in a hurry to reduce that stake after recently trimming its holdings of BYD H shares to 10.9% from 11.13%, according to a filing this week.

The billionaire investor took credit for Berkshire’s investment in TSMC amid speculation that one of his investing deputies picked the stock. He said the decision to reduce its stake in the business by 86% in the fourth quarter — which could have fetched $3.7 billion assuming the shares were sold at the average price over the period — resulted from concerns over geopolitical tensions between China and Taiwan, conditions he described as being outside of the company’s control.

“I re-evaluated that part of it,” Buffett said. “I didn’t re-evaluate the business, the management, or anything of the sort.”

Warren Buffett has tended to be an investor in the USA and a trader internationally. There are two obvious reasons for choosing to sell out of both BYD and TSMC. The first is valuation. The second is politics. 

The PDI-P, which secured 22 per cent of parliamentary seats in 2019, is the only party that can nominate candidates without having to ally with other parties. Both Mr Widodo and Mr Ganjar are members of PDI-P.

For Mr Ganjar, the main obstacle to being named PDI-P’s presidential candidate is his own party, said Padjadjaran University political communication expert Kunto Adi Wibowo.

“If Ganjar wants the nomination, PDI-P should be the one to nominate him. He doesn’t want to quit his own party. But will Megawati (Sukarnoputri) give the ticket to Ganjar while she is grooming Puan (Maharani)?,” he said.

Ms Megawati is PDI-P’s chief, while Ms Puan, her daughter, is the House of Representatives Speaker and ranks low in electability rating polls.

Prof Firman noted that both PDI-P and Gerindra may finally have to strike a “tough deal” if they cannot come up with their nominees amid the constant rise in popularity of Dr Anies, given the solidity of his support. 

“If they are forced by pressing circumstances, they will make a deal and resort to the most popular candidates,” he said.  

President Widodo has been a stabilizing force for Indonesia throughout his tenure. The biggest test of sound governance is in the transfer of power. If the sound base he has built can be sustained, the long-term outlook for Indonesia’s potential will be upgraded by investors. 

Increasingly in China, a suddenly absent boss has come to signal a crackdown or investigation by authorities. In many cases, the person is said to be “assisting” graft probes.

Publicly listed companies typically report they have lost contact with the executive and need to make their own inquiries into what happened within the country’s opaque legal system.

A suave and outspoken dealmaker, Bao built China’s pre- eminent tech-focused investment bank. He convinced a Jack Ma-backed company to become a cornerstone investor when his firm went public in 2018 and has been the go-to banker for the biggest tech stars. 

Bao is among China’s “western-educated individuals with lots of connections with the global financial elite,” said Victor Shih, an associate professor at University of California San Diego who specializes in China’s banking policies. “We don’t see those types suddenly running into such serious trouble that
often.”

Bao studied English literature at China’s prestigious Fudan University and received a master’s degree in business and economics from the BI Norwegian School of Management in 1995. He once said it was his mission to “participate in the value creation of the greatest entrepreneurs” in China. 

A former banker at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse Group AG, Bao founded China Renaissance in 2005, making a name for the firm by brokering tough mergers that led to the formation of ride-hailing service Didi Global Inc. and food-delivery giant Meituan. 

When China accompanied the abandonment of Covid-zero with dovish rhetoric towards the markets, the USA, and signaled additional assistance to the domestic economy, investors breathed a sigh of relief. 

PDD Holdings Inc.’s service, which like Shein has gained a reputation for cut-rate pricing and fast delivery, ran two 30-second spots featuring a trendy shopper twirling and dancing to phrases like “Cha-ching! I feel so rich, oh yeah.” PDD, formerly known as Pinduoduo, said it’s also giving away a total of $10 million to users via online sweepstakes.

Temu launched in September and rapidly scaled Apple’s US app store. It’s now considered a serious competitor to Shein, the fast-fashion phenomenon that’s also fired up American shoppers. But PDD, which plans to launch Temu in Canada as soon as this month, offers a broader range of goods from pet supplies to groceries. 

A decade ago I was impressed by the speed with which China’s fast fashion domestic brands could get new inventory into stores every day. Inditex is coming close to approximating that pace today but it is heavily reliant on the integrity of the global supply chain. 

Leaders go to war because they believe they can win, as did Putin in Ukraine. It is entirely feasible to reinforce both Taiwanese and US capabilities in the region, to a point at which Beijing must doubt its ability to prevail in the necessary amphibious assault, a perilous and difficult undertaking.

The Ukraine experience has rewritten in lights a towering lesson of history: To deter aggression, there is no substitute for credible armed forces. We in the UK and the rest of the West are supremely fortunate that America still possesses these, despite the caveats about the Navy’s vulnerabilities in the Pacific.

Yet more important even than weapons is will. Many people, sometimes including myself, have doubted and continue to doubt whether, if China does invade Taiwan, the US and its allies will undertake military action in response. This is a reprise of the 1950 Korean uncertainty, with one important difference: 73 years ago, there was nothing in South Korea of material value to the West; its armies fought instead to defend a principle. In modern Taiwan, by contrast, advanced semiconductors represent an industry of towering importance both to China and ourselves.

The USA downed a Chinese balloon over the weekend after allowing it to traverse the entire continent. That speaks to a great deal of indecision about the right way to deal with an airspace incursion and not least because it is so unexpected. 

“To fight the Chinese, we will have to have comparable cost structures,” Stellantis NV CEO Carlos Tavares said on Dec. 19, speaking to reporters at a powertrain plant in Tremery in northern France. “Alternatively, Europe will have to decide to close its borders at least partially to Chinese rivals. If Europe doesn’t want to put itself in this position, we need to work harder on the competitiveness of what we do.”

And

The growth in the supply chain in China has also kept pace with car manufacturing. Domestic companies now make almost all parts, including those they used to import until about a decade ago, such as high-strength steel and reinforced fiberglass. As a result, China ran a trade surplus in vehicles and vehicle parts for the first time in 2021. The assembly lines still depend on advanced machines from Japan and Germany, though.

“There seems to have been a step change,” Dyer says. “The long-term trend is for increasing sales of Chinese brands around the world.”

A decade ago it was obvious China was moving up the value chain in manufacturing. It might have not have reached heights of 3nm chip production but planes and automobile parity is now a reality. That’s as much of challenge for Airbus and Boeing as it is for Toyota, Hyundai, Volkswagen and GM. 

“Every decade, there is a new leader in the market. In the 2010s, it was US stocks and mega-cap tech,” Kandhari said in a phone interview. “Leaders of this decade can clearly be emerging-market and international stocks.” Morgan Stanley IM has $1.3 trillion in assets under management.

The asset class has had a strong start to the year, with the MSCI emerging-markets index soaring 8.6% compared with a 4.7% advance for the US benchmark. The gains come as China’s pullback from its strict Covid Zero policy brightens the economic outlook, while investors position for the end of aggressive central bank interest-rate hikes. Many also still see US stocks as expensive, with those in emerging-markets trading at a nearly 30% discount.

There’s a growing disconnect between US’s shrinking share of the global economy and the size of its stock market capitalization, Kandhari said. Along with fund allocations to emerging-markets that are well below historical averages and inexpensive currencies, that gives them a lot of room to outperform, she said.

“What really drives this asset class is the growth differential, and that growth differential of the EM is improving relative to the US,” she said.

The risk of a US recession is increasingly being priced into equity markets. At the same time, China has just exited its three-year quarantine. US money supply is now negative on a year over year basis for the time. China is boosting monetary and fiscal support for its markets. Even with arguments about trade wars and competing systems, it will still be easier to make money in China this year. 

First, no country can avoid engaging with both the US and China. Dealing with both simultaneously is a necessary condition for dealing effectively with either. Without the US there can be no balance to China anywhere; without engagement with China, the US may well take us for granted. The latter possibility may be less in the case of a big country like India, but it is not non-existent.

Second, I know of no country that is without concerns about some aspect or another of both American and Chinese behaviour. The concerns are not the same, nor are they held with equal intensity, and they are not always articulated – indeed, they are often publicly denied -- but they exist even in the closest of American allies and in states deeply dependent on China.

This perspective gels very well with the reality on the ground I observed in Saudi Arabia on my last two visits. The simple reality is China is the country’s biggest customer and the USA the country’s greatest geopolitical ally. There is no way to play favourites the greatest risk for any country is to be taken for granted because that greatly enhances the scope for one’s interests to be trampled. 

China is likely experiencing 1 million Covid infections and 5,000 virus deaths every day as it grapples with what is expected to be the biggest outbreak the world has ever seen, according to a new analysis.

The situation could get even worse for the country of 1.4 billion people. This current wave may see the daily case rate rise to 3.7 million in January, according to Airfinity Ltd., a London-based research firm that focuses on predictive health analytics and has been tracking the pandemic since it first emerged. There’ll likely then be another surge of infections that will push the daily peak to 4.2 million in March, the group estimated.

Another story this morning quoted a Chinese health official as saying 37 million people are being infected every day. That’s a variation of exactly 10X in the above estimates. 

China will roll out supportive measures for the property market in order to correct past “mistaken” policies aimed at curbing the sector’s growth, according to the head of a top economic think tank in the country.

“It seems like the government is going to put forward more concrete measures,” said Yao Yang, the dean of the National School of Development at Peking University, in an interview. “The government has to at least stop the decline of the housing market. There are encouraging signs of it.”

Top officials including President Xi Jinping pledged in a policy meeting last week to support housing demand in 2023. “That is a code word for promoting the housing sector again,” Yao said.

CNY $1 trillion was allocated to support the property market in August. In November ICBC made the equivalent of $179 billion available to builders. This is concrete evidence the Chinese government is turning back to supporting the property sector.

“The November data were way below consensus, pointing to a worsening slowdown” which will continue this month, Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura Holdings Inc. wrote in a note. “Surging Covid infections will offset some of the positive impact of the easing in the near term,” he wrote, adding that “the road to a full reopening may still be painful and bumpy.” 

The scrapping of many of the Covid rules will allow residents to move about freely and for shops, factories and restaurants to remain open without fear of snap lockdowns. However, with the virus likely to sweep through a country largely unprepared for the mass illness and deaths that could occur, fear of infection will probably keep people confined to their homes and weigh on economic activity.

China successfully delayed the spread of COVID for more than two years. By abandoning the testing and quarantine policy they have not chosen to frontload the infection rate. The worst of the economic and healthcare fallout will be in the first quarter of 2023. That’s going to have a knock on effect for demand for all manner of goods globally.

China’s pivot away from Covid Zero is poised to boost natural gas demand in the world’s biggest importer, potentially curbing supply to Europe and other Asian nations.

China National Offshore Oil Corp. is now looking to secure more shipments of the super-chilled fuel for next year. The return to the market of one of the nation’s largest liquefied natural gas buyers follows a period of subdued demand, due to virus curbs suppressing economic activity, and may herald a rebound in imports. 

Beijing’s move to reopen its economy and live with Covid-19 has seen most internal restrictions being dismantled over the last few weeks. Provided that’s not rolled back as cases surge, that will increase the challenge for Europe next year as it prepares for the winter of 2023/24 with little or no natural gas from Russia. 

Chinese gas imports are likely to be 7% higher in 2023 than this year, according to Wang Zhen, president of Cnooc’s Energy Economics Institute.

