Three possible explanations for the painful meltdown in commodities:
- Global growth is slowing hard
- China has hit a brick wall
- Someone (a trading house? A large hedge fund? An investment bank?…) has funded large commodity trades with JPY borrowing and is now being “tapped
Thank you to
@MarionMarechal
for saying what needed to be said. Why the gratuitous attack on Christianity? Why the celebration of Marie-Antoinette’s murder?
This is supposed to be a happy event. Why poke half of France (a half that pays a lot of the bills…) in the eye?
To all the Christians of the world who are watching the
#Paris2024
ceremony and felt insulted by this drag queen parody of the Last Supper, know that it is not France that is speaking but a left-wing minority ready for any provocation.
#notinmyname
À tous les chrétiens du monde
@profplum99
Indexing is the new form of socialism: allocating capital to whoever is BIG (like the Soviet Union used to do), whether capital is needed or not; instead of allocating capital where the marginal returns on capital will be the highest And the end result is very socialist: almost
Great news. If US is now making it harder to buy solar panels and EV, it must mean the end of the terrible “climate emergency” we have been warned about for years. Maybe the world is no longer set to end in five years time after all?
White House announces new anti-China tariffs:
🚗 Electric vehicles: from 25% to 100%
🔋 EVs batteries: from 7.5% to 25%
🌞 Solar cells: from 25% to 50%
🏭 Steel and aluminum: from 0%-7.5% to 25%
#EnergyTransition
#EVs
@RnaudBertrand
Economic activity is energy transformed.
The US enjoyed the shale boom and went from producing less than 6m barrels of oil per day and importing roughly usd 200bn of energy each year back then to 13m bpd today and being energy self sufficient
Meanwhile, in France, over the same
@shellenberger
There are two scandals here. The first is Brazil. The second is big tech. On the latter, it’s amazing how in less than 15 years, the moral underpinnings of US big tech have melted away. In 2009, Facebook and Google elected to leave China (a massive market) rather than give up
It’s been quite a week:
- Zuckerberg acknowledgment of censorship
- Durov’s arrest
- X banned in Brazil
- Brits arrested for posting memes
It feels a lot like that week in March 2020 when one country after another tore up civil rights and locked their populations in while media
Every week, we (Gavekal) hold a zoominar for clients in which clients ask questions and we try to engage in a discussion. It’s pretty rare that Charles, Anatole and myself end up on the same zoom call. So I thought we would make this one open to everyone.
A note of warning: if
Most people I meet with in Europe and Asia assumes that if Trump wins in November, foreign policy under Trump 2.0 will be a replica of Trump 1.0
But in Trump 1.0, the inner sanctum was made up of Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence…
In Trump 2.0, the inner
So China runs highest trade surplus of any country in History, produces and sells great cars at a third the cost of anyone else, and everyone is convinced that the RMB needs to go down…
Who could have thought that with budget deficits of 7pc of GDP at a time of full employment, we’d end up with an inflationary boom? What were the odds?
Here’s my take on the current situation:
1. Bonds are trading like Yellen is on the loose, printing $5.5bn a day
2. Gold is trading like Yellen is on the loose, printing $5.5bn a day
3. Stocks are trading like Yellen is on the loose, printing $5.5bn a day
4. Oil prices are
The western media really does its readers a disservice with their China coverage - which incidentally raises the question of who the true clients of most Western media is? The readers who buy the newspaper/the corporations who buy the full page ads/or the governments who dish out
MULTI-YEAR DATA STUDY SHOWS DEEP MEDIA BIAS AGAINST CHINA
The international media is stunningly biased against China, data from a multi-year study has confirmed.
Out of 133 lengthy analyses of China in the Financial Times “Big Read” column over a four-year period, only two
@PauloMacro
So if boats can’t go through the Black Sea, AND boats have to wait longer in front of Panama Canal AND wheat and energy are being weaponized in the Russia-Ukraine conflict forcing every one to build up inventories AND India bans rice exports AND we have an El Niño year AND
So many investors assume that Trump 2.0 (should he win) will be the same as Trump 1.0
He won’t be
The inner circle is no longer the same (RFK, Tulsi and Elon Musk are quite different from John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and N.Haley).
