Eighteen months later, newly unsealed court documents show that the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles got their warrant for that raid by misleading the judge who approved it.

They omitted from their warrant request a central part of the FBI’s plan: Permanent confiscation of everything inside every box containing at least $5,000 in cash or goods, a senior FBI agent recently testified.

The FBI’s justification for the dragnet forfeiture was its presumption that hundreds of unknown box holders were all storing assets somehow tied to unknown crimes, court records show.

It took five days for scores of agents to fill their evidence bags with the bounty: More than $86 million in cash and a bonanza of gold, silver, rare coins, gem-studded jewelry and enough Rolex and Cartier watches to stock a boutique.

The U.S. attorney’s office has tried to block public disclosure of court papers that laid bare the government’s deception, but a judge rejected its request to keep them under seal.

The failure to disclose the confiscation plan in the warrant request came to light in FBI documents and depositions of agents in a class-action lawsuit by box holders who say the raid violated their rights.

The war on cash is an ongoing program by governments to control and tax every Dollar, Euro, Pound, Yen, Renminbi and Rupee in existence. The Reaganism “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” It is as true today as ever. In an effort to further that aim, governments want to know exactly where every unit of currency resides and to control how it moves. 

Australia benefitted both from the global low interest rate environment and booming Chinese demand for materials over much of the last 15 years. That seeded an impressive domestic technology/growth sector and significant growth in demand for iron-ore, coal and natural gas as well as other commodities.

The Biden administration is moving toward a release of at least another 10 million to 15 million barrels of oil from the nation’s emergency stockpile in a bid to balance markets and keep gasoline prices from climbing further, according to people familiar with the matter.  

The move would effectively represent the tail end of a program announced in the spring to release a total of 180 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. About 165 million barrels has been delivered or put under contract since the program was put into effect.

The Biden administration also is set this week to provide details on plans to replenish the emergency stockpile. The Energy Department announced in May it was planning a new method of buybacks to allow for a “competitive, fixed-price bid process,” with prices potentially locked in well before crude is delivered.

The mid-term elections are in exactly three weeks. The incumbent party generally does not do well in the mid-terms but this year with inflation running rampant and a slim majority, the majority in both houses is at stake. Getting gasoline prices down was central to the effort to appease consumers’ inflation fears ahead of the election.

Our latest assessment, taking on board the change in borrowing costs since Hunt’s announcement and the policies in the statement, is that a further £13 billion will still need to be found to just get debt falling relative to GDP. It would take more like £36 billion of consolidation to put it on the same trajectory as we projected before the mini-budget was published in September.

Debt Still On Explosive Path
Finding a package of spending cuts that are politically viable and deliverable will be extremely challenging -- much of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. Hunt faces an uphill struggle to win the faith of markets as he formulates a budget, to be delivered on Oct. 31.

Hunt also said that the universal household energy price cap will be replaced from April 2023 with more targeted measures. It’s not clear what those measures will be but removing the government cap altogether and reverting to Ofgem’s methodology from April would imply a 75% rise in energy bills for households. Inflation would jump to 11.6% in April, against 6.4% under the cap.

The combination of austerity and less support for households next year means the risks to our forecast for a 0.4% drop in GDP in 2023 have shifted to the downside. 

Jeremy Hunt introduced a reset over the weekend which puts the UK government’s finances back to where they were two weeks ago. As a result the Pound is back to where it was on September 20th. Deficits are wide but the assumption is the universal energy price cap is assumed to be temporary. The reality is price controls are difficult to remove once installed and are always expensive to maintain.

Current 4680 battery cells are not living up to their promises made by Elon Musk during Tesla's Battery Day in 2020 when they were first revealed. At the time, Musk mentioned features like a high-nickel cathode, silicon anode, and an ingenious packaging system at a fraction of the cost of the 2170 batteries. For now, however, it has hit only one of these purported features.

We already know that the 4680 battery packs that Tesla now places in its Model Y are only halfway to the stated goal of a 50% cost reduction compared to conventional batteries. The bulk of the savings come from the packaging efficiency of stuffing them into much larger tubes hence improving the volumetric density and requiring fewer welding points. The key dry-coating process for the electrodes, however, which doesn't require toxic mixes and oven baking, remains a pie-in-the-sky goal for now, despite that Tesla hopes to hit a pilot run this year.

Moreover, independent 4680 battery teardowns and chemistry analysis shows that Tesla is still using the regular 811 nickel-manganese-cobalt mixture for the cathodes and ordinary graphite anodes. Be it because of the price of raw materials that go into batteries for performance electric vehicles now, or simply for the lack of necessary manufacturing technology or equipment, the high-nickel and silicon electrodes that bring about true cost, range, and performance improvements, are still to come for Tesla vehicles with the 4680 battery.

Even NIO, which is farther ahead in the development and mass production of a 150 kWh high-nickel battery that is supposed to propel its top ET5 and ET7 performance sedan versions for more than 620 miles on a charge, had to postpone their launch. Its battery maker WeLion was supposed to deliver the first mass-produced batch of 150 kWh semi-solid packs with high-nickel technology this month, but the launch of the top ET5 and ET7 models has now been stretched into 2023 as the technology needs further validation.

As if the issues with the 4680 battery not living up to its hype were not bad enough, apparently Tesla is facing some significant issues with scaling up production. Quite apart from the fact lithium prices broke out to new highs this week, the cost of production is rising and a lack of manufacturing efficiency is going to make matters worse.

“Has the government finally heeded the calls from markets and the Bank of England? Price action in gilts and the pound suggests markets believe so,” said Simon Harvey, head of FX analysis at Monex Europe. 

The plan to freeze corporation tax next year has come in for particular attention from detractors within Truss’s own Tories. Under a strategy set out by the previous Conservative administration, the levy on companies was due to rise to 25% from 19% in April. But scrapping that move was one of the key measures in Kwarteng’s fiscal plan announced Sept. 23.

The initial market reaction on Thursday suggests that a U-turn on corporation tax -- along with the bank’s greater buying activity this week -- could help ease any turbulence next week after the Bank of England halts its bond purchases on Friday. Investors will be focused on the details of the plans the government is drawing up, and that may determine whether the broad market rally can be sustained.

“Given investors are short, the reaction of sterling is not a surprise,” said Gareth Gettinby, portfolio manager at Aegon Asset Management. “Ultimately, the UK has an extremely negative external balance that remains reliant on foreign funding which remains a negative. So a short term bounce on government noise and then expect the currency to weaken.”

Confidence in the standard of UK governance has taken a beating recently. The government has few options when the bond market is throwing a fit at the prospect of modern monetary theory gone wild. They will inevitably have to walk back the commitment to lower taxes and will hopefully double down on deregulation.

“Bailey’s words did sound harsh but from the BOE’s perspective they need to sound stern,” said Pooja Kumra, rates strategist at Toronto-Dominion Bank. “The BOE has been very receptive to markets. If chaos continues we doubt that they will run away.”

The Bank of England is in a very difficult position. They desperately need to act against inflationary pressures but are constrained from using the tools at their disposal because of the risk posed by leverage in the financial system, not least in the pension sector.

We’re living through an extraordinary time in American history, and really in all human history. Once you take that big-picture historical perspective, once you look at the whole forest rather than the individual trees, the real story of our times starts to make more sense. We happen to have arrived at a juncture between two very different historical eras and that makes everything on the ground very confusing, and very traumatic.

One way to understand this is that for the last 40 years America and the world have been operating within a series of interconnected systems that add up to one mega-system. Our energy system was rooted in carbon, and our transportation system was based on the internal combustion engine. Our culture was dominated by the huge Baby Boom generation and our politics tended to be more conservative. Our economics was all about unleashing the private sector and maximizing shareholder capitalism. Work was done in physical places and production was primarily industrial. Our uber-challenge was terrorism, and our geopolitical focus was the Middle East, which made sense because we needed to keep the carbon energy flowing to keep the whole flywheel of this mega-system spinning.

That whole mega-system, and all the subsystems, arguably are now breaking down and often causing more problems than they are solving. This world that older people spent their entire careers and lives mastering is coming to an end. This world that younger people were taught is “just the way things are” increasingly does not make sense. This world that politicians proudly had policies for, and that the media confidently analyzed and explained, is soon going to be over.

Every one of those systems arguably is being superseded by new systems much better suited for the 21st century. Our uber-challenge is now climate change and so our energy system must shift to clean power and our transportation system to electric. Our culture now is dominated by the huge Millennial generation and our politics are becoming more progressive. Our economics is raising the role of the public sector and capitalism being pushed to include all stakeholders. Work is now taking place much more virtually, and production is on the cusp of becoming biological. And our geopolitics is recentering on Asia, and in particular on the new superpower, China.

There are two important cycles investors need to be aware of. First you have the technology cycle. Time marches to a different beat inside universities and labs all over the world. The market may go up and down but smart people, beavering away on their pet idea, will eventually lead to technological innovations that take everyone by surprise.

Overwatch 2’s launch suffered from a double whammy of troubles when the servers opened for business Tuesday: Massive player interest led to equally massive login queues and a cyberattack.

Blizzard Entertainment President Mike Ybarra tweeted that the company was dealing with a Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that was disrupting servers (these stopped after Tuesday’s launch). "Server issues” and “launch day” predictably go together in gaming, so plenty of players knew to expect disruptions and wait times.

Another issue plaguing Overwatch 2’s launch was the use of Blizzard’s SMS Protect feature, which requires a mobile phone number to prevent cheaters and stop hackers from taking over player accounts. But since Tuesday’s launch, those using prepaid cellular accounts can’t use those mobile numbers to play (it's part of the SMS Protect protocol). A Blizzard spokesperson said that the company is "actively engaging with some service providers to explore if we can expand the program to cover more users while still protecting our players and game security."

Late Wednesday, Blizzard said an update it plans to roll out Friday will change SMS Protect so that any player who has logged into Overwatch since June 2021 can play without a phone number requirement (anyone who hasn't played Overwatch since that time will need to use a phone number. It’s also rolling out updates to improve online stability and long login queues. Players have also been reporting missing items and other data, and Blizzard said half of these issues are because players didn’t merge their accounts. For the rest, Blizzard said no data has been wiped or lost and it is working to restore missing items.

Activision Blizzard was in the process of collapsing before Microsoft made a bid for the company. The share is falling once more which suggests investors are wary of thinking the merger will get approval from the EU.

Investors counting on a Federal Reserve pivot any time soon are bound to get burned again, according to PGIM Fixed Income.

“We’ve seen this movie time and time again,” said Greg Peters, co-chief investment officer at the Newark-based firm, in an interview. “The market gets hyped up on different narratives between inflation releases. I’ve been surprised by it, and we’ve been using it as an opportunity to sell into.”

The firm, which manages assets of $790 billion, sold US Treasuries after a rally earlier this week sparked by speculation the Fed was about to turn more dovish. The market move proved short lived, backing its view that there’s still not enough evidence to suggest policy makers will rein in aggressive interest-rate hikes.

The speculation -- fueled by a smaller-than-expected rate hike in Australia -- drove action across global markets in the first two days of this week, driving down two-year Treasury yields by nearly 30 basis points at one point to below 4%.

Neel Kashkari, who has historically been viewed as a dove, was quoted today as saying "more work to do" on bringing down inflation, and is "quite a ways away" from being able to pause its aggressive interest-rate hikes.

Upgrade from Cautious to Attractive: No one knows exactly when this downturn will end and we find it difficult to get ahead of macro events, but we see signals that suggest we should no longer be overly pessimistic: (1) the cyclical sell-off has already been punitive in an historical context; (2) the magnitude of the valuation correction (YoY) is approaching extremes relative to the last two decades; (3) earnings risks are now well understood and it is surprises that will drive stocks from here; (4) green shoots are emerging while some consumer parts of tech are close to bottoming; (5) we are upgrading our top down EM strategy view on IT, Korea, and Taiwan; these are set-up for a reversal in returns in the coming weeks. What is not understood is cycle turns and the market's willingness to increasingly look through this late stage of the downturn and, hence, our focus on the other side of the cycle.