The forecast belies still-weak industrial demand. Many factories will send workers home earlier-than-usual for the Lunar New Year holidays, while local production and Russian pipeline flows are rising.

There are already signs China will need to increase LNG purchases to prepare for next year, however. Inventories at northern ports are depleting faster than normal amid cold weather and have dropped to the mid-to-low level, according to ENN Energy’s research group, while domestic LNG prices are trending higher.

The Chinese economy is going to experience significant issues as COVID cases ramp higher. The sheer volume of ill people will mean lower productivity over the first quarter. However, peak infections will likely be reached within 10 weeks. After that, there is clear scope for the fiscal measures already introduced to support the property market will become evident.

The Politburo on Wednesday signaled more stimulus could be on the cards next year, saying fiscal policy will be kept active with a focus on improving its efficiency, while monetary steps will be “targeted and forceful.” China will “push for overall improvement of the economy,” the official Xinhua News Agency said in a readout of the meeting. 

Larry Hu, head of China economics at Macquarie Group Ltd., said the message from the Politburo meeting was “loud and clear: Zero-Covid is behind us, and growth would be the top priority for next year.” The signals suggest policymakers want to bring next year’s growth rate back to its potential of above 5%, he said.

The growth outlook for next year remains highly uncertain, given a likely surge in coronavirus infections and further disruption expected to the economy. The global economy is also at risk of falling into recession, and a recovery in China’s property market remains elusive.

China has built permanent plague hospitals in several of the largest cities. That is in preparation for a significant rise in the number of COVID infections. Now that the restrictions on movement and the draconian testing regime are being relaxed, the number of cases is likely to surge. 

According to Central Election Commission, KMT won 13 out of 21 cities and counties, while DPP only managed to secure five cities in the southern part of Taiwan, the least since its founding in 1986. KMT candidates took 50% of votes in the contests, versus 41.6% for the DPP, 11.39 million votes counted as of 11:53 pm in Taipei, according to the official election website.

That prompted President Tsai Ing-wen to step down as party leader, saying in televised remarks: “In the face of these results, there are many areas where we need to engage in self-reflection.”

The elections represented the last major test of Tsai’s DPP before her second and final term draws to a close and Taiwan picks a successor in early 2024. The KMT, or Nationalist Party, hopes the gains in local races will help it mount a comeback after defeats in presidential elections in 2016 and 2020.

The results will be closely watched in Washington and Beijing, since the DPP’s rise to power has prompted China to cut off communications with Taiwan and ramp up diplomatic and military pressure on the island. The KMT, which favors eventual unification with China, had previously overseen a historic expansion of ties with Beijing, easing travel, trade and investment across the Taiwan Strait. 

The Tsai administration has actively escalated tensions with China and the electorate does not want to be in a war with China. That does not mean they want to be part of China but not do they wish to do anything to antagonise China. Taiwan’s citizens are very much aware of the fine balance that needs to be maintained when squeezed between two great powers.

Gold fell to the lowest in over a week as the dollar advanced amid concern China may reverse its lighter-touch approach to the coronavirus. Copper also fell.

Worsening Covid-19 outbreaks across China and the first deaths in Beijing for six months are stoking concerns that authorities may again resort to harsh restrictions. That would be bearish for the copper market, where a squeeze in global supplies just appears to be easing. US equities declined, while the dollar rose on haven buying, pressuring gold and copper as they’re priced in the greenback. 

Commodities have been pressured in recent months by the Federal Reserve’s aggressive monetary tightening to fight inflation, with a gauge of the raw materials recording two consecutive quarterly losses by the end of the third quarter. 

Traders are now waiting for fresh clues about the Fed’s interest-rate hiking path from the central bank’s minutes due on Wednesday. 

San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said that officials will need to be mindful of the lags with which monetary policy work, while repeating that she sees interest rates rising to at least 5%. Her counterpart at the Cleveland Fed, Loretta Mester, said she has no problem with slowing down the central bank’s rapid rate increases when officials meet next month.

Spot gold slipped 0.7% to $1,739.10 an ounce as of 4:06 p.m. in New York. Copper for three-month delivery on the London Metal Exchange fell 2.4% to settle at $7,880.50 a metric ton. All other main LME metals declined. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index gained 0.7%. Silver and palladium spot prices dropped, while platinum gained.

The big question circling about China is how willing they are to tolerate deaths from COVID. The government has successfully instilled a deep sense of caution in the population about the threat represented by COVID and easing up on quarantine rules may not result in a large increase in mobility. As cases and deaths rise, the potential for a significantly slower return to economic activity is a base case scenario.

Bank of China said it would contain losses and actively pursue relatively secure investments. Industrial Bank Co. and China Zheshang Bank Co. also sent similar posts on their official WeChat accounts, encouraging investors to “buy at lows” and position for longer-term return after the sharp losses in bond market.

The PBOC injected a net 123 billion yuan ($17.3 billion) of seven-day liquidity via its open-market operations on Wednesday. The central bank said in a statement earlier this week that injections topped 1 trillion yuan this month, through a combination of short-, medium- and long-term policy tools. 

The yield on China’s one-year government bond was little changed at 2.17% on Thursday, ending a seven-day climb that took it to highest since January. The yield on the 10-year note fell 3 basis point to 2.80%, after jumping 10 basis points earlier this week in its worst drop since 2016. The CSI 300 Index of stocks fell 0.4%.

Banks’ wealth management products have drawn increased scrutiny from regulators in past few years, amid concern about a host of risks from implicit guarantees and leverage, to duration mismatches and a lack of transparency around where the money is invested.

There is nothing quite like the government telling investors to buy the dip to initiate a wave of buying. The fact that the bond market is seeing outflows because retail investors are so eager to buy stocks suggests the message has been received. It’s OK to speculate in the markets again.

Thanks a lot for another very informative Friday video. Could you please kindly comment on the Chinese Construction Companies’ default situation. How serious and general are the defaults of their international bonds. Thanks in advance.

Thank you for this topical question which may be of interest to the Collective. This Reuters article, dated September 2nd, included a table of the biggest bond defaults up to that point in 2022.
 

The latest moves have dragged even more junk dollar notes from Chinese property companies into distress, with 94% now trading below 70 cents on the dollar. That market was until just years ago one of the most lucrative bond trades globally. But it all began to unravel after a nationwide clampdown started in 2020 on leverage and real estate speculation, and has snowballed into record defaults by developers including China Evergrande Group. 

The contagion is even reaching property giants that still have investment-grade ratings including China Vanke Co., the nation’s second biggest developer by sales. Its note due 2027, which was trading above 80 cents just a month ago, fell 4 cents Tuesday in the worst two-day drop ever to an all time-low of 40.3 cents.

“Now with some presumably better-off developers getting into trouble, people start to worry about a contagion to non-state developers,” said Raymond Cheng, head of China and Hong Kong research at CGS-CIMB Securities. “It’s not just a confidence issue, and developers’ liquidity conditions are only getting tighter in the future given sales have been slower than expected.”

And

As refinancing costs surge in global debt markets, China’s property sector has at least $292 billion of onshore and offshore borrowings coming due through the end of 2023, raising the specter of even worse payment pressure to come. There’s $53.7 billion borrowings still due the rest of 2022, followed by $72.3 billion of maturities in the first quarter of next year. 

“We have seen no improvement in terms of the funding for private-sector developers,” Bank of America Corp. economist Helen Qiao said on Bloomberg Television Tuesday. “The stimulus was not strong enough to get them out of the current liquidity trap, and therefore how exactly they can really survive raises many questions.”

It is reasonable to expect that most of the property debt issued through Hong Kong in US Dollars will be defaulted on. Any stimulative measures designed to prop up the property market and local developers will be aimed exclusively at domestic investors. Foreign investors are way down the line in terms of priorities for China. 

In some ways this represents an important generational change in the way China will interact with the rest of the world. As far as we know, the term “international circulation” originated in 1988 when a government researcher, Wang Jian, made the case that China should adopt an export-led growth strategy, making use of its huge surplus labor to plug the economy into the international manufacturing process. In that sense, the de-emphasis of international circulation is an important historical shift. In a People’s Daily article in November 2020, Vice Premier Liu He set out a number of objectives relating to the DCS including: (1) the priority of upgrading of China’s technological capacity, including an enhancement of China’s supply chain resilience (though referred to in this article as “optimizing the structure of supply”); (2) the need for finance to serve the needs of the real economy; and (3) the promotion of further urbanization. Any mention of external demand comes last

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area.

China’s stock markets are accelerating lower so that is a trend ending signal. The big question for all investors is at what point will the risk premium be fully priced in? The USA’s more aggressive attitude towards China is about the only bipartisan topic in the current administration. In fact the two parties seem to be competing for the mantle of biggest China hawk. China’s response to more activist counterparty risk is to look inwards and many people fear a repeat of the Cultural Revolution is already in play.

Dear Eoin, I am one of your long term subscribers from Singapore from back when David started the service. I have been shared this hypothesis regarding the reason why China is keeping to the zero covid measures and it is less to do with the disease but something else. Firstly with the reason for covid, they have managed to track the movement of all individuals in China with the Green Code, which coupled with their country wide camera surveillance, allow the state to monitor constantly all citizens. This is especially important in the fight against corruption. Secondly and more importantly, China is still trying to deflate their large property bubble which is 30-40% of the countries economy. Besides Evergrande, there are systemic risk to the over investment in real estate which is a huge Ponzi scheme. Fortunately most of the debt are on-shore, and China needs to keep its borders closed. This is because if re-opened, the increased spending from in-bound and outbound tourism will cause inflation, and this will force The Central bank to raise interest rates. China Central Bank wants inflation to still be low so that the economy can be stimulated and the growth in local jobs help keep the confidence for the population to invest in the property market. If inflation rises, then interest rates have to increase and it will delay the clean up of the property market which has so far been very well controlled. China is doing far more in the real estate cleanup then the US did with Sub-Prime Crisis in 2007-2008. Due to the trade offs, the real estate recovery is more important that the risk to public health although China could simply mandate all citizens especially the elderly to be vaccinated which they have not. It cannot be due to the lack of vaccines or preparation for the hospital and ICU beds capacity as China could have allowed Moderna and Pfizer to be registered locally without asking for the IP to be disclosed. Hope to hear from you. Thanks 

Thank you for this informative email and your long-term patronage of the Service. At a time when many consumers are taking a hard look at expenses, I want to give special thanks to every one of our subscribers.

I have discussed this exact issue in the big picture long-term videos on several occasions, most recently last Friday. Let’s address it from first principals. China’s is a single party state, so they have the luxury of equating the Party with the country. Whatever is good for the Party is therefore considered good for the country.

Chinese stocks tumbled by the most since 2008 in Hong Kong and the yuan hit a 14-year-low after Sunday’s confirmation that Xi’s policies of stronger state control over the economy and markets will continue unchallenged for years.

Unlike in places like the US or UK -- where dramatic market reactions can force policy pivots or even overthrow entire governments -- it’s becoming apparent that investors are only an afterthought for Xi. That narrative was reinforced by Beijing’s move to delay the release of a raft of economic data without explanation, and risks further alienating money managers who are already leery of Chinese assets.