Trump 2.0 will be looking for a new plaza accord
@RnaudBertrand
The more interesting question is why did Macron give Durov a French passport in 2021? Did Zuck get one? Did Elon? Did Jack Ma?
Why just Durov?
From there, the question becomes why a passport in 2021 and jail in 2024?
Macron told us he had nothing to do with the arrest.
Assuming
After polishing off three bottles of wine with
@hkuppy
last night, I thought we had solved all of the world’s problems. Woke up this morning and it seems that the problems are still there. Oh well. At least wine was good so no hang-over. Hope to see kuppy and his most charming
@agnostoxxx
@jeuasommenulle
The strategy is:
a) all parties spent all their money on the European campaign and won’t be reimbursed for their expenses for months. Right now, the till is empty at every party’s headquarters.
b) Banks only lend to the parties of center right and the Left. Banks do NOT lend to
I think that this is a very important point. We are witnessing a profound shift in warfare when a few guys sitting in Yemen, with a handful of drones, can essentially block one of the world’s most important sea-lanes. Let’s not forget that to counter China’s promise to the rest
It's a telling day when one of the world's largest container companies effectively says that the Red Sea isn't safe for commercial shipping -- despite the presence of TWO American aircraft carrier groups in the Mediterranean / Persian Gulf region |
#OOTT
#Yemen
#Iran
#Israel
A quick video take on last night’s TikTok vote. Perhaps the most shorted sighted policy move since the freezing of the Russian oligarchs’ accounts. How many times will US politicians tell foreigners “you money is only good here if we decide it is so?”
No wonder, gold, bitcoin
@RnaudBertrand
Dear Arnaud
In 1941, in France, you had a lot of people who argued that the real problem were the communists even though Nazis were goose stepping in Paris.
To be sure, it is possible to have two enemies. But identifying which is the first and most important enemy is key.
I
@LukeGromen
Better yet Luke: Chinese bank stocks are up 6pc in past 12 months while TLT is down -17pc…
Must admit that this is the first EM crisis I am witnessing in which local banks outperform US Treasuries.
Odd
Why aren’t UST picking up on the unfolding collapse in China?
Or is it the
A must watch intervention by JD Vance. Does this possibly announce an FX regime change? If so, this is the most important development this year. To be sure, it’s hard to be the world’s military hegemon without industry…
Very interesting exchange from March 2023 between JD Vance and Jerome Powell.
Vance questions Powell on how the world reserve currency status and a strong $USD impact the U.S. domestic economy.
Triffin Dilemma & Dutch Disease top of mind for the Trump admin... (0:50 start)
This seems like a big deal. Does it mean that anyone who has a bank account in singapore (which is most rich people across South-East Asia) will now have access to the e-CNY? Does the e-CNY become the de facto trade currency of the broader ASEAN region?
Thanks for having me on Erik. I always enjoy our chats. I do need to send you a new picture though. At this stage, the black hair, black beard and somewhat flat stomach are pretty blatant false advertising…
MacroVoices
@ErikSTownsend
&
@PatrickCeresna
welcome back, Louis-Vincent Gave
@gave_vincent
. They discuss how rate cuts are likely by year’s end, the USD outlook, precious and base metals, uranium miners, China’s long-term energy policy and what this all means for the global
27 years ago, Zbig Brzezinski warned "the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, & perhaps Iran."
Out of hubris, US policymakers spent the last 20-25 years pursuing policies that [wait for it]... pushed China, Russia, & Iran closer together.
1/
It does seem like the US is really the only major democracy in which almost all sides of the political spectrum are always happy to encourage more war, more military spending and more foreign interventions and yet very few seem to find that either odd, or counter-productive?
You speak of wars as though you know them personally. You do not.
The day you do is the day you’ll realize you’ve been wrong on most issues, especially Ukraine.
Stop promoting something you don’t understand and start promoting how we can fix America first.
Endless wars cost
It’s been a funny summer. The most important asset in our global financial system, namely OECD government bonds, have been in full meltdown mode but with limited repercussions thus far… I discuss this in the below, short (at least for me as I tend to be long winded!), video.