An inflection is near and we see reasons to be constructive on a 2H23 recovery. (1) Macro headwinds are fading with the bulk of the Fed’s heavy lifting likely to be done by year-end and benefits from China’s reopening; (2) demand elasticity and replacement cycles will be driven by the sharp fall in pricing, especially consumer products; and (3) supply adjustment is accelerating via significant production and capex cuts that are underway. We have clearly worked through the slowdown in the consumer and are most positive on 'first-in, first out' exposure in LCD panels bottoming now, followed by memory in 4Q22, while the trough for foundry, auto and semicap should come with a lag in 1H23.

As the fourth quarter begins and investors position for how they hope to salvage returns for 2022, questions are already arising about the prospects for 2023. There is no doubt, steep declines in asset prices, particularly within the tech sector, have improved valuations. In normal circumstances that would be sufficient to create attractive entry points. Therefore, the question is whether this is a normal correction following the excesses of the pandemic or the end of the cycle. 

Dear Eoin, In the 1960s and 1970s subscribers to the David Fuller Chart Service received a booklet containing hundreds of charts each week or each month. I used to come into the office at 6a.m. and complete the point and figure charts each day. Thanks to this work, I gained a reputation among my colleagues for being the first one to spot changes in the long-term trends of both overall markets, sectors and individual shares. As of this morning, I am getting up one hour earlier and I will start by looking at all the daily charts of the Autonomies in the Chart Library. Let's hope that this will produce the same result. This morning's work show very small blue upward marks in almost every chart. These are tiny upward movements in the year-long major decline in all these share prices. This "summer's swallow" has not yet started chirping. Regards,

Thank you for this account. David was still having chartbooks printed in 2003, when we began working together. By that stage they were a very niche product that had become obsolete with the development of charting software. Nevertheless, the practice of looking at lots of charts is as useful today as it has ever been.

In following your program of activity, I would suggest taking one day to look at point and figure charts. They will give you clear confirmation of a change of trend.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Tories’ annual conference in Birmingham, the ministers predicted she will survive to fight the next election, due in about two years, because there isn’t enough time to replace her. The result, they said, is likely to be more rebellions from Tory MPs pushing around a lame duck premier, just like the one that forced her into a humiliating U-turn on Monday morning. 

The stark view suggests the “new economic deal for Britain” launched by Truss and her Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng may be dead in the water before it has even got going. The policy calls for a major program of deregulation in areas such as housebuilding and childcare alongside tax cuts.

One former Cabinet minister predicted Truss will be gone within a year to allow the party time to regenerate before the general election, which must be held by January 2025 at the latest. They said local votes in May, 2023, would provide a clear indication of how badly Truss is doing and predicted that her successor would have to come from outside the current Cabinet.

Reversing the 5% cut to the top rate of tax was essential to avoid significant public protest. The biggest challenge for the Truss administration is their inability to fathom that the era of profligate spending with no concern for funding ended when inflation surged and forced rates higher. The reality is high rates force a reappraisal of value and in turn a questioning of values is inevitable.

Even if new buyers step into purchase these bonds, they’re likely to demand a higher yield for doing so — potentially adding to government deficits and mortgage rates at a time when they’re already soaring.

“All this points to a somewhat higher resting level for the mortgage/Treasury basis—and potentially for other related assets like IG corporates, which finally caught up with some of the mortgage widening over the past few days,” the analysts conclude.

2-year yields at over 4% are sufficient incentive to drag cash into the sovereign markets. When the alternative is to lose double digits in the stock market and see cash eroded by inflation, the allure of a guaranteed 4% is reason enough to invest.

I've spent some long days and nights this week on this very subject (work as an investment actuary in DB [Ed. Defined Benefit] pension fund space)...

Fiscal policy context: mini-budget, with expected energy price cap but surprise revenue cuts (tax, NI, duty, etc.); cost of the latter might be in the vicinity of c£40bn pa (without OBR numbers its hard to say though).

Monetary policy context: TBC regarding rate hikes from November MPC meeting; QT expected to be of the order of c£80bn over next 12months, in an effort to combat inflation. So we have fiscal loosening amid a longer term aim from the BoE to tighten.

As above, the surprise cuts cost, and the DMO has therefore had increase it's expected gilt issuance significantly. This huge increase in supply led to an increase in gilt yields, which move inversely vs price and hence inversely vs relative demand. But, that was only the start...

DB pension schemes facing substantial deficits post-GFC typically have portfolio divided into two parts:

one part seeks excess return in order to make good the deficit
the other part "hedges" the liabilities, which behave like typically long duration bonds (insomuch as they have interest and inflation sensitivities) - their long duration makes them susceptible to quite large changes in value (e.g. 20y duration with a 1% increase in rates at that duration would lead to a 20% fall) - it's therefore a good idea to minimise risk, but you need to minimise risk relative to your specific liabilities (i.e. jurisdiction, duration, realness, etc.)

But, if you're trying to hedge 100% of your liabilities (or even something less) with <100% of your assets (in practice this number is often in the 25-50% range), then you need to use leverage. Two (not exhaustive) ways of gaining exposure to interest rates and inflation using leverage are: 

To enter into swaps whereby I agree with you that I'll pay you x% each period and you'll pay me whatever a floating interest rate or inflation is. I haven't actually bought anything in doing so and therefore haven't actually used any money = leveraged exposure

Another option is that we use a "repo". I sell you my gilt on the understanding that I'll buy it back on a known future date at a specified future (higher) price. In other words, I am paying to borrow over the period whilst still exposed to the price move of the asset repo'd. With that borrowing I can go and buy another gilt. I've therefore effectively doubled my exposure to gilt price moves = leveraged exposure.

In practice, to ensure that these synthetic hedges don't pose excessive credit risk either way, you are usually required to maintain a pool of collateral (the gilt in the repo, or a pool of assets backing a swap portfolio).

With both these techniques, if rates rise/fall, then the value of my liabilities falls/rises. So too do my assets. If I had used these synthetic techniques to ensure my asset sensitivity = liability sensitivity then the move will be similar on both sides, so my deficit won't have changed.

So, what's the problem? As yields rise, the value of my gilts fall. So, when I close out the positions on a repo for example: I make a loss on the second gilt; I then can't repay the lender in the repo arrangement. You can see how this ends if I hadn't repo'd once, but more...

That means then that when yields rise people are forced to close out positions and you end up with a load of gilts sold. Those additional sales push the price down further (DB funds are massive players in the gilt markets - less so in other risk asset markets - so move prices materially). This forces those next up the chain to close out, pushing the price down further. Repeat. You end up in a spiral that collapses pretty spectacularly and pretty quickly.

The only way to avoid having to close out in such situations is to keep posting more collateral. But, that means selling those assets you're using to seek excess returns. Can you do that quickly enough, allowing for settlement times and the necessary transfer of cash over to your leveraged gilt portfolio? Normally yes when markets are moving gradually, but not in the last week and certainly not in a fully fledged spiral sell-off.

So far, it's not a pension fund solvency issue - just a liquidity one - they have the cash/liquid assets but can't put them to work in time. But, you really don't want to be the last one out in these spirals as you come out at the worst price without much ability to get back in for the ride back down (in yields/up in prices). You either want to be out from the start or in all the way and still in at the top. If you do end up closed out in the spiral, then you most likely will struggle to buy back in before yields fall. And that is where the long term damage is done: when yields fall back down, the value of your liabilities is going back up, but you no longer have the hedging assets to match that rise, so your scheme funding worsens.

In this week's episode, we eventually saw the BoE step in. Probably a day late and after much pressure, but understandable given to calm things they are committing to buying gilts to whatever extent is necessary - effectively QE, and the opposite of what they are trying to do medium term to curb inflation. But, their purchase has calmed things substantially, so that's good. It's just unfortunate that there will have been some casualties on the way - we'll find out over the coming days. There will be large variation: those that were "underhedged" a month ago will have won big time; those that were forced sellers immediately before the BoE statement will be big losers; others will be somewhere between.

Here's the 20y nominal gilt yield. You can very clearly see when the budget was and when the BoE stepped in around 11am this morning. Worth also flicking to "all" to see quite how sharp this is in historical context. 

When people talk about how central banks have distorted the fixed income markets this is a perfect example. Pensions need reliable returns to meet their obligations. That’s especially true of defined benefit programs which occupied 45% of the UK market in 2019. The alternative to goosing returns with leverage or moving further out the risk curve into private assets.

The price of refusing to take these risks would be to demand much higher contributions to cover the shortfall and nobody wants to do that. Faced with the possibility of angry retirees, at the prospect of not receiving their dues, or relying on the central bank to bail them out, the answer is always going to be the latter.  Quantitative easing introduced significant moral hazard and yesterday Bank of England action, while necessary, compounded it

Let's do a little rule of three.
Debt service is now at about three percent of GDP per year and the ECB can no longer manipulate Italy's rates downward, to keep Italy's head above water, since the US is raising its rates.
On today's growth figures (which will fall), and with interest rates rising over the next five years, debt servicing will rise to six percent of GDP, which means that the standard of living of every individual will fall by at least three percent, which is impossible.
And there is no solution as long as Italy remains in the Euro, and everyone in Italy knows this.              
And Italy can easily get out because it has a primary budget surplus and a trade surplus. It does not need the financial markets to make ends meet, unlike France.
In any case, make no mistake: the Italian elections are about one thing and one thing only: the euro. "Always think about it, never talk about it" seems to be the watchword in Italy.
And so, the more "right-wingers" are elected, the higher the probability that Italy will abandon the euro.

Yield curve control is the topic of the moment. The UK has just introduced it, so the logical question is which jurisdiction will deploy it next. In this regard, Japan’s refusal to abandon its program looks particularly inspired. Another way to frame this question is what will Germany do to ensure everyone continues to use the Euro? So far, the answer has been whatever is necessary.

Deals for house purchases are collapsing after lenders pulled mortgage offers in response to soaring interest rates.

Smaller lenders such as Kensington, Accord Mortgages and Hodge were among those to say they were withdrawing products Tuesday. That follows the decision by Lloyds Banking Group Plc -- the UK’s biggest mortgage provider -- on Monday to halt some offers, while Virgin Money UK Plc temporarily stopped offering home loans to new customers.

Major firms weighed in later Tuesday. HSBC Holdings Plc told brokers it was removing new mortgage products for the rest of the day while Nationwide Building Society announced that it was increasing rates across product ranges starting Wednesday. Banco Santander SA said it was removing some products and increasing rates on many others.

Jessica Anderson, a 33-year-old who works in publishing, was set to buy a house in Walthamstow, east London, with her husband until the seller pulled out last week.

“We’re in an uncertain position where we’re not sure whether it still stands,” she said, regarding the couple’s mortgage offer. “Since the approval there have been two interest rate increases.”

The UK housing market is at a significant point of peril because of interest rate uncertainty. Fixed rate loans typically trade at a 100-basis point premium over the 5-year government yield. At present that implies a mortgage rate of 5.7%.

Congrats on your opinion on a larger correction and acting on it with put purchases.

Last week Double Line presentation  had a chart that showed the performance of equity and the different credit subclasses, Ags., EM, HY, ClOs and so forth. Showed  the large move by equities compare to credit over the same time period. It made me wonder how much further the equity correction can go.

You often follow interesting companies, you mention EQNR from Norway. have you ever looked a Freyr. It is also Norwegian and is involved in batteries. During  the last days because of a report on its possible growth it had a huge move , but during this correction it may be a good opportunity, let me have your thoughts. Based on your comments  how much the market has already priced in the EVs maybe it is not a good idea.

The move on copper is not a good signal  

Trust all is well for you  and your family

Thank you for these well wishes and questions which may be of interest to the Collective. Of my nine different long-dated put positions, the only one not in profit is Tesla and yet that is the one I have the greatest hopes for. They all have maturities in 2024, but I expect the point of maximum pessimism will arrive while they still have some time value.

Liz Truss’s new British government delivered the most sweeping tax cuts since 1972, slashing levies on rich households and companies in a bid to boost economic growth in a move that triggered a massive market selloff in UK assets.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng announced a series of tax cuts and regulatory reforms that will cost £161 billion over the next five years. That fanned concerns about inflation, already near a 40-year high, and about a spiraling government debt burden. 

The pound crashed below $1.11 for the first time since 1985, sliding 2% in addition to declines earlier in the week. Borrowing costs on five-year government bonds jumped the most for a single day on record as traders dumped UK assets.