Investors have to decide if Xi’s policy objectives -- such as common prosperity and dual circulation -- are palatable, according to Hao Hong, chief economist at Grow Investment Group. “One has to examine whether these new sets of values align with your own” investment goals in the years ahead, he told Bloomberg TV on Monday.

Monday’s market reaction -- especially offshore -- suggests international investors are becoming increasingly leery of Xi, who has implemented tough curbs on one-time market favorites from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to education firms. With a new leadership team packed with his allies, analysts also expect little dissent against Xi’s Covid Zero strategy.

The ejection of Hu Jintao from the Party Congress over the weekend has been much discussed. The headline is that he was experiencing health issues. That’s reasonable from an octogenarian. However, there is an eerie historical comparison.

Chinese regulators are ramping up efforts to support the stock market, which saw little reprieve from President Xi Jinping’s speech amid continued pressure from geopolitical tensions and the Covid Zero policy. 

A series of market-supporting measures are in the pipeline, including proposals to encourage companies to buy back shares and to ease curbs on short-term transactions by overseas mutual funds. In a sign that private firms are heeding the government’s efforts, at least eight mutual funds announced plans on Monday to invest in their own equity products.  

The benchmark CSI 300 Index ended up 0.1%, reversing earlier losses as investors weighed Xi’s speech against the prospect of measures. The Hang Seng Index climbed 0.2%, while a gauge of Chinese stocks trading in Hong Kong also eked out gains. 

Stock investors have been looking for fresh market impetus after suffering losses that have been among the worst in the world. Xi’s renewed pledge for tech self-reliance trigged a rally in the sector’s stocks, but the overall market reaction was muted as he defended the Covid Zero policy and fell short of promising further support for the property sector.   

The Chinese authorities will be eager to ensure the market and society at large are deeply supportive of President Xi’s third term in office as well as the economic agenda laid out over the weekend. That suggests at least a near-term low for the CSI 300 has been reached.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority buys HK$11.697 billion ($1.5 billion) to manage the city’s currency peg for Oct. 14 settlement, according to the de facto central bank’s page on Bloomberg.

Aggregate balance will decrease to about HK$106.6 billion on Oct. 14

The strength of the Dollar and the Fed’s policy of raising rates has put a lot of pressure on the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to sustain the Hong Kong Dollar’s peg. The rate has been bumping up against the HK7.85 level for much of the last year in a repeat of the 2018/19 weakness.

China’s central government offered a rare tax incentive for residential purchases, ramping up support for the country’s embattled real estate sector. 

Residents who buy new homes within one year after selling old homes will enjoy refunds for personal-income tax on the sale, according to a statement on the finance ministry website. The tax refunds will take effect from October till the end of 2023. 

The novel tax policy comes after a yearlong slump in the housing market. To spark a turnaround, the central government is allowing nearly two dozen cities to lower mortgage rates for purchases of primary residences, while the central bank vowed to speed up delayed homes with more special loans. 

“The measure may help restore some confidence,” said Xu Xiaole, a property analyst at Beike Research Institute. “It’s another demand-side policy targeting homebuyers after mortgage rate cuts.” 

The tax break suggests the central government is ramping up support for people seeking to upgrade their homes. Previously, most incentives focused on first-time buyers, echoing President Xi Jinping’s mantra that “houses are for living in, not for speculation.”

Unless the person has held on to the home for at least five years, most big cities charge personal tax income on property sales when there’s a gain in value, usually 1% of the full amount or 20% of the gain. 
Under the new policy, people who buy more expensive apartments will enjoy a full refund in this area. The tax break only applies to home upgrades in the same city.  

The range of measures China is putting in place to support the housing market continue to increase. That’s good news for the domestic property sector and commodity demand in general. By limiting the tax cut to those also selling a property, the government is attempting to avoid stimulating property speculation but more money for the sector is certainly a positive.

I have been thinking a lot about the aspects of the market we all tend to take for granted. The types of conclusions we have been conditioned to draw, because that is always how markets work. It strikes me as a big question because we should be asking if these market norms are the result of the decades-long process of disinflation or are they rules that transfer between big secular themes.

The basic working hypothesis of the markets is the Fed will rescue its stock market. The EU will rescue its bond market and China will rescue its property market. The rationale for all three is the same. That’s what they have always done because those are the biggest asset classes owned by consumers in all three jurisdictions.

Much as He’s rise was a microcosm of China’s economic boom, his current woes may mark a turning point for commodity markets: the end of an era in which Chinese demand could only go up.

“In some ways Maike’s story is the story of modern China,” said David Lilley, who started dealing with Maike in the 1990s, first as a trader at MG Plc and later as co-founder of trading house and hedge fund Red Kite. “He has skillfully ridden the dynamics of the Chinese economy, but no one was prepared for the Covid lockdowns.”

This account of He’s rise to the pinnacle of China’s commodities industry is based on interviews with business associates, rivals and bankers, many of whom asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the situation. 

“Never mistake a bull market for brains” is one of the most useful adages in the markets. The challenge is that to make truly life changing money in a bull market one has to act as if it will never end. That implies loading up on leverage, making big bullish bets and never giving into doubt. In bull markets that last for a decade or more, the biggest gamblers look like prophets and are treated as such by the market. When liquidity conditions eventually change, that business model experiences significant duress.

China’s economy showed signs of recovery in August as Beijing rolled out stimulus measures to counter a slowdown, although a property market slump and Covid outbreaks continue to weigh on the outlook.

Industrial production, retail sales and fixed-asset investment all grew faster than economists expected last month. The urban jobless rate slid to 5.3%, while the youth unemployment rate fell from a record high.

The boost to retail sales was partly due to a lower base of comparison from a year earlier and a surge in car sales after Beijing gave buyers subsidies on electric vehicles. Industrial output was also supported by a big spike in electricity production during August’s heatwave, a rebound that’s unlikely to be sustained. 

Despite signs of improvement, the recovery remains fragile as Covid outbreaks spread to more parts of the country and the government tightens curbs to contain infections in the run-up to the Communist Party’s twice-in-a-decade leadership congress next month. A property market slump also shows no sign of easing, with separate data on Friday showing home prices have now declined every month in the past year, with the contraction in August bigger than in July. 

“While today’s data are better than expected, it’s unlikely to change the prevailing pessimism toward China, given the multiple headwinds underway including zero-Covid, property rout and the lack of decisive policy moves before the Party Congress,” said Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie Group Inc. 

China’s administration knows better than anyone that a property crash would represent an existential crisis for social cohesion. At the same time, they don’t want to allow a bubble to expand any further and have been trying to stamp out speculation. The conflict arises in the fact you can’t have a bull market without people willing to take risks. Building in the hopes of selling at a profit is speculative by nature.

Notably, neither scenario assumes that the growth in new capacity—expansions and new mines—speeds up. Absent a major policy shift, however, regulatory, permitting, and legal challenges, combined with long timelines for new mines to come onstream, will continue to dampen the pace of supply increases. This supply-demand gap for copper will pose a significant challenge to the energy transition timeline targeting Net-Zero Emissions by 2050. The challenge will be compounded by increasingly complex geopolitical and country-level operating environments. These include

The strategic rivalry between the United States and China—over a projected period in which China will remain the dominant global supplier of refined copper, while the United States depends on imports for well over half its copper.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its cascading effects on the commodities markets and energy security, which have highlighted the vulnerability of supply chains. “Supply chain resilience” policies aiming to secure reliable supplies of the materials needed for energy transition—and economies in general—are likely to be a central feature of the emerging geopolitics.

A growing tension between energy transition, social license, and ESG objectives that dramatically increase the need for minerals like copper on one hand, while raising the compliance, legal, and operational costs of mining those minerals on the other.

The risk of a significant, structural increase in copper prices as the supply-demand gap increases, with a potentially destabilizing impact on global markets and industry. While structurally higher prices incentivize international investment in new capacity, governments in sourcing countries are likely to seek to capture domestically a rising share of revenues.

The fragmenting of globalization and a resurgence of resource nationalism. The resulting challenge for all actors involved with the energy transition will be to manage often competing and seemingly contradictory priorities. It is clear that technology and policy innovation will both be critical to reducing the supply-demand gap for copper in order to help enable the net-zero goals

Every major bull market which climaxes in a mania exhibits contradictory arguments. We are fully aware of the earnings don’t matter claims from the 1990s or house prices only go up ahead of the GFC. The difficulties with fulfilment of the renewable energy idealistic dream are a fresh contradiction. It is impossible to double copper production within 13 years. Therefore, there is no possible way the zero carbon ambitions of the green lobby can be realized. 

“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.

China is the destination for most industrial commodity exports, so a weaker currency boosts domestic inflation. At the same time many countries in China’s hinterland compete with it for exports. A cheaper Renminbi forces them to also depress their currencies.

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.

Tens of thousands of people losing their life savings by paying for properties before they are even built is not exactly good optics. It’s a problem, the central government will have to tackle. So far, the response has been very measured and unsuccessful. Property developers are still going bust. More robust action risks reinflating the property market.

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.

Have we seen the secular peak in this market? That’s the only real question investors need to concern themselves with. The above statistics are certainly compelling, but the size of the rebounds should also be considered relative to the size of the initial declines from the peaks. Let’s round out that data.

1. The Dow Jones Industrials Average accelerated to the peak on September 3rd 1929. It fell 47.87% to the initial low on November 13th
2. The peak in 1973 was a failed upside break from a range that had been forming since 1966; with the Dow failing at the psychological 1000 on several occasions. That failed upside break resulted in a deeper pullback than any (25% & 36%) posted during the ranging phase. The failed downside break in 1974 resulted in a 75% rebound. It was another six years before a breakout to new highs was sustained.
3. Between March 10th and May 26th 2000 the Nasdaq Composite fell 40.72%.
4. Between January 7th and the low on June 17th the S&P500 declined 24.52%.

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.

Predictably, China is having just as much difficulty containing the new more transmissible strains of COVID-19 as everywhere else. There are lockdowns in place in every Chinese province at present. Meanwhile the Communist Party Congress is now slated for mid-October. Between now and then we can expect much tighter controls on movement which will have a knock-on effect on the wider economy.

“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.

In very simple terms, the Fed has two mandates, price stability and full employment. Right now, they have full employment and robust business capital investments. They don’t have price stability or anything approaching it. That’s a recipe for tighter monetary conditions and higher rates until downward pressure on employment becomes problematic. 

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

Thank you for this question which raises an important consideration. This article from Reuters on August 1st may also be of interest. Here is a section: 

The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA) is intended to address a long-running dispute over the auditing compliance of U.S.-listed Chinese firms.

It aims to remove foreign companies from U.S. exchanges if they fail to comply with American auditing standards for three consecutive years.

Alibaba on Monday said being added to the list meant it was now considered to be in its first 'non inspection' year.

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.

China’s exporters are feeling the pain from slowing demand in Europe and North America. That’s adding to the downward pressure on the economy from the emerging real estate crisis. The PBoC signaled last week they are keen to avoid the inflationary problems other major economies are dealing with. Over the weekend, political priorities led to the Medium-Term Lending rate being shaved by 10 basis points while the central bank withdrew liquidity to sanitise it.

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.