In the last two months, US treasury bonds have suffered another steep sell-off, with 10-year yields rising to their highest since 2007. In this interview, Louis Gave explores why the market is seeing another down-leg now, examines the implications and asks where, with major
China’s unfolding consumer deflationary boom in one chart. I guess it explains how Chinese equities could lose two thirds of their value, real estate lose between a quarter and a third of its value, and domestic auto sales still make new highs.
21st Century Fordism, indeed.
Over the 16-year period since 2008, the number of years it takes for an average Chinese manufacturing worker to afford a basic plug-in EV has fallen from ~9 years to <1.
This is while the technical/performance specs have increased dramatically.
It’s been a brutal summer with sharp sell offs in all things cyclical, and especially in energy. Short video below where I try to wipe the egg from my face
In the last two months, oil prices have slumped -20%, with the international Brent crude benchmark falling to a shade above US$70/bbl and energy names underperforming broader US equity indexes. This fall has been a source of grief for Louis-Vincent Gave, a long-standing
@FischerKing64
I absolutely LOVE the timing of this post. Leaving aside the condescension and all the rest, WHY post this on the VERY DAY when half the computer systems in America are down, most US fights are grounded etc…. All because every US company is essentially now a cog in the greater
For those amongst you who speak French. About the new French law requiring anyone intervening in French media to be catalogued along political persuasions.
This week
@kevinmuir
&
@PatrickCeresna
welcome back to the show, Louis Vincent Gave
@gave_vincent
. They dive into the key differences between Chinese and Western capital markets, uncover why gold is surging in a structural bull market, and tackle the challenges of today's
The narrative vs the reality. But then, who are you going to believe: The financial media or your lying eyes?…. If bond outperformance of 35pc or more over three and a half years is falling into hard time, I can’t wait for the good times!!!
When one considers the French and American military bases in Djibouti to boot, the options are either
1- We (the western world) can NOT take the Houthis out. If so, then we live in a very different world; one in which sea lanes are now exposed
2- We CHOOSE to not take the houthis
I think that this is a very important point. We are witnessing a profound shift in warfare when a few guys sitting in Yemen, with a handful of drones, can essentially block one of the world’s most important sea-lanes. Let’s not forget that to counter China’s promise to the rest
@LukeGromen
Over the past month, TLT is down -9pc. This should be HUGE news. The very bedrock of our global financial system is being taken to the woodshed. But instead, all we get all day every day is that China is falling apart (and China DOES have issues - but these are not exactly new?
@agnostoxxx
@jeuasommenulle
Meanwhile, if RN wins, the whole far left will take to the streets in July and block the streets, public transport etc… just in time for the Olympics
Macron could have easily called for the election for after the Olympics BUT that would have given a chance to the parties go
To follow up on this fun podcast with
@MebFaber
and
@hkuppy
; the piece that Meb refers to on the Ottoman Empire and the blocking of trade routes can be accessed for free here:
Another journey down the Orwellian language chute? Apparently, we are asked to believe in the existence of “spy balloons” that do NOT “collect information”. If they do not collect information, then how exactly do the balloons “spy”?
I think this is a terrific way to frame the question.
1) so is ´China over’? With China leaping ahead of the west in industry after industry (autos, nuclear energy, batteries, solar…) that seems unlikely
2) is HK’s role in that Chinese growth over? That seems more contentious
The idea that ‘HK is over’ is ultimately predicated on either the assumption that China is over (or unable to recover in the near term), or that HK is irrelevant in this calculus. And whatever one’s belief about China’s (and HK’s) LT prospects in the new era, neither assumption
Fun 80th bday with my dad at the stade de france. Great win for Les Bleus. Would have been nice to be able to buy a beer or a sandwich. Would have also been nice to have somewhere to buy a jersey. I guess the French rugby federation must be so rich as to not care about making
Thanks for having me on guys. Always a pleasure to catch up with the
@macrovoices
team. I always learn a lot in our discussions.
@ErikSTownsend
‘s point on the evolution of the nuclear industry were super interesting and presented an angle few have considered:
MacroVoices
@ErikSTownsend
&
@PatrickCeresna
Louis-Vincent Gave
@gave_vincent
. Erik & Louis discuss commodities, China, the Electric Vehicle Implosion, and why Louis says this feels like 1999 all over again.