“It is extremely unusual for a developed market currency to weaken at the same time as yields are rising sharply,” said George Saravelos, global head of foreign exchange research at Deutsche Bank AG. He warned the UK currency is “in danger” and suggested markets were treating it like a developing economy. 

The package was more ambitious than expected, with a big giveaway for the UK’s wealthiest households and plans to tear up planning rules and reform financial regulations. 

Kwarteng scrapped the 45% additional rate of income tax, paid by only the richest earners, leaving the top rate at 40%, and cut the basic rate from 20% to 19%. He paid only lip service to concerns about rising public debt, reiterating a pledge to “reduce debt as a percentage of GDP over the medium term.”

The Conservative administration hopes its program of lower taxes and deregulation will turbo-charge the economy, staving off a recession that the Bank of England says has already begun and shaking the UK out of a decade of weak growth.

 

In case it needs to be said, these are not Conservative policies. Cutting taxes and embarking on an historic fiscal stimulus while inflation is raging is not sound policy. It is only going to make the job of the Bank of England even more difficult and taxes will inevitably have to rise in future to fund these measures.

Brookfield is looking to multiply its current 4 GW renewable portfolio by 3 to four times in India within the next decade in generation as well as help corporates make the transition to decarbonise and invest in building large scale supply chain in the country, said a top executive.

The renewables current assets under management is approximately $1 billion.

Earlier this year, Brookfield Asset Management announced that it raised a record $15 billion for its inaugural Global Transition Fund. This marks the world's largest private fund dedicated to the net zero transition, signaling that investors are still committed to establishing cleaner portfolios. Brookfield is the single largest sponsor of the fund having deployed $2 billion itself.

Brookfield deals with state utilities but sees incremental green power demand coming from corporates who are increasingly becoming bulk consumers. For example, as part of its road map to achieve 100 per cent dependence on renewable energy by 2025. Amazon on Wednesday announced its first utility-scale projects in India — three solar farms located in Rajasthan. These include a 210-megawatt (Mw) project to be developed by India-based developer ReNew Power, a 100 Mw project to be developed by local  developer Amp Energy India, and a 110 Mw project to be developed by Brookfield Renewable Partners.

Brookfield is the name that comes up in almost every conversation I have with investors. The name is treated reverentially because the team so artfully plotted a route through the Global Financial Crisis and the subsequent boom.

on today's video you highlighted the virtues of the NOBL Dividend Aristocrat index, but on closer inspection the yield on this is just 2%. A year ago, that was 4x the yield on short term treasuries in the US, but with 1 and 2- year treasuries yielding 4% now, double that of NOBL, there seems to be far less support from those seeking out yield.
The TINA approach is fast coming to an end. With that in mind, and with the Sterling continuing to take strain, what investment vehicles are available to us in the UK to invest in 3M, 1Y an 2Y US Treasury paper?

Thank you for this question which may be of interest to the Collective. There is of course a big difference between capturing a high yield now and buying with the expectation of dividend increases in future. It is essentially the difference between current yield and yield to cost.

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.

His arrest is the latest blow to the plant-based protein company, which last month slashed its revenue outlook for the year and said it would cut 4% of its workforce.

The irony of a vegetarian food company executive taking bites out of unwary civilians put me in mind of Soylent Green. Afterall, the movie might have been released in 1973 but it is set in 2022. Here is a section from the Wikipedia description:  

By 2022,[3] the cumulative effects of overpopulation, pollution and an apparent climate catastrophe have caused severe worldwide shortages of food, water and housing. In New York City alone, there are 40 million people, and only the city's elite can afford spacious apartments, clean water, and natural food. The homes of the elite are fortified, with private security and bodyguards for their tenants. Usually, they include concubines (who are referred to as "furniture" and serve the tenants as slaves). The poor live in squalor, haul water from communal spigots, and eat highly processed wafers: Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow, and the latest product, far more flavorful and nutritious, Soylent Green.

In the Big Picture Roundup, you shared this wonderful chart.

The problem is that the way that you shared it, means that we could not see the date axis.

It would be great if you could share a better version of this chart e.g., on Comment of the Day

Thank you in advance

Thank you for pointing this out. The aspect ratio between my monitor and the recording software is not always one to one. Here is the chart you were asking about.

What I like about this chart is it starts in 2000. It graphically illustrates that some property markets completely sidestepped the housing crash associated with the global financial crisis in 2008. These same markets, notably Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Sweden are expensive on a price/income and price/rent basis.

After the discussion around earnings trajectory for the S&P 500, the focus then typically turned to how to trade it. Here, we have some sympathy for the view that markets may potentially hold up very tactically until the EPS cuts actually happen. As already noted, conference season is upon us and investors are ready for some bad news at least with regard to how 3Q is progressing. However, the degree of that deterioration is more debated now given the recently announced $500 billion student debt forgiveness and extended moratorium on loan payments until December, combined with the energy subsidy announced this past week in the UK to help consumers through the winter. Both of these are rather large fiscal stimulus packages that could keep the "tone" of company commentary less bearish than feared, and potentially delay the eventual cuts. Nonetheless, we have high conviction that EPS cuts will play out in earnest over the next 2-3 months, and as a reminder from our note last week, mid-September through October is a particularly challenging seasonal period for EPS revisions.

The yield curve (10-year – 2-year) inverted for a week in April and has been persistently inverted since June. The classic version of the yield curve (10-year – 3-month) is not yet inverted but it is still trending lower. This spread collapsed from an artificially elevated level in May. It tends to be much more volatile than the longer-dated version because short-term interest rates can whip around a lot.  

Thanks for another very informative comment of the day. do you expect the SP500 to test the lows of 2020? I would very much like to hear your views on this. Thanks in advance. Best rgds.

Thank you for this topical question. As a repeat delegate at the Chart Seminar, you will remember that targets are more a reflection of personal bias than an accurate predictor of where prices are likely to trade. Since I am short the Nasdaq-100 I am keenly aware of the influence that has on my personal psychology and that is likely to affect how I view downside potential. Let’s look at the chart facts.

"New guest acquisition remains strong, with transactions by first-time guests increasing over 20% in (the) quarter," McDonald told analysts on the company's earnings call, according to a FactSet transcript.

"Transactions by existing guests increased in the high teens. Traffic across channels remains robust, with store traffic up over 30%, and e-commerce traffic increasing over 40%. And importantly, we are not creating this traffic through markdowns or price promotions. Lululemon remains predominantly a full-price business, and we have not changed our promotional cadence or markdown strategy and we have no plans to do so."

Still, inventories rose 85% to $1.5 billion at quarter-end, up from $800 million in the year-earlier period. "The company believes its inventories are well positioned to support its expected revenue growth in the third quarter," it said in its earnings release.

An inability to clear inventories to make way for fresher products and steep declines in traffic to stores has plagued most other clothing retailers this earnings season.

Mrs. Treacy was complaining last week that her pickleball team’s Lululemon uniform was out of stock. In her search she found plenty of inventory on third party sites at more than 100% markups. That’s suggests robust consumer demand for the company’s products.

Thanks for joining us as we took you through the results of the Conservative leadership race. Liz Truss will take office Tuesday and give a speech outside her new home -- No. 10 Downing Street. In the meantime, these are the key takeaways so far:

Liz Truss won the race to be the UK’s next prime minister, but achieved a smaller-than-expected margin of victory over Rishi Sunak, with 57.3% of Tory members’ votes.
She vowed to cut taxes, grow the economy, and address the crises in energy and the National Health Service.
Truss will visit Queen Elizabeth II in her Scottish castle to be formally appointed on Tuesday, after which she will make a speech to the nation and appoint members of her cabinet.
She inherits a forbidding in-tray: surging inflation, predictions of a recession and a record squeeze on living standards spurred by soaring energy prices.
Truss has promised to announce how she would help Britons through the cost-of-living crisis in her first week -- reports suggest she could freeze energy bills and offer targeted financial help to low-income households and pensioners.

The Pound and Gilts have sold off aggressively over the last month as traders priced in the rising potential Liz Truss would succeed Boris Johnson. The most urgent issue is the massive impending jump in electricity costs. No prime minister can survive through that kind of living standard decline, so price caps are inevitable.

“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.

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%.

To understand how this melting ice will impact sea levels around the world, scientists use computer models of ice flow and complex climate interactions. According to the authors of this new study, this approach has shortcomings in that they are imprecise and don't account for a number of factors scientists are observing in the field. These include more rain that is accelerating the melting of surface ice, an influx of tropical ocean currents into Greenland's fjords, and the darkening of the sheet surface that causes it to absorb more heat.

"We’re observing many emerging processes that the models don’t account for that increase the ice sheet’s vulnerability," study author Alun Hubbard, Professor of Glaciology at University of Tromsø, writes in an accompanying piece for The Conversation.

So if we change shorten the average from 40 years to 20 years and then linearly project that higher number forward, we get a headline grabbing doomsday prediction.

The problem with making such bombastic predictions is the capacity of the general population to sustain a feeling of terror is not infinite. Eventually people settle down into a fatalistic emotional state where they just don’t care anymore. Sea levels rising 10 inches by 2100 is not going to put food on the table today.

​It surprises me that there is still no widespread acceptance that improving living standards are the solution to just about every social or environmental problem.
When people are better educated and have solid working conditions, they have more regard for luxuries like a safe, clean environment. Take care of people and everything else takes care of itself.

Officials attending the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole gathering signaled the ECB is prepared to at least repeat the 50 basis-point hike enacted in July, with some not excluding an even larger increase. Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel urged “strong determination to bring inflation back to target quickly.”

While Lane didn’t spell out whether he’d oppose a 75 basis-point step, his comments suggest officials would need to see the need for a higher “terminal rate,” or high point of the current hiking cycle, for him to support such a move.

The Irish official said a “multi-step adjustment path towards the terminal rate also makes it easier to undertake mid-course corrections if circumstances change.” If new data called for a lower terminal rate, “this would be easier to handle under a step-by-step approach,” he said. 

Among the more cautious voices on the Governing Council is Executive Board member Fabio Panetta, who said last week that policy maker must tread carefully as a significant economic slowdown would ease inflationary pressure. 

The ECB has one of the most out of control inflation problems in the world. The pressure being exerted on the region from Russia’s energy war is not about to disappear. However, the successful filling of gas storage facilities ahead of schedule will moderate the risk of shortages this winter.  

With just 10 days to go until Boris Johnson’s successor as premier and Conservative Party leader is announced, neither candidate has detailed how much assistance they’ll provide to families and businesses who face soaring energy costs, despite Chancellor of the Exchequer Nadhim Zahawi conceding that the current support package is “not enough.”

Whichever candidate wins the Tory leadership contest, addressing the impact of rocketing energy bills will be at the top of their in-tray after Ofgem said on Friday that a price cap on average annual energy bills would rise to £3,549 ($4,206) in six weeks’ time. That’s 178% higher than last winter and 80% more than at present. 

The only questions considered are how much support to provide. Fiscal discipline is out of favour at present. With inflation and energy prices hitting living standards so aggressively, the UK government is under extraordinary pressure to ease the pain.

More broadly, the three “moments” of reckoning we discussed above mean that global supply chains, whether they produce military or civilian goods, are facing a Minsky Moment – a Real Minsky Moment. Paul McCulley’s term referred to the implosion of the long -intermediation chains of the shadow banking system that marked the onset of the Great Financial Crisis. Today, we are witnessing the implosion of the long -intermediation chains of the globalized world order: masks, baby formula, chips, missiles, and artillery shells, for now. The triggers aren’t a lack of liquidity and capital in the banking and shadow banking systems, but a lack of inventory and protection in the globalized production system, in which we design at home and manage from home, but source, produce, and ship everything from abroad, where commodities, factories, and fleets of ships are dominated by states – Russia and China – that are in conflict with the West.

Inventory for supply chains is what liquidity is for banks. In 2007 -08, big banks ran on “just -in -time” liquidity: the dominant form of liquidity was market liquidity, for which you could always sell assets into a deep market without moving prices, so you did not have to have liquidity reserves at the central bank. Similarly, big corporations today run “just -in -time” supply chains for which they assume that they can always source what they need without moving the price. But not really: the U.S. military has to wait a little bit as Raytheon “will take a little while”; Taiwan and Saudi Arabia have to wait as well until the conflict in Ukraine is over; and if your washing machine broke recently, you’ll have to wait a bit too until defense contractors are done buying them up to rip chips out to make missiles.