The trust sector in China is dominated by wealthy families which benefitted enormously from the growth of the economy over the last forty years. In many cases that was achieved through relationships with government officials that ensured preferential access to markets or property ventures. The fact many trust clients are members of the establishment themselves can be taken for granted. Therefore it is particularly noteworthy that it is not the subject of investigation.

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.

In the last six weeks gilt yields have pulled back aggressively from 2.75% to test the region of the trend mean around 1.75%. This is the first area of potential resistance and is the point at which traders will begin to question how likely a long-term low interest rate environment is.  

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. 

Accidents happen when an abundance of care is abandoned. As great power politics unfolds and gels with domestic priorities in both China and the USA, there is potential for a crisis inducing accident. The heavily choreographed travel plans of politicians are less likely to provide a catalyst because of the size of the potential repercussions.  

“The golden period of 30 years between 2020-50 where our working age population will bulge can be an important horizontal enabler to bolster growth, even as the developed world including China ages,” the report notes.

The report adds that over the years, India has experienced rising literacy rates, but level of vocational training/skilling is low, which gets reflected in the high unemployment rate among the educated. “Closing the skill gaps of its qualified workforce will be critical, as India depends more on human capital than its peer countries that have a similar level of economic development,” it said, adding that skilling and reskilling require a coordinated response from the government, industry, academia even as COVID continues to cause structural changes to the workplace.

“The reversal in India’s structural transformation back toward agriculture is a sign of fall back to subsistence employment. Enhanced safety nets through PM-KISAN and the MGNREGA will be critical investments needed to ensure that incomes of small and marginal farmers are protected and their basic needs are met… But manufacturing and services will still have to be the two key growth engines going forward,” it said.

Given the trajectory of emerging market development over the decades, it is stating the obvious that India needs to do whatever is necessary to improve employment opportunities for its millions of young people. The fact the conversation is taking place is at least a good starting point.

The proposal, which is still under discussion and could change, would take advantage of Chinese laws allowing local governments to wrest back control of land sold to real estate companies if it remains undeveloped after two years, without compensation. That would give authorities more leeway to direct funds toward uncompleted homes, potentially to the detriment of creditors who would lose claims on some of developers’ most valuable assets.

While officials would have bandwidth to adjust the process to suit local conditions, a typical scenario would involve seizing land from a distressed developer and giving it to a healthier rival, which would in turn provide funding to complete the distressed developer’s stalled projects, the people said. The government could also rezone the seized land in some cases to increase its value, the people added, asking not to be named discussing private information. 

The proposal is one of several measures under consideration as Xi Jinping’s government tries to prevent turmoil in the housing market from fueling social unrest and derailing the broader economy. The focus on completing projects is the latest sign that policy makers are prioritizing homeowners over bondholders, who have been burned by a record number of defaults by real estate giants including China Evergrande Group.

Placating the people who have paid deposits and have not taken delivery of their apartments is a national priority as protests spread. Funding property development has been a challenge of the last decade as the government has closed off routes to speculation. Worries about overvaluation have been present for years but the government has not found a way to deflate the bubble with toppling the economy.

The publication of the June bond figures by China Central Depository & Clearing Co. took place about a week later than in previous months. Interbank-bond-market figures released by the central bank’s Shanghai head office on Friday were also delayed, as they are typically sent out in the first half of each month. In May, China’s bond-trading platform for foreign investors quietly stopped providing data on its transactions.

Foreign investors still held 2.32 trillion yuan of Chinese debt at the end of June, well above the 221 billion yuan they owned in 2014. The opening up of China’s capital markets and the inclusion of the nation’s debt in more global bond indexes has attracted central banks and global investors eager to tap its higher yields.

“The bulk of the remaining foreign holdings of Chinese fixed-income assets reflects reserve manager, sovereign wealth fund and index tracking demand,” said Lemon Zhang, a strategist at Barclays Plc in Singapore. Looking ahead, large inflows are unlikely as investors aren’t optimistic on duration or China’s currency, while higher global yields provide alternatives, she said.

Demand for Chinese bonds has waned in recent months as US 10-year yields surged above 3%, while similar-maturity yields in China remained stuck in a range of 2.7% to 2.85% due to the People’s Bank of China’s accommodative monetary policy.

There has been a popular belief among institutional investors that China was for bonds and the US was for equities. The logic is that China is a creditor nation with vast reserves, strong growth and low debt/GDP ratios while the US is encumbered with massive debts and seems incapable of correcting the gaping deficit.

On Tuesday, European Parliament Vice President Nicola Beer began a three-day visit to Taipei -- leading the most senior EU legislative delegation to visit Taiwan. Beer told reporters after her arrival that the “family of democracies” need to support Taiwan after China’s crackdown on Hong Kong’s opposition and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

No ‘Blind Eye’
“We won’t have a blind eye on China’s threat to Taiwan,” Beer said. “Europe was late for Hong Kong. We won’t be late for Taiwan. There is no room for Chinese aggression in democratic Taiwan. For the moment, we witness war in Europe. We do not want to witness war in Asia. And so now it’s the moment to stand firm on the side of Taiwan.” 

China’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has complicated its efforts to shore up relations with the Europe Union. Top European leaders haven’t responded to an invitation from Xi to meet him later this year in Beijing, the South China Morning Post reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. 

This is a major escalation of rhetoric from Europe and the USA. China will bristle at what they consider direct interference in a domestic matter. The One China policy is the biggest red line the Communist Party has.

However, there’s a chance that despite the fiscal largess, overall infrastructure investment growth could still disappoint. First, while Beijing is letting local governments issue more bonds, it’s still telling them to reduce so-called “hidden” debt -- off-balance sheet borrowing from banks by state-owned companies, which has financed a large chunk of China’s infrastructure over the last decade.

Second, fiscal funds need to be supplemented by lending from commercial banks and private investors -- both of which may be reluctant to lend in a risky environment. Finally, local governments in recent years struggled to find infrastructure projects that could generate returns large enough to repay the special bonds. Some economists estimate local governments left 2 trillion yuan of funds unspent last year. 

While Beijing is telling local authorities to speed up spending, it remains to be seen if attitudes will shift.

“Funds are less of a constraint for infrastructure investment this year, while the bottlenecks lie mainly with project pipelines and government incentives,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists including Xinquan Chen wrote in a note last week. In a sign that the fiscal push is yet to rev up construction, sales of excavators in China have been sinking since April last year. In January-June, the sales plunged 53%.

Arguing China needs more high-speed railways is a bit difficult when the national railway already has almost $1 trillion in outstanding debt and no passengers. That begs the question whether the new debt being issued will be used to retire/bring off balance sheet on balance sheet or on new projects.

The payment refusals underscore how the storm engulfing China’s property sector is now affecting the country’s middle class, posing a threat to social stability. Chinese banks already grappling with challenges from liquidity stress among developers now also have to brace for homebuyer defaults.  

Now is “a critical time for social stability,” said Chan, adding that “the forgoing of down payments may bring social instability.”

A drop in home values hasn’t helped. Average selling prices of properties in nearby projects in 2022 were on average 15% lower than purchase costs in the past three years, according to Citigroup’s research. 

How much do prices have to fall before consumers give up hope they will ever recoup their down payment through a sale? I guess we have the answer in China where many of the home purchases are speculative to begin with and tens of millions of apartments stand vacant at the best of times.
 

Chinese stocks had their worst day in about a month as a Covid resurgence, combined with fresh fines for the country’s tech giants, sent investors running for the door.

The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, a gauge tracking mainland firms listed in Hong Kong, slumped 3.1%, its biggest loss since mid-June. Tech heavyweights, property developers and electric-vehicle makers were among the biggest drags. 

A slew of bad news hit the Chinese market over the weekend and Monday morning, including regulatory fines on past transactions done by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., a rejection by China Evergrande Group’s bondholders on a proposal to extend debt payment, and a warning by a prominent investor’s wife that a key lithium maker’s stock is overvalued. 

The selloff is a reminder that the nation’s Covid Zero policy and lingering uncertainty toward tech crackdowns remain key risks for investors betting on a sustained rebound in Chinese shares. The Hang Seng China gauge has recorded just one positive session in the last eight after rallying nearly 30% from a March low.  

The pandemic continues to be a major factor in the daily life of China, even as the rest of the world moves on. The reality of a large population with little immunity and the threat of rapidly evolving strains are growing more infectious suggests the quarantine system will slow the advance but can never overcome it.

The Foreign Ministry struck a softer tone on Friday. China was “shocked” by the attack, spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular press briefing in Beijing just before news that Abe had died, saying the nation hoped he would recover soon.

“This unexpected incident should not be linked with China-Japan relations,” Zhao added. When asked about some nationalist voices in China cheering the shooting, Zhao declined to “comment on the remarks of net users.”

The Chinese administration has been fostering a domestic nationalistic movement for years. That helps fuel domestic support for extraterritorial ambitions amid the government’s significant militarization efforts.

Mr. Biden himself has said in recent weeks that he is considering a tariff cut, noting that the levies were introduced by the previous administration.

The U.S. and China signed a trade deal in 2020, but the U.S. kept most levies on Chinese imports as a means to ensure compliance with the accord's provisions, including promises to increase purchases of U.S. goods.

Beijing has fallen far short of that purchase commitment.

Ms. Tai, who was appointed by Mr. Biden, has repeatedly defended the tariffs as a useful tool in confronting China over its trade practices.

"The China tariffs are, in my view, a significant piece of leverage, and a trade negotiator never walks away from leverage," Ms. Tai told a Senate subcommittee meeting on June 22.

China has long pressed the U.S. to ease the tariffs, contending they hurt both countries.

"With inflation rates running high across the globe, the U.S. needs to lift all the additional tariffs imposed on China, as this will serve the interests of businesses and consumers and benefit both countries and the world at large," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a June 15 press conference.

The Biden administration is panicking about inflation if they are truly considering removing sanctions on China. The one hallmark of this government has been the continuity of policy with regard to China so a change would likely be viewed by markets as positive and particularly so for China since they would be under much less pressure to comply with trade agreements.

Adding to a growing number of market participants turning more positive on Chinese shares, abrdn plc’s regional chairman Hugh Young said they look to be the best home for fresh money in Asia amid a tough investment environment.

“We are inclined to put more money into China again, depends on the portfolio,” Young said in an interview on Monday, adding that the firm underweights the country’s shares in portfolios. “It’s very hard to be super bullish about anything at the moment” but valuations in China are reasonable and the investing landscape could improve.

Deutsche Bank AG’s private bank global chief investment officer Christian Nolting said last week he was considering turning overweight on Chinese stocks and Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Jefferies Financial Group all ramped up bullish commentary this month.

Xi Jinping’s statement that China will hit its growth target has been greeted with enthusiasm by investors. While COVID zero represents a challenge for growth, it increases the potential more liquidity will be made available. At present concerns about further inflating asset bubbles are on being downplayed.

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. unveiled an electric-car battery it said has a range of over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) on a single charge and is 13% more powerful than one planned by Tesla Inc., a major customer. 

CATL, as the world’s biggest maker of electric-car batteries is known, will start manufacturing the next-generation “Qilin” next year, according to a video the Chinese company streamed online Thursday. The battery charges faster than existing cells, and is safer and more durable, CATL said. 

The Qilin battery, named after a mythical Chinese creature, has an energy density of up to 255 watt-hour per kilogram, Ningde, Fujian-based CATL said. 