@michaelxpettis
@FT
Inflation/currency devaluation is a transfer of wealth from households to producers
Deflation/currency revaluation is a transfer of wealth from producers to households
What does China (running massive trade surplus) need? To Help producers or boost households?
What does US
Interesting new line item in the Canadian budget…
I think it was Milton Friedman who said that there was « nothing as permanent as a temporary government program ».
Now that the line item is there, anyone care to give odds on whether the total amount ends up being smaller then
The French election and the battle of the three flags
The French philosopher Michel Onfray had a great observation that sums up the French election. One party is running under the French flag. Another is running under the European flag. And the last is running under the
The Election of the Three Flags:
- The RN runs under the French Flag
- Ensemble runs under the EU flag
- The NFP runs under the Palestinian flag
Three very different visions of where France’s challenges lie and, unsurprisingly, three different sets of solutions.
Following this summer’s meltdown in US Treasuries, we seem to now be entering the market phase in which « manipulating hedge funds » are to blame for what increasingly looks like a third consecutive year of negative returns for UST. This has a very « Dick Fuld in the summer of
FED ECONOMISTS SOUND ALARM ON HEDGE FUNDS GAMING US TREASURIES
Researchers at the Federal Reserve have issued warnings in recent weeks about possible disruptions in U.S. Treasuries due to the return of a popular hedge fund trading strategy that exacerbated a crash in the world's
Thanks for having me on guys. Always a pleasure to catch up with
@ErikSTownsend
and
@PatrickCeresna
. And, of course, Leina behind the scenes who makes it all happen
MacroVoices
@ErikSTownsend
and
@PatrickCeresna
welcome back
@Gavekal
co-founder, Louis-Vincent Gave to the show. Louis and Erik will discuss the economic situation in China, inflation, energy prices, and much more.
PREMIERE -- 7 Ideas for Investing in Uncertain Times
w/ renowned macroanalyst
@gave_vincent
We're breaking down Louis' "Magnificent 7" investment ideas that are designed to help you navigate the chaos & uncertainty of the current macroeconomic landscape
Jump in 👇
@HakimSolomon
Are you saying that defending free speech and equal right before the law are no longer Western values but are now CCP values? If so, who’s the CCP shill? Sounds like it’s you?
The aesthetics of this annoy me.
Typical gilded French grandeur offset by stale corporate boardroom furniture and a hideous carpet.
I expect better of the French.
@hkuppy
Thanks kuppy. But jokes aside, I think this may be the first global risk off moment in quite a while in which CNY moves up. If I was xi, and wanted to turn the screws on a little tighter, I would ask the PBOC to place a large buy order on the JPY. FAFO and all that…
I first pointed out that we’re in Cold War II back in 2018. But it only recently struck me that in this new Cold War, we—and not the Chinese—might be the Soviets. 1/13
Is the Right-wing playing a long game in France? Analyst
@gave_vincent
joins
@UnHerd
's
@florubyread
to discuss how yesterday's shock surge against Marine Le Pen could come to benefit the National Rally.
Having said that, my dad always told me that the first rule of bear markets is to « never do on the Monday what you wish you had done on the Friday ». So many people spend their weekends with the pit of doom in their stomach, only to puke it out first thing Monday morning…
@agnostoxxx
@YuriWerewolf
Thanks buddy
I do think that the regulator signalling today towards a higher RMB is a very big deal.
China has been running massive trade surpluses-the biggest of any country ever-but Chinese entrepreneurs have kept so much money outside China (check out HK bank deposits) because
There are no direct flights between Delhi and Beijing today; the capitals of the world’s two most populous countries and immediate neighbours.
How many daily flights will there be in 5 years time? 10 years time?
Most likely many more than zero…
When German Bund yields fell below UST yields in 1982 (if memory serves) people felt it was an ´aberration’. And German bund yields then stayed below US yields for 40 years (outside of a brief spell around the reunification). I just wish there was a French way to say « the more
An unlikely aberration has taken place in global bond markets for the first time on record: yields on emerging-market bonds in local currencies have fallen below US Treasuries.