In propagating the Belt and Road Initiative, China has long complained that the USA’s policy towards it is one of containment. That has become more much overt since 2016. Sanctions on chip manufacturing capacity are an escalation. The rationale for such moves is obvious. The USA and Europe need time to rebuild domestic manufacturing capacity.

BYD is scouting lithium mines to protect itself from surging prices of the essential battery metal. Despite rapid sales growth, BYD's margins were hammered last year due to high raw material prices. Net margins fell to 1.4% in 2021 from 2.6% a year earlier, according to FactSet. That compares with Tesla's 10.3%.

There is some hope of that reversing however, as commodity prices retreat again and new, pricier models hit showroom floors: The models in BYD's launch pipeline are twice as expensive as prior ones, according to Goldman Sachs. The bank expects BYD's net margin to expand to 2.2% this year and 2.5% in 2023.

BYD has paid down debt rapidly in recent years and as of December had more cash and short-term investments on hand than debt according to FactSet -- a reverse of the situation as recently as June last year.

In the downside scenario of a nasty Chinese recession, that could prove to be an important cushion.

One obvious challenge at home will be getting buyers to pony up for pricier cars with China's economy, potentially at least, deep in the doldrums. But for now at least, the company seems confident. BYD, which reports on Aug. 29, said in July that first-half net income could climb as much as 207% to 3.6 billion yuan, equivalent to about $528 million.

Sustaining such heady numbers will be a challenge but with strong, cost-effective technology, an integrated supply chain and Beijing's determination to dominate the sector, it would be a mistake to count BYD out.

 

Chinese lithium carbonate prices are still close to CNY500,000 a tonne. Significant investment and political will are being devoted to boosting supply of the metal but that is a medium-term objective. Meanwhile, nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese have all retraced much of their initial price spikes. That’s more about less demand than a sudden increase in supply.  

Russia’s limiting of supply into Western Europe has sent local gas prices to levels never previously imagined. The growth of the global LNG network provides a partial salve to the pressure on the European economy.

We have a large number of people who are estranged from our economy. In 1960, 5% of men were not working between the ages of 25 and 54. Today it’s more like 15%. If 15% of men are not working at any point in time, then a quarter of the people will have been out of work for a year or more over a four or five-year period. That’s destructive to the economy's productive potential. It’s destructive to their families. It’s destructive to the areas in which they live. It’s destructive to the moral fabric of our national life.

I recently finished reading Coming Apart by Charles Murray. It’s a harrowing account of how the polarization in the economy is manifested in a growing rift between the privileged, insulated upper class and a benefits-dependent underclass.  

“UK CPI inflation surged in July amid rising food prices that helped lift the rate above market expectations. The peak is still likely come in October, when energy prices are due to be increased again -- we see annual CPI moving to a little below 13% at that point. With inflation now more than five-times the Bank of England’s target, the question isn’t whether the central bank will tighten, it’s by how much? Today’s reading makes it more likely than not that the BOE lift rates by 50 basis points in September -- our baseline ahead of the data release was for a 25-bp move.”

Economists are growing increasingly pessimistic about the UK, with the risk of a recession now seen as far more likely than not due to rising cost pressures. The BOE expects a recession to start in the fourth quarter, lasting into the early part of 2024.

The central bank expects inflation to surpass 13% later this year when regulators allow energy bills to rise again. That would mark the worst reading since September 1980, when Margaret Thatcher’s government struggled to bring a wage-price spiral under control.

 

In the normal course of events UK inflation should have peaked already. Money supply growth peaked on a year over year basis 18 months ago and on a month over month basis is now negative. At the same time the Bank of England has been raising rates, albeit modestly, for the last eight months and is now also talking about reducing the size of its balance sheet.

Q: Are we in a bear or a bull?

Thank you for voicing the question I believe everyone is asking. The short answer is yes, the long answer is more nuanced. Let’s frame this discussion in terms of the yield curve spread. The 10-year – 2-year is sharply negative. The 10-year – 3-month and the 10-year – Fed Funds Rate have both accelerated lower but are not yet negative. All three point toward significant monetary tightening. That is before the impending acceleration in the contraction of the Fed’s balance sheet is 

I know you have consistently highlighted the challenges that UK households will experience in relation to their energy bills, and just today they are saying that "typical" households could be paying nearly £600 in January, money that most just can't find. Already consumers are a collective £1.3 billion in arrears on their bills, with an expected 86% hike in the energy cap expected on 1 October.

But far less is said of the impact on businesses, and on this I can shed some very specific light. I own a small business, an indoor children's play centre. On 1 December last year I renewed my energy supply contract, and faced with an increase then from 15p/kwH to 20p/KwH I opted to take just a 1 year renewal, with gas prices fairly stagnant until then as you know.

I have been informed today that when I come to renew once more on 1 December, I am going to staring at a tariff of anywhere between 50p/kwh to as much as 89p/kwh. I was also told in no uncertain terms by the 'sales' person at my current supplier, that they are trying to migrate away from small and medium business in this environment, and are deliberately pricing us away. the daily fixed standing charge will move from £83 per month, to potentially as much as £1,000.

For context, my own energy bill is going to shift from £20k per year to closer to 60k-£70k. This is going to be catastrophic for U.K. businesses, as many will be left in dire straits, unable to keep the lights on, and customers cool (in summer) or sufficiently warm in the winter. So many businesses in the hospitality sector especially are saddled with the burden of Covid "bounce back loans", delayed VAT repayments, and of course huge inflation on input costs with a consumer at breaking point. Business closures = higher unemployment...it is looking particularly dire here in the U.K.

Thank you for sharing this visceral experience of price increases business owners are experiencing. The challenges are significant and options to raise prices are inhibited so many businesses will close. The strike action in the UK which has been building for months and will escalate further. They are a symptom of how much living standards are being impacted by the rising cost of living.

“This is a necessary print for the Fed, but it’s not sufficient,” Pond said. “We need to see a lot more. You can think about this print as sort of like the weather -- it’s better today than it has been over the past few days. But it’s still summer. There’s still a lot of humidity out there. It’s not great. So it’s in the right direction. But we’re certainly not there yet.” 

For Diane Swonk, the chief economist at KPMG LLP, the Fed is now hedging against risk of future supply shocks as well as combating current inflation and will likely favor a 75 basis-point increase.

“The Fed is no longer willing to rest on their laurels on a one-month move,” she said. “The greater risk for the Fed is to stop too soon than stop too late. It will take a lot more cooling than this for the Fed to shift its decision rule, although in this economy, September seems an eternity away.”

The big question for investors is whether the Federal Reserve will focus on core or non-core items in how much they decide to raise rates in September. Commodity price inflation is less urgent today than earlier this year. Lumber prices have made a full round trip. Wheat has fully unwound the Ukraine invasion surge. Palm Oil is steadying in the region of the 2008, but the price has almost halved from the peak level. 

Bond investors in New Zealand are not as sanguine. Yields on two-year debt are just two basis points below 10-year rates, the narrowest gap since 2015 when the curve last inverted. The difference between Australia’s 10- and three-year bond futures stands around 17 basis points.

Much of the fears in Australia and New Zealand are centered on concerns about the housing market, which experienced a post-pandemic boom when borrowers piled in to take advantage of record-low interest rates. The two central banks have indicated that borrowing costs will continue to rise.

“The Australian economy is already showing some cracks -- weak consumer sentiment, falling dwelling prices, cooling consumer spending -- and New Zealand’s economy is showing more,” said Andrew Ticehurst, a rates strategist at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Sydney. “Australia will slide into recession in the second quarter of next year under the weight of recent and prospective RBA rate hikes, which will expose Australia’s Achilles’ heel, an extended housing market and highly leveraged consumers.”

Australian consumer confidence dropped for a ninth straight month in August to reach a two-year low, according to a report released Tuesday by Westpac Banking Corp.

The yield curve spread (10-year – 2-year) is a reliable lead indicator for US recessions. It does not have nearly the same strong record of predicting recessions for other countries. That is probably because other countries do not rely so heavily on their banks for credit creation. 

Lawmakers appear close to passing into law the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The legislation is born out of the Build Back Better agenda that President Biden proposed more than a year ago. It raises nearly $750 billion over the next decade through higher taxes on large corporations and wealthy individuals and lower Medicare prescription drug costs, to pay for nearly $450 billion in tax breaks and additional government spending to address climate change and pay for lower health insurance premiums for Americans benefiting from the Affordable Care Act (see Table 1). The remaining more than $300 billion goes to reducing the federal government’s future budget deficits (see Chart 1). Broadly, the legislation will nudge the economy and inflation in the right direction, while meaningfully addressing climate change and reducing the government’s budget deficits.

The renewable energy sector rebounded emphatically on the prospect of additional subsidies last week. Removing the limitation on EV rebates so every buyer gets a $7500 discount and reinstating the 30% tax credit for solar installations are both stimulative for their respective sectors.

Yields on two-year Treasuries surged in response to the jobs report, a reflection of the expected Fed rates over that period. Market pricing indicated a 75 basis-point increase to the Fed’s key rate is now seen as a more likely outcome in at the central bank’s September meeting than 50 basis points.

Powell has described the labor market as “tight to an unhealthy level,” and has been seeking a moderation to help bring demand for products and services more in line with supplies that have been constrained by Covid-19 disruptions. He and other Fed leaders are worried about the potential for a wage-price spiral, with higher wages feeding into inflation in a cycle that is hard to break.

“This number is so comprehensively strong with a pretty significant uptick in wages,” said Mark Spindel, chief investment officer at MBB Capital Partners LLC in Chicago. “Companies are paying up for labor. Income matters most. When you look at the breadth of the employment report, and the earnings, this is an enormous tailwind for income.” 

It has been widely reported that the USA has missed out on 2 million immigrants following the isolationist policies adopted by President Trump’s administration. At least 1 million of those would have been highly educated/skilled individuals.

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.  

JPMorgan holds tens of billions of dollars in gold in vaults in London, New York and Singapore. It is one of four clearing members of the London market, where global gold prices are set by buying and selling metal held in a few London vaults -- including JPMorgan’s and the Bank of England’s.

JPMorgan is the biggest player among a small group of “bullion banks” that dominate the precious metals markets, and internal documents presented by prosecutors provided a glimpse of just how dominant a role the bank has played. 

In 2010, for example, 40% of all transactions in the gold market were cleared by JPMorgan. 

And

Another set of important clients were central banks, which trade gold for their reserves and are among the biggest players in the bullion market. At least ten central banks held their metal in vaults run by JPMorgan in 2010, according to documents disclosed in court. 

With such a large position in the gold market, JPMorgan has both significant information and motive to swing prices in the interests of its trading desks on an intraday basis. That’s not quite the same as saying they have the capability to depress pricing over a prolonged period. That kind of overt manipulation would quickly attract the attention of other market participants and opposing positions aimed at pressuring the bank would be taken.

“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.

Fyi, have finally bit the bullet and fixed energy price with EDF for 2 years until July 2024.

The Nord Stream pipeline 1 issue over the last few days made me make the final decision.

Would welcome Mr Treacy comment about the recent events with Russia cutting supplies and short and medium-term implications. Will we ever see the energy prices normalize? His comments are always very insightful.

Thank you for sharing your experience and this question which may be of interest to the Collective. Russia has a clear interest in Europeans being uncomfortable this winter. Wars are expensive. Quick victories are always desirable. That’s not always how things work out but eventually every war ends with some form of negotiation or withdrawal.

For Slimmon, the beat-down in consumer sentiment has gone far enough to warrant betting on a turnaround.

“There’s a very low expectations in those stocks right now. What if the direction of change is actually higher for consumer sentiment?” he said. He views the risk-reward as attractive.

“Those stocks might recover dramatically because they’re down so much.” He plans to snap up shares “well into the weakness” in August, which is among historically the worst months for equities as volumes are thin and workers are on vacation.  