“It’s an important advancement for CATL as it keeps them at the forefront on the innovation side,” said Tu Le, managing director of Beijing-based consultancy Sino Auto Insights. “Being the lowest cost provider isn’t enough to command loyalty, there needs to be more to it -- and that seems to be the Qilin battery for CATL.”

CATL’s shares climbed 5.9% in Shenzhen, closing at the highest since Feb. 9. 

The company said Wednesday it raised 45 billion yuan ($6.7 billion) in a private placement of shares, with the proceeds intended for production and upgrade of lithium-ion battery manufacturing in four Chinese cities, as well as research and development.

CATL has experienced a wave of volatility this year, grappling soaring prices of raw materials as well as rumors of trading losses. Its first-quarter net income slid 24% from a year earlier to 1.49 billion yuan. The company hasn’t explained a 1.79 billion yuan derivatives liability, the first such charge since it listed.

The massive run-up in battery metal prices has put significant pressure on companies dependent on buying them to support their businesses. Lithium, copper, cobalt and nickel prices have surged this year as projections for future demand and low available supply created an inelastic trading environment. That created problems for nickel traders which resulted in a short covering price spike and lithium prices also surged to previously unimaginable levels.

As China’s property slump persists, one developer is trying to entice farmers to buy homes by accepting their crops as payment. 

Central China Real Estate Ltd. is offering to pay farmers as much as 160,000 yuan ($24,000) for their wheat to offset down payments for homes in its River Mansion residential project in Shangqiu, a city in Henan province, according to a Monday marketing post. Weeks ago, it offered to accept garlic from growers looking to buy homes in another project in Kaifeng city.

The move reflects how far some developers are willing to go to attract wary homebuyers as the economy slows and the industry endures a crippling cash crunch. Central China, the country’s 37th-largest builder, recently sought state support when its parent company agreed to sell a stake to the provincial government. 

Its perk to farmers appears aggressive. Central China was offering to buy wheat at 4 yuan a kilogram, higher than the record 3-3.1 yuan that China’s state stockpiling company was purchasing the grain for earlier this month. 

Landlocked Henan is China’s largest wheat-producing area. The country just had another bumper harvest of winter-sown wheat. 

Similarly for garlic, Central China offered to pay 10 yuan a kilogram last month. That’s higher than the 6.92 yuan wholesale price as of June 10, according to weekly data released by the commerce ministry. 

Property manias tend to start in prime areas and move progressively further into the hinterland. During a crash it is usually the third tier cities and far flung suburbs that see the most aggressive selling pressure. Eventually, even the prime areas take a hit. China’s tier 3 cities have seen an epic bull market in housing as capital fled the exorbitant prices in the tier 1 cities. It is a measure of how desperate the company is to make sales that it is now willing to accept volatile commodities rather than insist on cash.

As inflation has continued to surprise on the upside, countries all over the world are accelerating their efforts to raise rates. Brazil’s Selic Target rate is now 12.7% and the EU is beginning to talk about moving deposit rates out of negative territory.

We tend to think of interest rates as barometers of efforts by central banks to control domestic factors. However, there is also the additional point that if interest rates are rising everywhere, the availability of cheap cash is declining and competition for what is available becomes more fervent.  

China’s top economic official gave an unusual public show of support for digital platform companies Tuesday, suggesting Beijing may be ready to let up on a year-long clampdown on technology giants as it battles a slowing economy.

The government will support the development of digital economy companies and their public listings, Vice Premier Liu He, who is President Xi Jinping’s most senior economic aide, said after a symposium with the heads of some of the nation’s largest private firms. Baidu Inc. founder Robin Li, Qihoo 360 Technology Co.’s Zhou Hongyu and NetEase Inc. chief William Ding were among the tech luminaries spotted at the forum, according to a video posted online.

Liu’s remarks reported by state media were short on detail but signal further easing of the regulatory risk for China’s technology behemoths including Baiduand Tencent Holdings Ltd., as investors await clues on whether a rout in their shares is near an end. The Hang Seng Tech Index rallied as much as 6% Tuesday on optimism the meeting would affirm Beijing’s intention to dial back some of its restrictions.

China’s 7-day repo rate continues to trend lower. That’s supports the view the government is supporting the economy in a tacit manner. Liu He turning up to the symposium was already good news for the tech sector. Receiving overt verbal support was a bonus. Together with the supports for first time home buyers announced yesterday, this suggests China is aware of the risks from tightening too much and is ready to be more generous.

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area.

COVID cases are finally coming down in Shanghai which is positive news for the domestic economy. China remains exposed to the risk of further outbreaks because of the size and age of the population and the reluctance to be vaccinated. That holds out the prospect of continued lockdown phases for the foreseeable future. That’s a recipe for volatility. 

“The meeting addressed most of the pressing issues in the economy and is intended to boost confidence and turn around negative sentiment,” said Xiong Yuan, chief economist at Guosheng Securities. “It’s a rare exception that the Politburo publishes the statement during the trading day. Clearly it’s meant to incentivize investors to hold on to positions ahead of the holiday.

China’s top leaders responded to calls from investors and analysts alike to revive an economy hurt by Covid lockdowns that this week spread to Beijing and Yiwu, disrupting business operations and roiling global supply chains. The Politburo’s readout -- which was released at the earliest time of day of any since at least January 2017 -- came ahead of a five-day break for onshore markets.

While headwinds for China’s economy and markets still remain, in particular the government’s adherence to Covid Zero, traders are now asking whether this can be the long-awaited market bottom. 

The CSI 300 Index jumped 2.4% Friday, trimming this year’s loss to 19%. That still makes it one of the world’s worst performing national benchmarks, far outpacing the 13% decline in MSCI Inc.’s Asia Pacific gauge.

Mainland Chinese stock markets are closed until Thursday for the May holiday, but Hong Kong reopened today. Faced with the political impossibility of altering the COVID-zero program, the central government have little choice but to cede some ground on its recalibration of the economy. That should represent further progress in supporting the trend of the credit impulse.

Weijian Shan, whose group PAG manages more than $50bn, said his fund had diversified away from China and was being “extremely careful” about its portfolio in the country.

“We think the Chinese economy at this moment is in the worst shape in the past 30 years,” he said in a video of a meeting viewed by the Financial Times.

“The market sentiment towards Chinese stocks is also at the lowest point in the past 30 years. I also think popular discontent in China is at the highest point in the past 30 years.”

In the video, Shan said that large parts of the Chinese economy, including its financial centre Shanghai, had been “semi-paralysed” by “draconian” zero-Covid policies and that the impact on the economy would be “profound”.

“China feels to us like the US and Europe in 2008,” Shan added. “While we remain long-term confident in China’s growth and market potentials, we are very cautious towards China markets.”

It seems like every central bank is chasing a soft landing. China used the pandemic induced boom in demand for exports to initiate a cleansing of the Augean stables. By clamping down on property development and private equity investment in technology, they hoped to reorient the economy to sectors that would further the dream of becoming a self-reliant global superpower.

Our role was to make sure that low-level content moderators could find "harmful and dangerous content" as soon as possible, just like fishing out needles from an ocean. And we were tasked with improving censorship efficiency. That is, use as few people as possible to detect as much content as possible that violated ByteDance's community guidelines. I do not recall any major political blowback from the Chinese government during my time at ByteDance, meaning we did our jobs.

It was certainly not a job I'd tell my friends and family about with pride. When they asked what I did at ByteDance, I usually told them I deleted posts (删帖). Some of my friends would say, "Now I know who gutted my account." The tools I helped create can also help fight dangers like fake news. But in China, one primary function of these technologies is to censor speech and erase collective memories of major events, however infrequently this function gets used.

Dr. Li warned his colleagues and friends about an unknown virus that was encroaching on hospitals in Wuhan. He was punished for that. And for weeks, we had no idea what was really happening because of authorities' cover-up of the severity of the crisis. Around this time last year, many Chinese tech companies were actively deleting posts, videos, diaries and pictures that were not part of the "correct collective memory" that China's governments would later approve. Just imagine: Had any social media platform been able to reject the government's censorship directives and retain Dr. Li and other whistleblowers' warnings, perhaps millions of lives would have been saved today.

The thing I find most interesting is how these kinds of stories are proliferating. It’s not like Chinese censorship of ideas is new. It is a measure of how much the West’s relationship with China has soured that the appetite for this kind of critical content is sustaining large numbers of articles.

China’s worst equity selloff since early 2020 reflects a growing concern about President Xi Jinping: He
can’t afford the political costs of shifting from a Covid Zero strategy that is pummeling the economy. 
In Shanghai, a weekslong Covid-19 lockdown got even worse, with workers in hazmat suits fanning out over the weekend to install steel fences around buildings with positive cases. In Beijing, the process is just getting started, as authorities on Monday began shutting down a bustling district in the capital to
quash fresh outbreaks. 

The threat of paralyzing China’s two largest and wealthiest cities with a strategy abandoned by most countries helped push the CSI 300 down 4.9%, the gauge’s steepest one-day drop since the first such lockdown in Wuhan two years ago. The spreading lockdowns have investors worried that Xi is sacrificing the Communist Party’s reputation for pragmatic economic management to defend a political narrative that portrays him as the world’s most successful virus-fighter.

“This Covid situation is really putting China into a very dark moment, perhaps the darkest moment in economic terms for the last couple of decades,” Junheng Li, JL Warren Capital founder and chief executive officer, said of the Shanghai lockdown during an interview on Bloomberg TV. “It’s a confidence
crisis in a sense that you’ve got the most affluent city in China with this consensus disappointment and resentfulness towards a very non-sensible policy.”

“People really don’t know, what’s a clear path to get China out of this Covid situation,” Li said.

Democratic capitalist systems focus on the health of the corporate/financial system to achieve social cohesion and rising living standards. Communist systems focus on sustaining political stability to achieve the same ends. That difference doesn’t become obvious until a crisis challenges it.

In a sign that authorities are keen for the slide to end, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said that on Thursday it met with institutional investors such as the National Social Security Fund, banks and insurers to ask them to boost their equity investments.

Lockdowns in major cities across the country, coupled with capital outflow risks as the Federal Reserve hikes rates, have dampened sentiment toward local Chinese shares. Investors who had expected authorities to ramp up stimulus have since been underwhelmed, with Wednesday’s decision by banks to keep lending rates unchanged serving as another setback.

“The market is flooded with pessimism,” said Wu Wei, fund manager at Beijing Win Integrity Investment Management Co. “While there have been some policies since Liu He, the greater weight on people’s minds now is the virus. No one can accurately guess the bottom. Judging from the virus situation, we could still see a further slide.”

 

As predicted early this year, China’s covid problem was the wildcard no one was properly prepared for. Politics is the primary concern of every Communist administration. The leadership question will be settled at the Party Congress in November. There is no chance of the Covid-zero policy being abandoned before then.

The yuan slipped to its weakest level in six months, pressured by concern surrounding China’s growth outlook and a surge in U.S. Treasury yields.

China’s offshore currency weakened by as much as 0.7% to 6.4198 per dollar in New York trading, its weakest since October 2021. The decline comes as traders eye the risk that the world’s second-largest economy is becoming snarled in lockdowns, quarantine and testing rules. The yuan was also pressured by a rise in U.S. yields and the greenback on odds of even more aggressive Federal Reserve tightening. 