Not to flex but HK has
- 0% capital gain tax
- 0% tax on dividends
- 16% flat income tax, less if you have kids or ageing parents
- 0% on wines
- 0% GST
- universal public health coverage
Friends in the US know HK only via MSM ask me “R u OK in HK?”
We are quite fine. 😎
The media narrative is that Putin’s trip is either:
a) about oil or
b) Putin showing the Western world that he can travel and is no pariah
But what if there is another dimension all together?
The presence in Putin’s entourage to Saudi of central Bank of the Russian Federation Governor Nabiullina indicates a monetary realignment in the offing.
@hkuppy
1/ We are in a gold bull market. A bull market primarily driven by Chinese and broader EM demand for precious metals. This demand won’t stop unless EM implode. And right now, Chinese data is improving and the rest of EM have been humming… So with that said, being short ANYTHING
@hkuppy
@calvinfroedge
I would take the other side of that kuppy. In my lifetime, it’s mostly been the « rich people » who have embraced the removal of core freedoms, whether always asking for more EU, vaccine mandates, lockdowns… Rich people, most of whom live in big cities, tend to vote
@RnaudBertrand
Dear Arnaud
Which EU country outside of maybe Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic did not have a dim witted energy policy? Germany was even worse than France. Spain and Italy did nothing very exciting. UK was almost as bad as Germany…
@LukeGromen
Questions for the coming years:
- Does this trend continue? If not, why not? Seems like path of least resistance is for this divergence to keep growing?
- In which currency does all this trade get settled?
- Where do the profits from this trade get reinvested? For years, it has
Professor Agostini was forced to retire in France at 61… but he wasn’t quite done. He went off to U of Ohio and 20 years later, wins the Nobel Prize. In a service- based economy where labor is no longer physically taxing, forcing productive members of society into early
If America was a stock and this was an earnings call our share price would be down 40% after hours and Third Point would be publishing an Activist letter
From Wedlock to Deadlock: The East-West Divorce
@gave_vincent
and
@SantiagoAuFund
's informal debate about the fate of the US dollar as global reserve currency.
Watch the video below or read the summarised transcript in this year's
#IGWT
report!
The media is going to spend the next several weeks obsessing over President Biden's replacement. This will drown out what I think was a pretty important signal from President Trump's nomination speech in Milwaukee. Allow me to elaborate...
Thanks for having me on. Always enjoy catching up with
@hkuppy
. Learnt a ton in just about an hour. For once, I did not talk all that much (very unlike me!) as I was only too happy to take in all the information kuppy dished out
Thirty years ago, in the wake of the Cold War, Robert Kaplan published ´The Coming Anarchy’ and in many parts of the world, we are now living through Kaplan prophecies. At the same time, our western policy-makers seem keen to a) import some of this anarchy at home and b) start a
For those reading my recent posts and wondering where I was, I just returned from Haiti where I watched people being macheted in the streets and burnt.
And these militias, which is what they really are, not gangs, will not change.
They are not interested in being like you with
In this
@HiddenForcesPod
,
@Gavekal
's CEO
@gave_vincent
joins me to discuss de-dollarization, U.S. re-industrialization, and his case for a Chinese “deflationary boom” and revaluation of the renminbi.
In the first hour, I ask Louis about the ...
🧵👇
@calvinfroedge
Representative democracy is obsolete. The idea that people from Kansas need to send someone to Washington DC to represent their interests is a remain of a time when going from Kansas to Washington took days if not weeks. These representatives now represent the interest of
What matters in the ECB decision is not the rate cut (whose only justification was to maintain internal consistency) but the increase in the inflation forecast, with core at 2.2% by 2025.
Of course, the ECB has no idea, but it signals its greater tolerance for >2% inflation.
@TgMacro
@hkuppy
So true
The corollary is that you also don’t want to invest in any industry China has decided to dominate as companies there end up with unlimited capital, unlimited labor, and unlimited government support. Think solar panel manufacturers, auto manufacturers. You want to
@Citrini7
Everything I read falls into one of two categories:
Cat 1: this is too little, too late and won’t move the needle.
Cat 2: OMG, the politburo is panicking so the situation must be much worse than expected
Meanwhile, the PBOC cuts and the RMB RISES. And baba, Tencent etc… all