Stock market moves during this period are usually dominated by macro events. “The macro story this year is not very good,” he said, citing a global geopolitical crisis and the lack of an August meeting among Fed officials.

“The focus of the market shifts from what ultimately long-term drives stocks, which is earnings. And when the shift goes to other things like macro events that creates volatility.”

As for those areas he will likely stay away from, he offered two sectors. “If you think about what’s worked year-to-date on a relative performance basis, there are two groups that have really done well: energy and defensives,” he said. “It’s a little late to be selling the energy stocks. They’ve been so creamed. I wouldn’t be aggressively buying those stocks.”
 

Many investors are anticipating the Jackson Hole conference in August will be a time for central bankers to declare the peak for inflation is in. The most risk tolerant traders are initiating long positions today to ensure they have the cushion of rebound ahead of that event. There is clear scope it will be a buy the rumour and sell the news event if central bankers fail to deliver.

The team says that the new potential treatment has a few advantages over other techniques currently in use or under development. Pancreas transplants are effective, but subject to organ donor shortages and other complications like rejection. Other teams have converted skin cells into stem cells and used those to produce new beta cells, and although results have been promising in mice, immune-suppressing drugs need to be given to prevent rejection.

The new treatment would work much faster, within a matter of days, and without the need for surgery. But perhaps the biggest advantage is that GSK126 is already approved by the US FDA and elsewhere in the world as a treatment for cancer. Its safety profile is already being assessed in clinical trials, which could reduce hurdles down the road for its use against diabetes.

That said, the scientists caution that it is still very early days. These experiments were conducted on cells in culture – not even in animals yet – so there’s still plenty of work to do. Nevertheless, it remains an intriguing new possible tool.

Diabetes is the ultimate money-spinning chronic disease. It is manageable for Type-2 patients if they have the personal discipline to abide by a low sugar diet. The problem is most people who end up with diabetes suffer from poor impulse control or are happy to take the drug regime prescribed to live as they please. The number of patients continues to trend higher as living standards rise and every day provides a bounty that would once have been reserved for festivals.

Kirk was afforded the opportunity to share his frank views and resigned from his position at HSBC less than a month later.

That helps to highlight how polarized the discussion on climate is. There is no room for a dissenting public voice. That’s despite the fact he did not deny climate change but instead suggested we need to adapt.

What you were saying about the huge migration to Texas makes me wonder if this isn't the right time to buy home builders who are active in that area? Or REITs?  What about NXRT, an old favourite of mine which has now come right done (fortunately I got out)? It specialises in refurbishing multi-family properties in the sunbelt. Is it too early to buy again do you think?

Thank for this question which may be of interest to the Collective. A realtor friend of mine shared his rationale. If a buyer is worried about interest rates rising, then buy now before they go higher. If they are worried about rates falling buy now because that will inflate prices and you can always refinance. I think it is safe to say a realtor will always have a convincing rationale to buy

London Heathrow is imposing a two-month cap on daily passenger traffic, a dramatic response by the UK’s busiest airport to the flight chaos gripping Europe as airlines and ground crew struggle with a surge in travel demand. 

The airport will limit daily passenger traffic to 100,000 departing people through Sept. 11, asking airlines to refrain from selling summer tickets. Current forecasts are modeling for as many as 104,000 passengers a day over the summer, still below the roughly 125,000 passengers that left daily this time before the pandemic.

Anyone who thought demand for international travel would never return to normal has been proven very wrong. If anything, pent up demand is contributing to even higher demand because people have been cooped up at home for so long. If China’s population ever get to travel again, tourist locations will be swamped.

The commodity complex is now seeing a collapse in prices, and this shows great similarity to what we saw in mid-2008. Although the oil price decline is slower and lagging, likely because of the Ukraine war, other industrial commodity prices are in virtual freefall. Soft-landing advocates must now face the overwhelming evidence of economic collapse and extricate their heads from the sand. ¢

Despite the fallout from the Ukraine war, agricultural prices too have also imploded, and that will sound a note of caution for those who think the oil price cannot fall as quickly as other industrial commodity prices. With the oil price having slid from $125/b to under $100 in a month, it should not be long before the yoy comparisons are negative, as with food prices.

Headline CPI inflation will likely turn negative, and the inflation narrative will then evaporate (temporarily), so trigging a collapse in US 10y yields back below 1%. What a shock that will be!  

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

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.

Germany’s vice chancellor made a public plea to the Canadian government to release a turbine that’s caught up in sanctions against Russia and critical for gas flows to Europe. 

Economy Minister Robert Habeck told Bloomberg that the turbine for the Nord Stream 1 pipeline needs to be returned before maintenance work begins on Monday. Releasing the component would remove an excuse for Russian President Vladimir Putin to keep the conduit closed.

“I’ll be the first one who will fight for a further strong EU sanction package, but strong sanctions means it must hurt and harm Russia and Putin more than it does our economy,” Habeck said in a phone interview late Wednesday. “Therefore, I ask for understanding that we have to take this turbine excuse away from Putin.”

Germany has begun rationing gas. That’s aimed at doing whatever is necessary now, so they have adequate reserves for the winter. Even then it is going to be a tight market environment.

Russia’s currency is set to end four days of losses against the greenback as demand for foreign currency declined in Moscow. The country’s main stock index drops for a second day.

Ruble gains 0.1% to 63.2800/$; adds 0.9% versus euro to 64.1850

USD/RUB rate might correct to 55-60 range in the near future, George Vaschenko, head of Russian trading at Freedom Finance in Moscow, writes in a note

“Ruble weakening was not accompanied by significant trade volumes; the weakening of demand will lead to a decline in the exchange rate”

The Ruble has been supported by the strength of Russian energy exports. The $20 pullback in oil prices from between June 30th and yesterday had a knock-on effect for the currency. Despite the fact the Euro was breaking down against the Dollar, the Ruble fell faster. That’s a clear sign of how dependent Russia is on high energy prices to sustain the value of the currency.

New chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has urged unity after his predecessor, the health secretary, and several junior ministers walked out.

But the prime minister has been hit by six further resignations, taking the total to 16 in the past day.

It comes as he prepares for PMQs later and a grilling by senior MPs.

Mr Johnson's premiership has been plunged into crisis following the dramatic resignations of Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid.

They quit within minutes of each other on Tuesday following a row over Mr Johnson's decision to appoint Chris Pincher deputy chief whip earlier this year.

Their departures triggered a wave of resignations from more junior roles that has continued on Wednesday.

In six further departures ahead of PMQs, education ministers Will Quince and Robin Walker, Justice Minister Victoria Atkins, Treasury minister John Glen, and ministerial aides Laura Trott and Felicity Buchan have all walked out.

Boris Johnson is a proven vote winner, but it was widely reported when he became Prime Minister that he is not well liked by his party colleagues. That later point is now becoming relevant as demand for solutions to unfolding economic issues are in high demand. Regardless of efforts to remove him, the range of possible options to mounting economic, inflationary and energy challenges will be the same.

“It is hard to find much positive to say about the EUR,” said Dominic Bunning, the head of European FX Research at HSBC. “With ECB sticking to its line that we will only see a 25bp hike in July – at a time when others are hiking much faster – and waiting for September to deliver a faster tightening, there is also little support coming from higher yields.” 

Money-market traders are betting ECB will deliver around 140 basis points this year, down from more than 190 basis points almost three weeks ago. The repricing gathered pace after a string of weak economic data last week, with traders trimming bets again on Tuesday after French services PMI was revised lower. 

Investors have also been more cautious on the euro due to the risk of so-called fragmentation, when economically weaker nations see unwarranted spikes in borrowing costs as financial conditions tighten. The ECB is expected to deliver further details of a new tool to backstop more vulnerable countries’ debt at their policy meeting later this month.

The losses Tuesday were compounded by poor liquidity and selling in euro-Swiss franc, according to three Europe-based traders. The euro fell as much as 0.9% against the Swiss franc to 0.99251, the lowest level since 2015. 

“The FX market is not back up to full liquidity given the US holiday,” said Mizuho’s Jones. “Any given size of trade is likely to have a greater impact on market movement.”

Russia’s calculus is simple enough. They are betting the economic pain European countries are enduring because of their support for Ukraine will be so great they will be willing to make a deal sooner rather than later.

When she found out the cancer had spread to her lungs, chest bone and lymph nodes, she was given one year to live.

David spent the following six months undergoing chemotherapy, and had a mastectomy in April 2018. This was followed by 15 cycles of radiotherapy which cleared her of cancer.

However, the cancer returned in October 2019 when scans showed multiple lesions throughout David’s body.

David then decided to take part in a clinical trial where she was given experimental medicine combined with immunotherapy drug Atezolizumab, which she has injected every three weeks.

After two years on the trial, the mother-of-two has been declared cancer-free once again.

Roche acquired Genentech in 2009. Atezolizumab is the fruition of that merger and continues to make its way through clinical trials.
Immuno-oncology went through a significant bull market in 2016/17 as the promise of curing cancer looked realizable for the first time. The difficulty of creating a one-size-fits-all solution resulted in much of the enthusiasm being squeezed out of the sector. Nevertheless, the results are impressive even if the scalability is not a panacea.

Presently, the US is decreasing its artillery ammunition stockpiles. In 2020, artillery ammunition purchases decreased by 36% to $425 million. In 2022, the plan is to reduce expenditure on 155mm artillery rounds to $174 million. This is equivalent to 75,357 M795 basic ‘dumb’ rounds for regular artillery, 1,400 XM1113 rounds for the M777, and 1,046 XM1113 rounds for Extended Round Artillery Cannons. Finally, there are $75 million dedicated for Excalibur precision-guided munitions that costs $176K per round, thus totaling 426 rounds. In short, US annual artillery production would at best only last for 10 days to two weeks of combat in Ukraine. If the initial estimate of Russian shells fired is over by 50%, it would only extend the artillery supplied for three weeks.

And

The war in Ukraine demonstrates that war between peer or near-peer adversaries demands the existence of a technically advanced, mass scale, industrial-age production capability. The Russian onslaught consumes ammunition at rates that massively exceed US forecasts and ammunition production. For the US to act as the arsenal of democracy in defence of Ukraine, there must be a major look at the manner and the scale at which the US organises its industrial base. This situation is especially critical because behind the Russian invasion stands the world’s manufacturing capital – China. As the US begins to expend more and more of its stockpiles to keep Ukraine in the war, China has yet to provide any meaningful military assistance to Russia. The West must assume that China will not allow Russia to be defeated, especially due to a lack of ammunition. If competition between autocracies and democracies has really entered a military phase, then the arsenal of democracy must first radically improve its approach to the production of materiel in wartime.

China’s stated aim is to “reunite” with Taiwan politically by whatever means are necessary. This article from Taiwan News, focusing on the Koumintang’s (pro-unity party) recent stated pro-US stance may be of interest. 

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave his most explicit acknowledgment to date that steep rate hikes could tip the US economy into recession, saying one is possible and calling a soft landing “very challenging.”

“The other risk, though, is that we would not manage to restore price stability and that we would allow this high inflation to get entrenched in the economy,” Powell told lawmakers on Wednesday. “We can’t fail on that task. We have to get back to 2% inflation.”

The Fed chair was testifying before the Senate Banking Committee during the first of two days of congressional hearings. In his opening remarks, Powell said that officials “anticipate that ongoing rate increases will be appropriate,” to cool the hottest price pressures in 40 years. 

“Inflation has obviously surprised to the upside over the past year, and further surprises could be in store. We therefore will need to be nimble in responding to incoming data and the evolving outlook,” he said.

 

“Very challenging” is likely a gross understatement. I was surprised to hear him say the economy is very strong and capable of withstanding additional interest rate hikes. Instead, I suspect we are going to see an abrupt fall off in the volume of goods traded as the cumulative effects of inflation cut into disposable income.

The Greens party minister also said the country will rely more on coal-fired power plants to produce electricity. A bill providing the legal basis is making its way though parliament and should take effect quickly after discussions in the upper house on July 8. 

Using more coal to generate power is “bitter, but it’s simply necessary in this situation to reduce gas consumption,” he said. “We must and we will do everything we can to store as much gas as possible in the summer and fall.” 