On Monday, China’s central bank unveiled nearly two dozen measures and promises intended to boost lending and support industries that have been beaten down by recent Covid lockdowns, including a pledge to guide banks to expand loan extensions.

“This is the strongest signal yet from Chinese authorities that they are concerned over growth conditions,” said Simon Harvey, head of currency analysis at Monex Europe. “Coupled with regulatory tightening in the tech sector, the increased level of concern over domestic growth suggests a poor year for Chinese equity returns. Today’s currency reaction is reflective of this.”

Although first-quarter GDP data showed a pick-up in growth, a deceleration in production and retail data in March as economists further worried about China’s growth outlook amid damage from lockdowns. 

In the U.S., meantime, investors are ramping up bets for the size of the Fed’s next interest rate hike. While markets are generally pricing in a 50-basis-point hike, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said Monday that hikes of as much as 75 basis points shouldn’t be ruled out. Treasury yields surged across the curve on Tuesday, with the benchmark 30-year bond rising above 3% for the first time in three years.

That likely deepened losses for the yuan, which on Tuesday breached the key support level of its 200-day moving average. Japan’s yen also plunged, set to extend its longest losing streak in more than half a century.

Slowing consumer spending is beginning to weigh on the Chinese economy and not least as house prices post negative performance. The Chinese government has been very slow to act because they are aware of how overt stimulative action inflates asset bubbles, and prices are already high. Nevertheless, they probably fear social unrest from high unemployment and negative growth more.  

As shown, the working age population in the U.S. is expected to be relatively flat whereas both Europe and China will likely experience a significant decline. The key point is that economic growth is equal to the sum of growth in the working age population and productivity growth. Therefore, unless China can stimulate significant productivity growth, it can expect a significant slowdown in economic growth. While not top of mind for most Americans, this likely slowdown has important implications for the U.S. First, slower economic growth may cause socio-political issues for the Chinese government which may further complicate already tense international relations. Second, a shrinking workforce in China will likely result in higher wages which may import inflation to the U.S. given our dependency on China for the manufacturing and assembly of so many types of goods. Third, recent supply constraints in the U.S. will likely continue on a sporadic basis. Finally, a maturing population in China will consume internally more of what it produces. This example is so fascinating because the unintended consequences of a forty year old policy decision are currently impacting the entire globe.

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

This chart included with this report highlighting the reversal of working age population growth in China, Europe and the USA is particularly relevant. It suggests a migration of manufacturing and labour-intensive activity to lower median age countries is inevitable over the coming decade.

In 2020 I began a series of reviews of longer-term themes which will be updated going forward on the first Friday or Monday of every month. These reviews can be found via the search bar using the term “Secular Themes Review”.

“Play along to get along” has been the default strategy for global peace over the past thirty years. The default proposition was that if we concentrate on commerce, and all grow wealthy together, there was no real need to focus on our political differences. Under that system globalization flourished.

A just in time global supply chain allowed components to be made in a host of different countries, assembled in China and exported to the world. The demise of subsidy regimes allowed commodities, particularly agriculture products, to be produced in the lowest cost regions and exported to the globe. The internet has allowed the dissemination of know-how and services like never before.

In attacking Ukraine, Russia expressed a willingness to risk being cut off from much of the global economy. Regardless, of any other motive, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a gamechanger for the global order. With evidence of war crimes emerging, the chances of Russia being welcomed back into the global trading community are growing progressively more distant. We are back in an “Us versus them” global environment.

Chinese stocks listed in the U.S. fell Thursday after Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler dialed down prospects of an imminent deal to allow Chinese firms to keep trading on American exchanges.

The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index dropped as much as 4.9%, with iQIYI Inc. and Baidu Inc. sinking more than 6% after being added late Wednesday to SEC’s growing delisting watch list. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. fell 4.6%, while its e-commerce rivals JD.com Inc. and Pinduoduo Inc. slid more than 7%.

U.S.-listed China stocks have steadied in recent trading after authorities signaled support to overseas listings and financial markets, yet investors remain on edge amid a long-standing dispute over whether American regulators can get full access to U.S.-traded Chinese company audits. In response to the SEC chair’s comments, China said talks with the U.S. accounting
watchdog will continue.

Under the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, the SEC started publishing a provisional list of companies identified as running afoul of requirements with the first
release in early March.

“The growing provision list is a reminder that there’s a risk” and a reminder to do a risk check, TH Capital analyst Tian X. Hou said in an interview, noting that as investors become more familiar with the delisting situation, they will realize this is a routine check by the SEC under the new rules.

Even at the best of times, auditors miss signs of trouble in the balance sheets of companies. They are a regulatory burden designed to ensure companies follow the rules and yet whenever a crisis develops, the conflict-of-interest argument arises because auditors missed obvious transgressions.

Almost 80% of the Chinese economy has been affected in some way by the worst outbreak of Covid-19 in two years, straining the supply of commodities and posing an increasing threat to demand.

China’s restrictions to contain the fast-spreading omicron variant have primarily hit travel over both short and long-distances, which is a direct drag on fuel consumption and a complication for supply chains.

The longer that Beijing persists with its Covid Zero policy, the greater the impact will be on the consumption of commodities as purchases are deferred -- think copper for electronic goods or steel for cars. Production is also at risk as inventories of raw materials dwindle and workers stay at home.

Widespread outages at metals processors, for example, could further lift markets that have already hit record highs in recent weeks because of the war in Ukraine. That would set the inflation-hawks at the central bank and economic planning agency on edge. Still, demand is also likely to shrink at some point, which would leave the net impact on prices uncertain.

The coronavirus might be a medical issue, but pandemics are political. That is truer for China than most countries. They were the first country to experience it and adopted one of the most stringent quarantine regimes. That successfully contained the infection rate. Factories and ports remained open in 2020 because the problem was contained to Wuhan and the surrounding area.

In a brief statement carried by state media, China’s top financial policy body vowed to ensure stability in capital markets, support overseas stock listings, resolve risks around property developers and complete the crackdown on Big Tech “as soon as possible.” Yi Gang, governor of the People’s Bank of China, followed with a statement saying the central bank would help implement the policies, as did the banking watchdog.

While the pledges from President Xi Jinping’s government offered little clarity over what authorities may do to achieve their goals, it was the first time China publicly addressed investors’ top concerns in one coordinated swoop. The move underscored Xi’s focus on ensuring economic and financial stability before a Communist Party congress at which he’s expected to secure at least another five years in power.

By the time trading ended just after 4 p.m. local time on Wednesday, the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index was up 12.5% in its best session since October 2008. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. surged 27%, while JD.com Inc. jumped 36%. Property stocks rallied the most in more than a decade.

Investors have been fearful of buying Chinese securities because of uncertainty about the commitment of the government to do what is necessary to protect the economy. Now they have an answer, government officials do not like volatility and China’s stock markets have been falling in a very panicky manner. 

Saudi Arabia is in active talks with Beijing to price its some of its oil sales to China in yuan, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would dent the U.S. dollar's dominance of the global petroleum market and mark another shift by the world's top crude exporter toward Asia.

The talks with China over yuan-priced oil contracts have been off and on for six years but have accelerated this year as the Saudis have grown increasingly unhappy with decades-old U.S. security commitments to defend the kingdom, the people said.

The Saudis are angry over the U.S.'s lack of support for their intervention in the Yemen civil war, and over the Biden administration's attempt to strike a deal with Iran over its nuclear program. Saudi officials have said they were shocked by the precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year.

China buys more than 25% of the oil that Saudi Arabia exports. If priced in yuan, those sales would boost the standing of China's currency.

Gold is a monetary metal because it is the barometer against which we can compare the performance of fiat currencies. However, gold stopped being a currency when President Nixon took the USA of the gold standard in 1971.

By 1973, the surge in oil revenues created an excess reserve issue for Gulf states and recycling savings into Treasuries made sense. That created the so-called petrodollar system. Since oil is used in every country in the world it is also used as a unit of account.

The Saudis are conducting due diligence and benchmarking the offer against others that Foxconn has made for similar projects globally, one of the people said.

Besides Saudi Arabia, Foxconn is also talking with the United Arab Emirates about potentially siting the project there, one of the people said.

The Taiwan-based company has looked to diversify its manufacturing sites amid rising tensions between China and the U.S. that put it in a potentially vulnerable spot.

Riyadh wants the company to guarantee that it would direct at least two-thirds of the foundry's production into Foxconn's existing supply chain, one of the people said, to ensure there are buyers for its products and the project is ultimately profitable.

Foxconn is seeking large incentives including financing, tax holidays and subsidies for power and water in exchange for helping set up a high-tech manufacturing sector in the kingdom, the people said, as Saudi Arabia seeks to diversify its economy away from oil.

The Saudis could offer direct equity co-investment, industrial development loans, low-interest debt from local banks and export credits to compete with other jurisdictions that Foxconn might consider, said another person familiar with the talks.

Saudi authorities and Foxconn didn't respond to requests for comment.

Pandemic exiles leaving Hong Kong brought COVID-19 with them to Shenzhen. The city and its environs have been locked down which is impacting the ability of component suppliers to perform at peak capacity.

Chinese tech giants like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. in the past year. Beijing’s clampdown on private enterprise appeared to intensify in recent weeks after authorities required food delivery platforms to cut fees they charge restaurants and warned of risks in investing in products
linked to the metaverse.

Since its February 2021 peak, the China tech gauge has slumped nearly 60%. Adding to the fragile sentiment are concerns about a potential interest rate hike from the U.S. Federal Reserve next week and elevated commodity prices fueled by the war in Ukraine.
 
“Investors may be looking to sell growth names into the brief rallies to reduce their risk exposure, given multiple headwinds including Russia and the upcoming rate hikes,” said Vey-Sern Ling, a senior analyst at Union Bancaire Privee.

JD.com reported strong 2021 earnings but guidance was the share’s downfall today. This is a trend which troubled many US growth companies during earnings season as well. Keeping up pandemic era growth when liquidity is less available, and the real world is competing for attention versus screens, is a tall order. JD.com broke lower on the news.

Ukraine is open to discussing Russia’s demand of neutrality as long as it’s given security guarantees, though it won’t surrender a “single inch” of territory, a top foreign policy aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

“Surely, we are ready for a diplomatic solution,” Ihor Zhovkva, Zelenskiy’s deputy chief of staff, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Wednesday. 

The aide reinforced Ukraine’s demand for security guarantees “from the U.S., from Great Britain, from Germany” and others -- “only security guarantees from Russia will not be enough,” though he declined to spell out what those measures would entail. 

Preconditions for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin would be a cease-fire and the withdrawal of Russian troops, Zhovka said.

When the war is over, Ukraine is most likely to follow a Finland-type solution. They may apply for membership of the EU, but not NATO. They will receive security guarantees from their neighbours, but will need to retain a significant military and constant vigilance nonetheless. Relations with Russia will be irrevocably damaged and portions of Ukraine will likely become part of Russian territory. However, the fact remains many of Russia’s pipelines flow through Ukraine’s territory. Trading relationships will be necessary.

President Joe Biden said the U.S. will ban imports of Russian fossil fuels including oil, a major escalation of Western efforts to hobble Russia’s economy that will further strain global crude markets.