Siegfried Russwurm, president of the German industry lobby group BDI, said the country should “stop gas-fired power generation now and get coal-fired power plants out of reserve immediately,” in an interview with Funke Mediengruppe published Saturday. Importing electricity from neighboring countries has its limits, he said.

Savings will also have to be made by the industry. An auction model will begin this summer to encourage industrial gas consumers to save fuel, which can then be put into storage, Habeck said, adding that the government is ready to take further measures if needed.

There is a lot of discussion in the financial media about the possibility the Eurozone will break up. I don’t see that as a realistic possibility. Europeans understand they are in a better position to oppose foreign adventurism together than apart. Putting cherished climate goals on the long finger is an example of the lengths they are willing to go to protect national interests.

Gazprom said Thursday it was further cutting gas flows to Europe citing more technical issues with its Nord Stream pipeline, Reuters first reported. 

Russia's state-run supplier's latest reduction, the second in just two days, edges the Nord Stream's pipeline's capacity down by 40%. The move comes as European countries try to bulk up gas storage in anticipation of winter. European stores are currently 56% full, Reuters said. 

Gazprom said issues with a gas compressor lead to the initial reduction. The company said that a delay in equipment sent to Canada for repairs is to blame for Thursday's reduction in flows, a claim that Germany disputes as a reason to push gas prices higher.

European natural gas prices climbed as much as 30% Thursday morning on the news. Norway, Europe's second-largest supplier behind Russia, has increased exports to make up for a curb in Russian gas in light of the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine. The EU pledged to be 90% rid of Russian supply by the end of 2022, and fully exit from Moscow-sourced fossil fuels by 2027. 

The EU has also turned to liquefied natural gas to make up for supply shortcomings in light of its sanctions against Russia, although a fire in Texas last week at a key export hub lowered supply expectations. 

Russia’s energy/economic military strategy will be most effective if it can prevent Europe from rebuilding inventories over the summer. The rationale is European politicians will be much more amenable to make concessions if their populations are cold and miserable this winter.

Besides splurging on dividends and share repurchases, the once-scarcely profitable container lines are planning to use this once-in-a-lifetime haul for acquisitions and investments. Some aim to turn themselves into end-to-end logistics giants, in the vein of Amazon.com Inc. or FedEx Corp.

In theory, this should make them more resilient when shipping freight rates normalize, which is bound to happen one day. Shipping costs have already come down a bit, but due, in part, to the spread of omicron in China, some industry observers now don’t expect port congestion to ease until next year. 

Of course, the big risk is these hungry hippos waste their epic windfall on empire building, and an industry that’s already on the defensive due to its inflation-stoking profiteering may end up stoking an even greater political backlash.

It’s a sign of how the ambitions of the shipping industry have been transformed that a container liner joining forces with an airline no longer seems unusual: Mediterranean Shipping Co. is angling to acquire a controlling stake in Italian flag carrier ITA Airways, while the billionaire principal shareholder of Germany’s Hapag Lloyd, Klaus-Micheal Kuehne, has built a 10% stake in Lufthansa AG. In addition to expanding its own air-cargo fleet, Maersk agreed to acquire air-freight forwarding specialist Senator International in November.

The two things that bring down shipping rates are softer demand from lower economic growth and a surge in supply of new ships. If shipping companies are spending some of their windfall on logistics or airlines, that does nothing to increase the supply of new ships.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. jumped by the most in 18 months as upbeat comments from Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon on the US economy and improved guidance helped drive bank shares higher.

Shares of the JPMorgan rose as much as 7.1% on Monday, the most since November 2020, after the start of the company’s investor day, when it boosted its annual forecast for net interest income excluding its markets business and maintained its expense outlook. The KBW Bank Index climbed as much as 4.4%, with Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. all gaining more than 5%.

Wells Fargo banking analyst Mike Mayo said in a note to clients that the biggest takeaway from JPMorgan’s gathering so far is that it shows there’s “no recession imminent.” JPMorgan’s presentation was bullish for the company and “even more so for the industry,” he added.

Bank shares have been under extensive pressure this year as worries that an aggressive series of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve could plunge the US economy into a recession. The KBW Bank Index has fallen 25% since hitting a record high in early January.

JPMorgan has been the worst hit among the biggest banking stocks. While Monday’s surge has helped erase some of the decline this year, the lender is still down nearly 22%, making it the worst performing big bank stock. Still, analysts have not given up on the company, with the average 12-month price target forecasting a 23% gain, near the highest it’s been since the pandemic began.

Rising interest rates are generally considered positive for banks because they get to charge more for their services. The challenge today is the spread they rely on to profit has evaporated as the yield curve has flattened. The absolute rate on mortgages also means refinancing income has disappeared on mortgages. That implies banks will probably do better when the yield curve steepens and yields contract.

The media highlight the possibility / likelihood of a worldwide food shortage - could you please cover this subject and share with us your conclusion and how a smart investor could potentially take advantage of such regrettable drama for large parts of the world population.

Thank you for this question which I’m sure is of interest to the Collective. The last time we had a food shortage scare was in 2007/08 when fertilizer shares were accelerating to records, commodity prices were strong, and the rising prosperity of the global consumer was driving calorie consumption for billions of people.

Norwegian gas sales are on course to test a record high this year as Europe seeks to reduce its dependence on top supplier Russia as soon as possible. 

Total exports from fields in the Nordic nation are poised to jump about 8% this year to 122 billion cubic meters, the government said in its updated outlook on Wednesday. The country sold similar volumes in 2017, a record year for exports.

The continent’s second-biggest supplier is pumping at full tilt, benefiting from record prices and higher demand than ever for its fuel. The European Union aims to curb imports from Russia by two thirds this year because of the war in Ukraine.

European prices spiked after Russia’s invasion in late February, deepening an energy crisis that started last year. Costs have since eased but they remain historically high and traders remain on the edge because of the uncertainty of flows and payment regimes. 

“High prices give the companies strong incentives to utilize the production capacity on the fields,” Petroleum and Energy Minister Terje Aasland said. “Companies are producing at full, or near full capacity.” 

Norwegian producers have tweaked operations at some fields, including reducing gas injections for oil recovery. Energy major Equinor ASA will also restart its Hammerfest LNG plant this month. The facility has been shut after a fire in late 2020.  

The extra volume would amount to an increase of about 9 billion cubic meters this year compared with 2021 sales. While every molecule counts, it’s just a fraction of Russia’s flows to the European Union, which exceeded 155 billion cubic meters last year. That was about 40% of the bloc’s total consumption. 

Europe has a chronic need to boost energy security. Importing from a friendly country, with a long history of sound governance like Norway, is infinitely preferable to relying on Russia. That’s great news for Norway’s balance of payments.

The violent selloff has forced many systematic macro strategies, including trend followers and volatility-targeted funds, to slash equity holdings. Last week, their exposure fell to the bottom of a five-year range that even if stocks resume selling, their unwinding would be relatively subdued, according to Morgan Stanley. 

For instance, should the S&P 500 drop 5% in one day, the cohort would need to offload less than $20 billion of stocks in the follow week, analysts including Christopher Metli estimated. That’s down from an expected disposal of over $100 billion at the start of the year.

Goldman’s long/short hedge fund clients saw their gross leverage falling 12 percentage points during the week through Wednesday, the largest reduction over comparable periods sine at least 2016, according to data compiled by analysts including Vincent Lin. 

Light positioning by hedge funds and quants is among indicators watched by Goldman’s Scott Rubner to determine whether investors have capitulated. With cash holdings elevated in mutual funds and day traders retreating, one missing ingredient to call the all-clear is a reduction of stocks in US household holdings and retirement accounts, he says.

“Tracking this cohort is my single and most important focus from the lows here,” he wrote in a note last week. “We have not capitulated, it is very slow on the way out.” 

There is still a great deal of uncertainty about the trajectory of monetary policy and the continuing impact of the war in Ukraine. The challenge for investors is to determine if this has been adequately priced in by the pullback to date.

Coinbase Global Inc., like the rest of the cryptocurrency market, is having a really tough week. Not filing-for-bankruptcy bad, but the biggest US crypto exchange did just mention the B-word in a regulatory filing, giving its customers a painful reminder of how bad things could get for them if Coinbase ever does get seriously distressed.

In its quarterly report, Coinbase added a risk disclosure: if the company were to file for bankruptcy, the court might treat customer assets that the exchange is custodian for -- their Bitcoin, Dogecoin or whatever -- as Coinbase’s assets. And they’d be at the back of the line for repayment, forcing normal people, unaccustomed to the ins and outs of federal bankruptcy court, to claw back their money along with everybody else owed money by the exchange.

It’s a huge amount at stake. Coinbase was custodian for $256 billion of customer money on March 31, according to the filing.

Chief Executive Officer Brian Armstrong quickly took to Twitter to elaborate, saying the company is not at risk of going bankrupt and that users’ funds are safe.

Segregated accounts didn’t save MF Global’s clients in 2019. It took six months to get two thirds of their money back and it’s not clear how successful efforts have been to recover the rest. Since the crypto markets are unregulated and Coinbase is an “exchange” rather than a broker, the funds are not truly segregated. The company might not be in imminent danger of going bust, but that only exacerbates the leverage to the bitcoin price. It’s a very binary bet.

The Reserve Bank of India stunned markets Wednesday with a 40-basis point rate increase and a move to suck out billions from the banking system. That was a remarkable U-turn from February, when it announced an ultra-dovish policy, highlighting a relaxed stance toward inflationary pressures at home and U.S. tightening abroad.

“We believe the rate hike is a belated acknowledgment of the inflation risks and that policy has been behind the curve,” Nomura analysts Sonal Varma, Aurodeep Nandi and Nathan Sribalasundaram wrote in a note.

Yields on the benchmark 10-year bond jumped as much as 30 basis points on Wednesday to 7.42%, the highest since 2019, while the shorter 4-year yield saw a nearly 50 basis point jump. Yields extended gains on Thursday. 

Emerging market central banks have much more direct experience of the damage high inflation can do. They are usually alert to inflationary pressures and tend to implement remedial action quickly. Brazil hiking from 2% to 12.75% in little more than a year is a good example of that. That also helps to highlight just how out of step the RBI has been. The Repo rate was stock at 4% for nearly two years before this week’s hike.

Against a backdrop of quicker inflation and solid spending, Fed monetary policy is still geared for a half-point rate hike next week. Nonetheless, officials need to balance tighter policy with risks to demand. 

The economy faces other potential headwinds that include knock-on effects from Russia’s war in Ukraine. Growth prospects in Europe are deteriorating, some raw materials are in short supply and the Chinese government’s severe pandemic-related lockdown measures are leaving supply chains in disarray.

The S&P 500 rose and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note remained higher along with the dollar.

“With strong growth of consumer spending, business investment and employment in the first quarter, the U.S. economy was not in a recession at the beginning of the year,” said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank. “Growth should resume in the second quarter as the trade deficit and inventories become smaller headwinds.”

Biden blamed the contraction on “technical factors,” saying in a statement that employment, consumer spending and investment all remain strong.

When you feel pressured by inventory shortages and rising prices, the natural response is to accelerate purchases. Orders also tend to be front loaded to forestall the trouble of having to worry about inventory in future.

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.

The move by Indonesia, which accounts for a third of global edible oil exports, will add to turmoil facing emerging markets from Sri Lanka to Egypt and Tunisia. Even developed countries could see sharp rises in supermarket prices.

Palm oil is one of the most versatile staples, used in thousands of products from food to personal care items to biofuels. Prices of cooking oils have been on a tear due to drought and labor shortages. Then the war in Ukraine roiled trade of about 80% of global sunflower oil exports, boosting demand for alternatives like palm and soybean oil and sending prices to record highs. 

Indonesia’s ban applies to exports of RBD palm olein, a higher value product that has been processed. Exports of crude palm oil and RBD palm oil will still be allowed, according to people familiar with the matter. RBD olein accounts for 30% to 40% of Indonesia’s total palm oil exports. 

The move could increase costs for packaged food producers such as Nestle, Mondelez International and Unilever. Nestle declined to comment, while the other companies didn’t respond to a request for comment. It may also force governments to choose between using vegetable oils for food or biofuels. 

Palm oil prices initially popped higher on the news of Indonesia’s export ban but were not spared the decline in the wider commodity complex today. Nevertheless, the longer Indonesia’s ban persists the bigger the knock-on effect for regional consumers. Inflationary pressures may ease in industrial commodities, but agricultural prices are less susceptible to slowing Chinese growth.

As prices continue to rise amid inflation, so too does financial stress, according to new research from Affirm, the payment network that empowers consumers. The research found that 73% of Millennials / Gen Z consumers - and 66% of U.S. consumers overall - are concerned that rising costs will prevent them from being able to pay for the things and experiences they want to achieve this year.

The study asked 1,740 consumers about how inflation is affecting their spending habits and revealed three key trends around how Americans are responding to the pressure on their wallets.

A night out is off the table - instead, consumers are prioritizing the home as their happy place

Purchases for the home are the top category Americans plan to prioritize as costs rise (38%).
Going out to restaurants (53%), entertainment (47%), and beauty (34%) are the top categories consumers plan to deprioritize.

Buy-now-pay-later is the opposite of delayed gratification. The sector has surged in popularity over the last two years as homebound consumers splurged on anything to relieve the tedium of the pandemic. Lifestyle creep is a hard habit to break and is usually forced on people by a sharp reversal of fortunes.

Nomura Holdings Inc. expects an “Ecuador-style debt restructuring” where the existing stock of bonds are exchanged into three longer-dated bonds with a reduction in coupon rates and some principal haircut, said Nicholas Yap, head of Asia credit desk analysts in Hong Kong.

Sri Lanka’s foreign-exchange reserves slumped 16% to $1.94 billion last month. The government was due to make a $36 million interest payment on a 2023 dollar bond April 18, as well as $42.2 million on a 2028 note, Bloomberg-compiled data show. A $1 billion sovereign bond was maturing July 25. 

The economic crisis has evolved into a political stalemate, potentially complicating efforts to negotiate aid. Mahinda Rajapaksa in a speech Monday night called on citizens to be patient as price surges and shortages worsen, while touting his family’s role in ending a decades-long civil war back in 2009. His brother, the president, has said he won’t resign under any circumstances. 

The government hasn’t yet named negotiators for the restructuring process or set a value for the debt recast, Finance Minister Ali Sabry said by phone. Sabry -- who has been in the job for about a week after cabinet resigned en masse -- will be part of Sri Lanka’s team attending the IMF’s spring meetings next week that would discuss a potential aid package.

“We have no choice,” he said, referring to the decision to stop payments. “This should have happened a long time ago.”

Sri Lanka has been heading towards a dire debt situation for much of the last decade. The massive debts taken on to accommodate China’s building of large port facilities at rates, which are multiples of what were available from the IMF, are no doubt part of the problem. The surging cost of imported commodities tipped the country over the edge. 

A Chinese fast-fashion company without a global network of physical stores of its own is seeking a valuation that could be more than the combined worth of high-street staples Hennes & Mauritz AB and Inditex SA’s Zara.

Shein, an online-only retailer of inexpensive clothes, beauty and lifestyle products that pumps out over 6,000 new items daily, is in talks with potential investors including General Atlantic for a funding round that could value the company at about $100 billion, Bloomberg News reported Sunday.

Should Shein succeed with the round, it would make the decade-old brand about twice as valuable as Tokyo-based Fast Retailing Co. -- the owner of Uniqlo -- which last year had more than 2,300 outlets in 25 countries and regions. It would also make Shein the world’s most-valuable startup after ByteDance Ltd. and SpaceX, according to data provider CB Insights.

I wrote about the success of direct-to-consumer Chinese fashion brands in my 2015 China trip report. Back then I was impressed by the speed with which new SKUs were churned out. The injection of capital and internet marketing savvy has grown that business model to the point where every other fast fashion brand is struggling to compete.

With Russia regrouping for a fresh offensive in eastern Ukraine, China is preparing to receive the first commodity shipments from Moscow paid for in yuan since several Russian banks were cut off from the international financial system. 

Russian crude that would normally end up in refineries in Europe or the U.S. is heading for Asia, where buyers, particularly in India, are taking advantage of steep discounts. Shipments from the Black Sea and Russia’s Baltic Sea ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga started heading to India in March, following earlier cargoes from the same terminals to China.

EU foreign ministers are likely to discuss imposing an oil embargo on Russia when they meet next week, said Josep Borrell, the bloc’s foreign policy chief. Speaking in Brussels on Thursday, Borrell said that a ban on oil is not in the latest sanctions package, though he expects ministers will tackle it on Monday, “and sooner or later -- I hope sooner -- it will happen.”

Russia’s natural gas supplies, which like oil have yet to be sanctioned by the EU, continue to flow freely as Europe faces an energy cost crunch that’s prompting governments to think twice before taking any action that might see prices rise further. 

Italy, one of the biggest buyers of Russian gas, said Wednesday that it would support a ban if the bloc was united behind the idea, a move that Germany among others has so far opposed.

The Russian regime calculated correctly that it would be impossible for Europe to avoid importing its oil and gas for the next few years. They may also have bet that the jump in prices for its exports would come close to compensating for the decline in exports to the OECD. Revelations of war crimes are hard to watch but that doesn’t change the fact Europe is not yet in a position to cut itself off from Russian imports.

If the economy is going to avoid recession this year, consumers will need to dip into savings accumulated during the pandemic. So far, the evidence suggests this hasn’t happened. That’s worrying given the deep cost-of-living crisis facing the country.

It’s well documented that the combination of enforced saving during lockdowns and massive government income protection programs has seen household balance sheets to balloon over the past two years.

The cash, once seen as rocket fuel for the recovery, is now being viewed as a way for households to maintain the volume of goods and services they consume while inflation spirals.

That’s what made the latest credit data from the Bank of England all the more concerning. As yet, consumers have shown no willingness to dip into the 200 billion pound slush fund they have amassed even though inflation continues to run well ahead of income growth.

With inflation set to accelerate further those cash reserves will need to be drawn on if the economy is going to avoid falling off a cliff. In our forecast, we have assumed 10% of the stock of deposits is used over the next year, when the hit to spending power will be at its most intense. Consumption still contracts on a quarterly basis in 2Q and 4Q, but the economy avoids recession. About 25% of the pandemic savings are used over our whole forecast period to 2025.

Of course, it may be that as the squeeze on household budgets intensifies, it forces people to use the cash. It’s also possible that rather than run down assets, households borrow. For low income workers, who weren’t able to bolster their savings during the pandemic, that may be the only option if they want to maintain their spending. With that in mind, it was notable that the same credit data showed a big increase in unsecured net borrowing.

Still, with consumer confidence at levels that are normally associated with recessions, the worry is that caution prevails and the economy takes a far bigger hit than we expect this year.

Economic statistics are good at giving some visibility on aggregate numbers but terrible at displaying divergences in opportunity. £200 billion in excess saving ignores the fact most people do not savings. The reality is higher prices mean many people have to make hard decisions about consumption.

Wholesale jet fuel prices in New York continue to soar unabated, touching a fresh record for the second consecutive trading day.  

Jet fuel on the spot market added another 93 cents, surging to $7.61 a gallon on Monday, a new high since Bloomberg started publishing these prices in 1988. Regional stockpiles are at their lowest for this time of year since 2015.

For much of the pandemic, U.S. refiners prioritized making other fuels such as gasoline and diesel with air-travel demand lagging the pace of recovery in other oil markets. Fuel makers began raising jet fuel production in late March as prices suddenly soared above diesel for the first time since Jan. 2020. Fuel accounts for up to a third of operating costs for airlines. Some airlines were already cutting flights as a result of expensive fuel back in early March.

Potentially bringing some relief to East Coast inventories, a jet fuel cargo was diverted mid-voyage to New York from Spain with an estimated arrival next week. Wholesale jet fuel prices have more than doubled within the past month.

Traders must be wondering whether it is advisable to simply buy every commodity contract that has not yet accelerated. Afterall, the number of commodities that have gone from quiescence to fame in the last year continues to grow. 

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.

In a provocative but persuasive column for the New York Times, Bret Stephens suggests that Russia’s war aim is not preventing NATO enlargement, or rebuilding the Soviet empire, but cementing its status as an energy superpower:

Suppose for a moment that Putin never intended to conquer all of Ukraine: that, from the beginning, his real targets were the energy riches of Ukraine’s east, which contain Europe’s second-largest known reserves of natural gas (after Norway’s). Combine that with Russia’s previous territorial seizures in Crimea (which has huge offshore energy fields) and the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk (which contain part of an enormous shale-gas field), as well as Putin’s bid to control most or all of Ukraine’s coastline, and the shape of Putin’s ambitions become clear. He’s less interested in reuniting the Russian-speaking world than he is in securing Russia’s energy dominance.

Even if this is not the aim, the possibility of entrenching Russia’s energy power is now at the center of the broader conflict between Putin’s Russia and the West. 

I’ve been arguing from the outset that the idea Russia acted irrationally does not make sense. Securing energy assets now so they can never be used to decrease European natural gas reliance on Russia offers an elegant explanation for the aggression. From their perspective it is better to act now, to forestall the certainty Ukraine energy resources would be developed, and risk destroying a supply relationship than to endure a loss of influence of time.

Ukraine and Russia failed to clinch a cease-fire in talks that ended in Istanbul on Tuesday, with Moscow saying it will reduce military operations in areas where its forces are being pushed back and Kyiv calling for security guarantees from European Union and NATO members.

U.S. President Joe Biden said he’ll see how Russia acts on a pullback and “see what they have to offer” in further talks with Ukraine.

A Ukrainian negotiator said his country is seeking guarantees for territory that doesn’t include Russian-controlled areas and that Kyiv is willing to discuss the status of occupied Crimea. Russia indicated a meeting was possible between President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Russia’s delegation left Istanbul, and no date or time was set for any potential future talks, according to a person close to the Moscow delegation. European nations expelled more Russian diplomats from their capitals, even as stocks rose and oil fell on optimism for progress in the negotiations.

This brief history of Finland’s fight against the Soviet Union in 1939 and again in 1944 bears some striking similarities to what is going on in Ukraine today. The most likely outcome remains that Russia will hold the territory it has already won and will negotiate hard for a land bridge to Crimea. In return Ukraine will receive new security guarantees, adopt a neutral foreign policy and will eventually be allowed to join the EU.

It is not valid to interpret inverted term spreads as independent measures of impending recession. They largely reflect the expectations of market participants. Among various terms spreads to consider, the 2-10 spread offers a particularly muddled view. Especially in the present circumstances when the 2-10 spread is very much out of step with the near-term forward spread, which offers a much more precise view of market expectations over the next year and a half, it is difficult to concoct a reason to be concerned about the flattening of the 2-10 spread. In contrast, if and when the near-term spread does contract, we know that investors will then be expecting a cessation in monetary policy tightening. While such a shift in expectations could well be precipitated by future concerns about a recession, that need not be the case. A more benign cause would be a marked easing in inflation and inflation expectations that allow for a cessation of policy firming.

The benign outcome is more often referred to as a soft landing. The 10-2 year spread closed at 1 basis point and was inverted for a brief period intraday. The 10-year-3-month is at 189 basis points which is an historically wide diversion.

Nowadays, Brampton Manor Academy regularly gets as many pupils into Oxbridge as Eton College, the alma mater of Cameron, Johnson and the majority of the privileged faces staring out from the 1987 photograph. It does this by dint of high-expectations and relentless discipline. Pupils arrive early in the morning and stay on into the evening in order to accumulate extracurricular activities. Slacking is not tolerated. Pupils are expected to be smartly dressed and always on the ball. Eton — the quintessential, privately-funded British public school — charges about £50,000 a year and selects from the whole world. Brampton Manor charges nothing and selects from one of the poorest boroughs in London. The majority of pupils are from ethnic minorities and one in five gets free school lunches because of their parents’ low incomes.

Education is a contentious subject for politicians, because everyone wants the best for their children despite the fact levels of academic ability vary widely. That desire to secure the best opportunities for one’s offspring has to be married with society’s need to find and nurture the best brains.

Market-based expectations for how the Fed moves its target fed funds rate have also broken out. The shift in expectations has come with breathtaking swiftness. The following chart shows implicit expectations for rates after each of the next seven meetings as they stood on Dec. 31, where they had moved by the day the tanks entered Ukraine, and where they are now:

Bear in mind that as the year began, CPI had already topped 7% for the first time in four decades. It’s remarkable both how long it took for investors to come around to expecting a sharp monetary tightening, and how swiftly that realization has now taken root.