“We’re banning all imports of Russian oil and gas and energy,” Biden said Tuesday at the White House. “We will not be part of subsidizing Putin’s war.”

The U.S. move will be matched in part by the U.K., which will announce a ban on Russian oil imports on Tuesday, though it will continue to allow natural gas and coal from the country. Other European nations that rely more heavily on Russian fuels will not participate. The scope of Biden’s action was not immediately clear, including exceptions and the impact on shipments already in transit.

Biden’s move is a significant step in his sanctions campaign against Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. While so-called self-sanctioning by the oil industry has limited some purchases of Russian barrels, an outright U.S. ban would further weigh on the market and increase volatility.

If sanctions are to work, they need to hit the target where it hurts. If Russia is to be chastened, more of the world needs to stop buying its products. That’s going to come with massive dislocations to the global economy. It’s a necessary sacrifice because appeasement does not work.

“What China publishes as a target and what they actually aim to achieve are two separate things,” said Freya Beamish, head of macro research at TS Lombard. “The actual number will be published close to the target. But the reality could be significantly weaker.”

China’s economic links with Russia and Ukraine are a small part of its overall foreign trade and investment, so Beijing may calculate that it can largely insulate its economy from global instability, as it did during the global financial crisis and coronavirus pandemic.

“China has tended to capture larger shares of global trade when there are global problems,” Huang said. “They may have been lulled into a feeling that the Ukraine situation won’t hurt them.”

Beijing has pledged to accelerate fiscal spending without increasing debt by using unspent funds from previous years and state-owned enterprise profits. The funding from such sources mean the stimulus will be relatively small-scale.

“The government’s growth target is probably the upper edge of what China can reasonably achieve without large-scale stimulus,” said Adam Wolfe, an economist at Absolute Strategy Research in London. “It’s much more of a stretch target than last year’s.”

China’s growth target will need to be supplemented by liquidity provision if it is to be achieved. That’s particularly true given the macro background of undefinable ripple effects from cutting Russia off from Swift.

In 2020 I began a series of reviews of longer-term themes which will be updated going forward on the first Friday of every month. These reviews can be found via the search bar using the term “Secular Themes Review”.

When Wall Street indices were breaking out to new highs in 2012/13 the world looked to be on the cusp of a golden era of globalisation, co-operation, and the inevitable rise of the middle class. Higher living standards would breed a more tolerant society with greater respect for the environment and for our fellow global citizens.

In predicting a secular bull market, we were correct about the market call. Wall Street and the FANGMANT stocks have outperformed global indices by a wide margin over the last decade. It was also correct to expect oil to underperform because of the bounty arising from shale oil and gas. Predicting a decade ago that the USA would become energy independent was seen as maverick. Today it’s a fact.

The social upheaval that began with the monetary and regulatory response to the credit crisis represents a significant threat to the utopian ideal of the everyman. Exporting job security in return for cheap products has hollowed out the middle class in most developed countries. The evolution of the subscription business model has also reduced individuals to cash flows; where ownership of hard assets is marketed as an outdated concept. This has contributed to significant social upheaval and the response to the coronavirus pandemic amplified it.  

At the same time, the trend of geopolitical tension continues to rise. The concentration of wealth in the hands of a small number of people, companies and countries is creating greater competition. China is much more active in staking its claim to global trade than in the past and Russia’s current invasion of Ukraine is reflective of a desperate need for both security and relevance in a world that is actively working to use less of its primary export; oil.

Chinese technology shares had their worst two-day drop since July due to renewed fears Beijing may roll out more restrictions for private enterprise. Traders pointed to everything from regulatory warnings over the weekend about scams in the metaverse -- a virtual-reality based social media concept -- to unsubstantiated talk about more curbs on the gaming industry. Tencent is a leader in metaverse development.

On Monday, a screenshot detailing the alleged new gaming curbs made waves on China’s internet. But Wang Guanran, an analyst with Citic Securities, clarified that the content was originally posted by him last year when regulators hosted study sessions on gaming regulations.

“I didn’t post anything today,” he said on his WeChat. The screenshot flagged more oversight of violent genres and concepts like anime and religion and limits on player spending on loot boxes.

Protestations that Tencent does not expect additional curbs on its primary business lines would be more convincing if the government were not asking banks to disclose their relationships with Alibaba’s ANT Financial. 

The Winter Games are of course Xi’s prestige project, so the administration is going to incredible lengths to make the event a success. While the competitors will be isolated from the local population, continuing the effort after the Games are over makes little sense. City-wide lockdowns are unlikely to work against a variant as infectious as Omicron. This is evident in Hong Kong, where the outbreak looks increasingly serious. Yet the cost of zero-COVID is rising every day as the city is cut off from the rest of the world, and even from China.

Hong Kong highlights the wider challenge Omicron represents for Xi. He tried to impose total control but failed. As Omicron spreads, opposition within the CPC will grow stronger. Xi’s carefully choreographed elevation to the level of Mao and Deng may never occur.

It is to be hoped that Xi may be replaced by someone less repressive at home and more peaceful abroad. This would remove the greatest threat that open societies face today. Their task is to do everything within their power to encourage China to move in the desired direction.

When state media is under total government control, nothing we hear about happens by mistake. It is worth remembering that when we assess what signals are being sent by China’s media.

The People’s Bank of China is catching its breath after it cut the one-year medium-term lending facility rate last month -- the pause won’t last long. The central bank has signaled it’s ready to deliver more support to prop up growth. We expect the next cut as soon as the second quarter, and see the PBOC delivering another one in 3Q -- part of a broader array of easing measures to counter the slowdown.--David Qu and Chang Shu, China economists

Despite the decision to hold the one-year policy loan rate steady Tuesday, the PBOC’s easing stance has set it apart from other major central banks including the Federal Reserve, which are tightening monetary policy to tame soaring inflation. The possibility that the Fed will accelerate the pace of rate hikes could restrict China’s room for further easing later this year as it could accelerate outflows. 

Global demand for Chinese bonds has already slipped amid their shrinking yield premium. The yield gap on China’s 10-year sovereign bonds over similar-maturity Treasuries narrowed to 73 basis points last week, the least since 2019.

China wishes to put an end to the pattern of booming asset prices every time it eases policy. The kneejerk reaction of Chinese investors has always been to rush into property when liquidity eases. It has been the best performing asset, but prices are now also very high and affordability is an issue.

China offered its huge steel industry five extra years of rising carbon emissions, sending iron ore soaring as investors saw the move as a renewed focus on propping up the economy.

Steelmaking accounts for about 15% of China’s carbon emissions. On Monday, the government set 2030 as the new deadline for peak-emissions for the sector, against an earlier target of 2025. That adds to signs that Beijing is recalibrating its climate strategy in light of last year’s commodity price spikes, and priming the economy for a more powerful, carbon-intensive stimulus. 
“This is a big adjustment to the timetable, which gives more room for the steel sector to reach peak emissions in an orderly way,” said Xu Xiangchun, an analyst with researcher Mysteel. A rush to meet carbon goals could lead to “unbearable economic costs”, he said.

The policy pivot is another sign that Beijing is changing the trajectory of its decarbonization plans to ensure industrial changes don’t result in damaging inflation or shortages. President Xi Jinping said last month that climate targets shouldn’t compromise supplies of commodities that “ensure the normal life of the masses.”

Iron ore surged past $150 a ton, with expectations rising for more infrastructure to soften China’s economic slowdown. More construction activity tends to means higher steel output, which in turn raises iron ore demand but means more greenhouse gases.

Xi Jinping announced a change of emphasis ahead of the Lunar New Year Holiday in saying carbon reduction would need to take a backseat to ensuring living standards are protected. Today, there was also news that the State investment fund is buying stocks to support prices and that curbs of property market loans are being removed. That’s all supportive of the view China is actively putting a floor under asset prices.

In 2020 I began a series of reviews of longer-term themes which will be updated going forward on the first Friday of every month. These reviews can be found via the search bar using the term “Secular Themes Review”.

The biggest trend in the world isn’t bitcoin or the FANGMAN stocks. It’s bonds. Yields peaked in 1980 and the cost of borrowing has done nothing but decline since.

That’s enabled the steady rise of leverage, debt accumulation, asset price appreciation, speculation in all manner of public and private assets and every other bull market too.

The exact mix of where the debts have accumulated most is different in each country. For the USA, fiscal excess and unfunded liabilities are the biggest debt issue. The large number of companies surviving with no profits is the second biggest debt issue.

In Australia, Canada and the UK, consumer debt ratios, household debt and property debt are the pain points. The Reserve Bank of Australia’s reluctance to raise rates, despite inflation, is a symptom of the economy’s reliance on property prices.

For China, the accumulation of debt in the property sector has been epic. The sector represents 30% of GDP. At least in Japan, the massive quantity of debt is held domestically but it is a significant hurdle to raising rates.

And having avoided the all-out stimulus of Western peers when the Coronavirus first struck in early 2020, the PBOC finds itself with dormant consumer prices and room to “open the monetary policy tool-box.”

For China, that sets the stage for a triple dose of support from increased lending, lower borrowing costs and — potentially — a weaker yuan that would boost exports. The PBOC has already made a down payment on rate cuts and most economists expect more to come.

By China’s normal standards, the prize for successful stimulus will be small — more preventing a continued slide in growth than driving a fresh acceleration. And past policy errors — allowing a debt bubble to expand to enormous size — add risk to the outlook and a constraint on the PBOC’s freedom of maneuver.

If Yi and his team can pull it off, though, the boost from PBOC stimulus should offset at least some of the drag on global growth from Fed tightening. International Monetary Fund projections show China is set to contribute more than one-quarter of the total increase in global gross domestic product in the five years through 2026, exceeding the U.S.’s roughly 19% share.

China avoided overstimulating the economy during the pandemic because they didn’t have to. Most factories have attached dormitories. That ensured production hummed even as much of the country was locked down. Instead, they used the massive surge in export revenue as catalyst to reshape the economy. Clamping down on property developer leverage and reshaping innovation priorities in the tech sector were top of the list.

Overseas investors boosted their holdings of Chinese sovereign bonds by 575.6 billion yuan ($90.9 billion) in 2021, the fastest pace on record compared with previous years, according to Bloomberg calculations of Chinabond data. 

Foreign exchange settlement under securities investment in the capital account, which reflects offshore investors’ buying of onshore equities and bonds, surged to $23 billion in December, the highest since records began in 2010.

Ken Cheung, chief Asian FX strategist at Mizuho Bank Ltd., said the high returns of yuan-denominated assets and the stability of the yuan exchange rate are attractive to foreign capital. 

However, the narrowing U.S.-China yield spread will lead to slower inflows into the onshore bond market, and direct investment next year could ease, considering multiple factors, including regulations, U.S.-China relations and China’s slowing economy, Cheung said.

The Renminbi has been slowly appreciating versus the Dollar since early 2021. That reticence of the Chinese government to deploy massive monetary and fiscal stimulus during the pandemic have contributed to the strength of the currency and the relative attraction of Renminbi bonds.

The Hang Seng Tech Index jumped 4.5%, with Meituan and Tencent Holdings among those leading gains. The gauge has started 2022 with an advance after losing about a third of its value last year amid Beijing’s clampdown on tech companies. 

The rally followed clarification from China’s internet regulator late Wednesday that it’s not asking to approve all investments or fundraising by big tech companies, denying an earlier media report.  

A Bloomberg Intelligence gauge of Chinese real estate developers advanced 3.6%, following reports that the government may ease access to some funds. The sector’s gains came even as Thursday’s cut in the five-year loan prime rate left some market watchers disappointed.    

Shares of Country Garden Services Holdings Co. and Sunac China Holdings Ltd. surged more than 10% each. The unwinding of some short positions also likely aided the rally in property stocks, traders said.  

Agile Group, Shimao Group and Guangzhou R&F have about 20% of their free-float shares sold short, among the highest in the MSCI Asia Pacific Index, according to data from IHS Markit. 

Chinese New Year is on February 1st and will be followed by a week-long holiday for mainland markets. At the same time the winter Olympics begins on the 4th which will focus the sporting media’s attention on Beijing. The central bank is making sure its messaging is clear ahead of the shutdown. That’s also aimed at instilling some confidence in investors that the squeeze on private property developers will be limited to that sector.

“Consumption remains the weakest link in China’s growth story at the moment and that will by and large continue for much of this year,” said Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics. “We think Beijing has a bottom line of around 5%. As is the case at the moment, if growth is weaker than that, they’d feel strongly motivated to pursue more policy easing.”

Economists expect more policy action from the PBOC in coming months. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said there’s a possibility the central bank will allow banks to lower the five-year loan prime rate, a reference for mortgages, on Thursday. The one-year rate was already cut in December. Economists at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group and BNP Paribas see the likelihood of further reductions in the reserve requirement ratio for banks.   

The big question for liquidity dependent stocks is where the next big source of liquidity is going to come from. The US government is struggling to get additional spending measures passed. The Fed expects to be done with QE tapering in a couple of months and both Europe and Japan are not significantly increasing their programs. The potential for China to do more to support flagging growth is one of the few realistic possibilities for ample additional liquidity in the near term.

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area.

Capital is both global and mobile. China demurred from opening the monetary and fiscal spigot during the early portion of the pandemic. It didn’t need to. Demand for its exports took off and it was possible to keep factories open because of the country’s strict quarantine regime. Using a period of outsized growth in its balance of trade to tighten up on overleverage in the property sector was a sound countercyclical policy.

The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index rallied 9.4%, its largest climb since 2008. Electric-vehicle maker Nio Inc. and Tencent Music Entertainment Group were among some of the best performers Thursday, climbing 15% each. Alibaba Group Holding rose 9.7%, while Tal Education Group advanced 15%.

“It’s finally time to buy Chinese equities,” Vital Knowledge analyst Adam Crisafulli wrote in a research note. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index is back at levels that have acted as solid support going back over the last several years, he said.

U.S.-listed Chinese stocks have experienced a brutal selloff in 2021 as regulators in Beijing mounted a sweeping crackdown on the nation’s companies. That rout erased more than $1 trillion in value since February as authorities in the U.S. and China continued to put pressure on the firms. Despite Thursday’s rally, the group is still down about 42% this year and about 57% lower from its February peak.

The Golden Dragon China Index had a dismal 2021. It was dragged lower by fears of nationalisation of China’s champion companies, the equivalent of a seismic event in the regulatory environment and the threat of shares needing to delist from US exchanges. That all occurred against a troubling backdrop of deteriorating sentiment that the trade war will ever end.

Equity team co-heads Atul Narayan and Erin Miles on other equity markets catching up with the US: Looking ahead, it feels that things are primed for the equity markets that have lagged the US (China, Japan, the UK, Europe, etc.) to catch up. There are several factors at play. First, COVID has been a material relative support to US equities from all channels—favorable sector tilt, less virus economic impact, more support from falling rates (versus, say, Japan, where yields are pegged), and compressing risk premiums, given safe-haven appeal for US equities, especially the FAANMGs. We would expect the COVID impact to gradually fade in the coming year and this to be a relative support for the markets outside the US.

Second, China is showing early signs of moving toward easing after a year when the structural goals (deleveraging, rebalancing, common prosperity, etc.) were prioritized. This again will be a bigger relative support for economies like Japan, Europe, and EMs that are a lot more exposed to China. Finally, if you look back over the last 100 years, it’s almost always been the case that the winners of a given decade end up being laggards in the next one because of the degree of exuberance (and pessimism) that gets priced in following the winning (and losing) stretch. Given how stretched the relative positioning and pricing is today (for logical reasons), we expect the US versus rest of world diff to finally start to revert after a decade-long off-the-charts performance. The main things we are watching closely are the evolution of COVID globally, China’s policy stance, and the retail flows in the US, which were the biggest support for US equities over the past year and a half.  

Based on valuations alone, there is a strong risk-adjusted argument for favouring ex-US assets. I also find the argument that a recovery for China’s economy would have a more positive effect on the Ex-US basket to be reasonable. However, momentum remains a tailwind for Wall Street which has been supported by the relative strength of the Dollar all year.

While much is still unknown about how Sinovac’s shot holds up to omicron -- including how T cells, the immune system’s weapon against virus-infected cells, will respond -- the initial results are a blow to those who have received CoronaVac. There have been more than 2.3 billion doses of the shot produced and shipped out, mostly in China and the developing world. 

With omicron seen to be about 70 times more transmissible than the delta variant, the prospect of having to roll out different boosters or even re-vaccinate with a more omicron-specific vaccine will set back the world’s efforts to exit the pandemic.

Evidence has been emerging for months that the primary Chinese made vaccines are ineffective against variants like Delta or Omicron. This article from Reuters focuses on China’s lockdown of Xi’an but highlights that none of the 200 cases found to date are from the Omicron variant. That suggests it is only a matter of time before the newer variant arrives despite the already strict measures to contain the threat already in place.

Developers on mainland and Hong Kong bourses have diverged in recent weeks, with typically stronger firms listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen outperforming. A move by authorities encouraging lenders to fund acquisitions of projects held by distressed developers may benefit larger, often state-owned firms most. A Bloomberg Intelligence gauge of Chinese property companies mostly traded in Hong Kong closed on Monday near a five-year low before rising 3.4% on Tuesday.

The most likely scenario is many of the private property developers are going to be taken over by state-owned companies. Since that is the most likely result, the state-owned sector will be the primary beneficiary of the rationalisation of the property developers’ sector. 

The weakening of retail sales surprised analysts who were expecting a boost from the annual online “Singles Day” shopping festival. Spending in the restaurant and catering sector fell year-on-year in November, while car sales dropped for a fifth straight month. 

China has been facing persistent outbreaks of the delta-variant and recorded its first cases of the more-contagious omicron variant this week, adding to pressure on authorities to implement local lockdowns.

What Bloomberg Economics Says...
China’s November activity data suggest the economy is still under strain, though the production side appears to be stabilizing. The pressure on the demand side was clear, with growth in both fixed-asset investment and retail sales extending slowdowns. We expect fiscal and monetary policies to become more supportive in the months ahead.

The central bank refrained from easing monetary policy on Wednesday. It kept the interest rate for one-year loans to banks unchanged and only rolled over about half of the maturing debts, withdrawing liquidity from the banking system. A recently announced cut to the reserve requirement ratio for banks takes effect from Wednesday, which should make it cheaper for them to extend new loans.

There was limited reaction in financial markets to the data. The CSI 300 Index was down 0.6% as of 1:45 p.m. in Shanghai. The yield on 10-year government bonds was flat at 2.88% and the yuan strengthened less than 0.1% to 6.3644 per dollar.

A weak labor market further worsened the outlook for consumer spending. The surveyed jobless rate inched up to 5% while the average number of hours worked per week fell slightly from the previous month.

“Domestic consumption remains weak with retail sales disappointing,” said Raymond Yeung, chief economist for Greater China at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. “The incremental increase in the jobless rate is concerning. The authorities should pledge more support and offer a stronger signal to the market.”

The contrast between China and the rest of the world is growing increasingly stark. The demand surge during the pandemic has not yet ebbed in much of the rest of the world but is quickly receding in China. The key variable is liquidity. The USA and Europe spent inordinate sums to support their economies. China clamped down on personal freedoms and did what was necessary to ensure factories were operational, but did not engage in anywhere near the same level of monetary and fiscal accommodation.

While Evergrande bondholders face deep haircuts in a restructuring that could take months or even years to resolve, there were few signs of financial contagion on Thursday. That’s partly because investors had been anticipating a default for months, but also thanks to a flurry of activity by China’s government to cushion the blow.

Policy makers have in recent weeks cut lenders’ reserve requirements, signaled an easing of real estate curbs and rolled out measures to ensure higher-rated developers retain access to funding. They’ve also taken a leading role in Evergrande’s restructuring, appointing officials from the developer’s home province to help oversee the process. 

While that’s likely to help prevent nightmare scenarios of an uncontrolled Evergrande collapse, authorities have made it clear they have no intention of bailing out the property empire started by billionaire Hui Ka Yan 25 years ago. In a pre-recorded video message at a seminar in Hong Kong on Thursday, People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang described Evergrande’s situation as a market event that should be dealt with in a market-oriented way. 

The Shenzhen-based developer, which disclosed more than $300 billion of total liabilities as of June, said in a brief exchange filing on Dec. 3 that it will “actively engage” with offshore creditors on a restructuring plan. But with Chinese authorities now calling the shots, the developer has stayed largely silent on details of what its restructuring might look like. 

Even Fitch has struggled to get information from Evergrande, noting on Thursday that the developer didn’t respond to its request for confirmation on this week’s coupon payments. “We are therefore assuming they were not paid,” Fitch analysts wrote in a statement. Bloomberg reported earlier this week that bondholders hadn’t received the money.

The long-expected default of China Evergrande is now underway and was preceded by the Kaisa’s default. Aoyuan’s difficulties are now also making headlines. Against a background of sensationalist media coverage, the Chinese administration is making enough liquidity available to support the wider property sector. They are also engaging in a forensic audit of local government off balance sheet vehicles to find out just how big the problem is.

Gundlach, 62, said the reason why Fed Chair Jerome Powell characterizes the economy as strong, but not strong enough to allow for a rate hike at this point, is that the underlying condition is in fact weak -- artificially propped up by an unprecedented degree of stimulus.

Here are some other takeaways from Gundlach’s remarks:
He focused heavily on inflation, saying the annual pace of gains in the consumer price index could hit 7% in the next month or two. He ran through numerous inflation measures and pointed out that shelter costs have climbed significantly. He also said it’s possible that the CPI inflation gauge won’t drop below 4% throughout 2022.

Markets could face more volatility now that the Fed has said it might quicken its tapering program.

Gundlach reiterated that he bought European stocks for the first time in 12 years, which he disclosed a few months ago. He still owns some of those and they’ve done just OK until recently. He didn’t own emerging-markets equities, though he envisioned a scenario when they might outperform U.S. firms. “We’re looking for major opportunities” and emerging markets could be one over the next few years, he said.

The dollar has been in structural decline since 1985, he said, reiterating that the twin-deficit problem (that’s the current-account gap and the federal budget deficit) will cause the greenback to fall over time, which bodes well for emerging markets.

I’ve been saying for most of this year that the Dollar is the lynchpin for a migration away from US Dollar assets. Wall Street has outperformed by a wide margin from the perspective of international investors since 2008.