What does this imply for asset allocation? Higher bond yields tend to be bad news for stocks if they are part of a Fed tightening, and make high stock valuations harder to justify. However, expectations of a more aggressive Fed are even worse for bonds. The mathematics of the bond market on this point is
inexorable. If rates and yields are going up, then bond prices have to come down.

And, indeed, just as those who’ve been saying There Is No Alternative (to stocks) would have predicted, this news has been far worse for bonds than stocks, meaning that the returns for those who are long in stocks relative to bonds have surged to yet another new high:
 

There is a significant anomaly developing in the bond markets. 2-year and 10-year yields are ramping higher on the expectation of future inflation and much higher rates. 3-month bills are also rising but at a much more sedate pace. The rate is currently at 0.5% which approximates the Fed Funds rate. That’s an oddity because investors are increasingly convinced a 50-basis point in May is a certainty.

I and probably many others will be intrigued in your contrarian view that the Fed will hike once and be "done". Whereas as per enclose Bloomberg article others expect seven rate hikes this year.

If only one rate hike does that mean USA stock markets will revert to their bull run?

12-month yields are at 1.19% and climbing. That implies four hikes within the year. The Fed will hike this week, so that implies three additional hikes. I have been of the opinion the Fed will have an extraordinarily difficult time raising rates. If the Fed raises 7 times a recession is inevitable. With three more hikes the chances of a recession are better than even. One and done sounds about right to me. 
 

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.

“The U.S. can try to make Saudi Arabia increase production, but why would they accept a break in the alliance, which is key for them?” said Paolo Scaroni, former chief executive officer of Italian oil company Eni SpA. 

There’s a political dynamic at play to explain the kingdom’s fidelity to Moscow beyond the gusher of oil revenue. 

Where Donald Trump cultivated a particularly friendly relationship with Saudi Arabia — making his first foreign trip as U.S. president to Riyadh — ties have turned colder under President Joe Biden. On the campaign trail, Biden pledged to make the kingdom a “pariah,” in part because of the killing of columnist Jamal Khashoggi. He will only deal with the elderly King Salman, relegating Mohammed bin Salman to interact with more lowly officials despite being the kingdom’s defacto ruler. 

By contrast, Riyadh’s OPEC+ partnership with Moscow calmed years of distrust between the two oil rivals, and saved the kingdom from relying exclusively on Washington.

“Saudi Arabia doesn’t want to switch horses mid-race when they do not know if the other horse is actually going to show up,” said Helima Croft, chief commodities strategist at RBC Capital Markets. 

The USA going cap in hand to countries like Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia this week, with the request to boost oil supplies must have been both humbling and galling for the Biden administration. For the all the talk of a more enlightened foreign policy the arrogance, even so-called allies, have been treated with is pretty astounding. International rulers will be told not to take it seriously. Afterall they were working in service to the higher cause of abating climate change.

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.

The two things anyone seeking to predict future trouble in the stock market looks at are the yield curve spread and oil prices.

The spread the 10-year and the 2-year is down to 23 basis points, from 120 in October. At the current pace of compression, it could be negative by the end of the week.

The 10-year - 3-month has generally moved ahead of the 10-2 spread but is not doing so on this occasion. That is because bond funds are focusing on short duration bonds because inflationary pressures take a bigger toll on long-dated issues.

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.

The Indian government is exploring ways to reach out to smaller Russian banks that have not been sanctioned, according to an official in the Ministry of Commerce. One of the routes being considered is via smaller Russian banks that are outside the ambit of sanctions, said the official, who isn't authorised to disclose details and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

An alternative method of setting up a rupee mechanism has also been discussed, the official said. In looking for a solution, India may look to a system it had established nearly a decade ago for payments to Iran. Caught in the regulatory crossfire, Indian exporters are also worried that their shipments might be left unattended at Russian ports with no insurance.

"Earlier, we came to know that the Export Credit Guarantee Corp. of India has removed its umbrella insurance cover for Russian exports. Now, we hear there is going to be a case-by-case evaluation," said Rahul Singh, an exporter of engineering goods, including electrical machinery, to Russia.

To complicate matters, large amounts of engineering goods have already been shipped, said Singh. He has now reached out to the government regarding this. "Even if we receive payments, there will be a significant delay.

India is just one example of how trade settlement has been upended by sanctions on Russia. Getting paid for goods already sent is a major headache but who in their right mind would send more without having some security that future payments will be forthcoming. This is going to have a significant knockon effect for both the Russia and wider emerging markets sector.

Russia said it would press forward with its invasion of Ukraine until its goals are met, as troops were seen moving in a large convoy toward the capital, Kyiv. In the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, the mayor said residential areas were being bombed in what he called “a war to destroy the Ukrainian people.”

Hitting the TV tower is aimed at attempting to put Ukraine’s ability to appeal directly to Russia’s population out of commission. The impassioned broadcasts from Ukraine’s president must be particularly annoying for the Russian aggressors. Unfortunately, the success of the initial resistance means Russia is doubling down on the bombardment.

I have met Putin, and I have watched him as a journalist since before he became president. My analysis of his actions was always based on the assumption of his rationality. There was always something to gain, a manageable risk of losing. Perhaps I was wrong from the start. Perhaps Putin has changed in recent years as his close circle narrowed and negative selection expelled people with a broader vision from the ranks of his advisors. Quite likely, Ukraine has long constituted an exception from Putin’s rationality, as most of its people time and time again chose the Western path, away from Putin’s vision of the Russian World.

I left Russia after the Crimea annexation because I couldn’t accept it and felt it was a great historical wrong — both for Ukraine and for Russia. But I ended up returning to that assumption of rationality. I analyzed Putin’s moves from a cost and benefit perspective. I have a lot of rethinking to do.

The invasion is an irrational move. It makes any further negotiations with Putin and his clique pointless: There is, quite clearly, nothing he won't do, no line he won’t cross, no matter what he says or what deal he makes. From this point on, autarky is the only feasible economic choice for Russia, and a retreat into isolation is the only remaining cultural and political choice. At the same time, Russia's dependence on China, which has grown in recent years, is no longer a matter of choice. Any security benefits from turning Ukraine — and neighboring Belarus, from whose territory Putin also attacked — into a buffer state are illusory since Russia also borders actual NATO member states, which now will arm themselves as heavily as possible. 

I was not expecting a full-scale invasion, but my positions benefitted anyway. I agree we are now in a new environment and it will be years before Russia’s relationship with most of its biggest trading partners is repaired.

Political pressure for Petrobras to make fuel cheaper for Brazilians is mounting ahead of presidential elections in October, but the giant oil producer has instead focused on taking advantage of the windfall from crude’s rally to shore up its finances and reward investors.  

Once the world’s most indebted oil producer, Petrobras last year managed to reduce its debt below $60 billion ahead of schedule, thanks also to the sale of refineries. 

Meanwhile on the campaign trail, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is leading the polls and calling for fuel price relief and more investments in refining. This has put Bolsonaro on the defensive, though a recent rally in the local currency has helped mitigate the impact of higher international oil prices.

Under Lula’s Workers’ Party, Petrobras lost an estimated $40 billion during the 2012-2014 oil price boom because of policies to make gasoline and diesel cheaper. Since the party lost power in 2016, two pro-business administrations have transformed Petrobras into a leaner, more profitable outfit. 

Cordial relations with much of the rest of the world favour Brazilian exports of raw commodities. That’s particularly true of its oil and iron-ore exports as geopolitical tensions with Russia are amplified.

Using these variables, our findings show that Kazakhstan and the Philippines are the most vulnerable credits in the IG universe.1 The massive protests that broke out in Kazakhstan earlier this year in response to soaring commodity prices serve as confirmation of our analysis, and it bears watching what happens in the Philippines as the May elections approach.  On the least vulnerable side, higher-income countries, including Hungary and Uruguay, unsurprisingly fare better. Meanwhile, HY credits are much more dispersed. Kenya and Nigeria appear to be the most vulnerable, and the months leading up to the Kenyan general election in August could be a volatile period, as they have in past elections. The least vulnerable HYs, from Serbia to Sri Lanka, are very diversified from a geographical point of view. It is somewhat reassuring that Brazil, a continental giant holding elections in October, is not in the most vulnerable group. We will continue to monitor these vulnerabilities closely as part of our credit selection process.

Nothing contributes to more social stress than surging food prices. The risks to food supplies remain skewed to the upside over the medium term. However, the initial surges for food commodities were not sustained today. That suggests we are likely to see at least some unwinding of short-term overbought conditions.

Saudi Arabian companies raised almost $9.3 billion from share offerings last year, making Riyadh the most active IPO market in the Middle East and Africa behind Israel, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The most recent IPO wave has already seen a digital security firm owned by the kingdom’s wealth fund draw about $57 billion in orders from institutional investors. Al Dawaa’s IPO attracted demand of more than $25 billion ahead of its retail offering.

The firm operates a network of pharmacies with over 800 outlets across 130 cities in Saudi Arabia. It posted a revenue of about 5 billion riyals ($1.3 billion) and profit of 246 million riyals in 2020 compared with 4 billion riyals and 233 million riyals year ago, respectively.

More from the CEO:

Estimates Al Dawaa’s profit to rise by “not less than 15-20% a year” after 2022
“Will continue paying dividends of around 50%-60% of profit on a continuous basis”

 

One of the defining characteristics of Middle Eastern stock markets is companies are only allowed to list when they have three-years of continuous profits. When global interest rates are low and investors chase momentum in growth stocks, that’s not especially appealing. On the other hand, when rates rise and a premium is put on the predictability of cashflows, those characteristics make some emerging markets more appealing.

Analysts have cut their profit-margin expectations for 75% of industries and about half of companies in the S&P 500 for the first and second quarters, data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence show. Companies’ wherewithal to defend profitability amid mounting pricing pressures is becoming a growing issue at a time when the hottest inflation in four decades and higher borrowing costs threaten to crimp growth.

Anxiety about a faster-than-expected wind-down to the Federal Reserve’s asset-buying program and a quicker pace of rate hikes has pushed sell-side analysts to cut their first-quarter profit growth expectations to 5.4% last week from 6.7% in the first week of January. That figure, too, looks set to drop further to 3.5%, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence model that tracks the correlation between analysts’ pre-season forecasts and actual profit growth in the past two years.

“Negative revision momentum may remain a weight on stocks in the weeks ahead,” said Gina Martin Adams, chief equity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence. “Improving top-line growth views are still offset by inflation pressure.”

More than 70% of S&P 500 companies are done with their earnings announcements. Among those that have already reported, 76% have outpaced analysts’ profit estimates, the lowest rate of beats since the first quarter of 2020.

Over the last few quarters companies have been comfortable passing on costs to consumers. Many have also taken the opportunity to increase margins at the same time. Politicians taking to social media and blaming inflation on record high corporate profits strikes a chord with the personal experience of many consumers. It suggests companies have seen the easy part of raising prices, continuing from here is going to be more difficult.

External financing is increasingly intermediated outside traditional channels. Banks and other institutions active in public capital markets, such as equity and corporate bond mutual funds, remain key financing sources for large and mature corporates. That said, “alternative asset managers” (AAMs) have become pivotal for smaller firms globally, including in emerging market economies (EMEs). Many AAMs were established as private equity firms that later expanded into credit, thus turning themselves into one-stop capital providers for firms less able or willing to access traditional sources.

Private markets have three features that distinguish them from public markets. First, there is limited liquidity transformation because investors commit capital for extended periods. Second, these investors tend to be large and sophisticated entities such as pension funds, whose focus on long-term returns enables target companies to confront significant earnings volatility. Third, the regulation of private market investment vehicles is relatively light, partly reflecting the lesser degree of liquidity mismatches and also the limited presence of retail investors.

The lack of regulation in the private markets is seen by many investors as a positive aspect. The challenge for the future is large pension funds are highly active in the sector. They might have long-term liabilities but they also have a long-term need for yield. The private sector has been particularly attractive because they have gained both portfolio diversification and higher returns.