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Tony Nash joins the BFM team, giving them his views on the equity markets, fixed income market, Fed Reserve, and oil prices. What’s his recommendation to investors now that Dow, S&P 500, and more equity markets have reached a new all-time highs? And what about the consensus on oil? With all the changes in the markets, are we seeing a new economic model?

This podcast first appeared and originally published at https://www.bfm.my/podcast/morning-run/market-watch/manage-your-expectations-valuations-are-stretched on July 8, 2021.

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Show Notes

PS: Really good day in the U.S. The Dow and S&P 500 were up 0.3%. The Nasdaq was flat. Shanghai is up 0.7%. But the rest of Asian markets were down negative. Heng Seng was -0.4%. Nikkei down 1%, FTI down 1.5%. And back home, FBI culture was also down 0.01%.

WSN: So to help us make sense of where markets are going, we speak to Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence. Now, Tony, Nasdaq, S&P 500, Dow, all hit all-time highs. Does this make you actually nervous? Markets looking a bit toppish?

TN: I don’t know about toppish today, but I guess what people have to be aware of is how big is the gain from here? So whether you’re toppish now or toppish in October, you really have to be careful about the risk calculation right now and what your expectations are as things turn over in the coming quarter or two.

PS: But time to switch for anything. What asset classes or markets look attractive now?

TN: You know what. I think you just got to be careful all around. The expectation, evaluations, levels of investment, profits and so on seem pretty stretched as we’re in the middle of wage pressures, inflation pressures and stressed consumers. So I think there seems to be more risk than opportunity out there. So I think we’re in a pretty stretched market and short of more support from global governments. It’s really hard to justify significantly higher valuations.

SM: And everyone is, of course, looking at the Fed, where last night’s FOMC minutes, what financial markets expected from the Fed or or do you think they could have given more clarity on their monetary policy?

TN: Well, they can always give more clarity. I mean, there’s always kind of reading the tea leaves with the Fed. But I think what really came out of it was what was expected. It was pretty noncommittal. They said tapering is coming, but they didn’t say it’s coming soon. There’s no expectation of a rate hike hike soon. So it’s really the current status quo, whatever that is. But it’s kind of more of the same for more time.

We don’t really expect much to change in the Fed through 2022. Markets have sufficient headwinds as it is as the world re-normalizes. We don’t expect much exciting happening. We didn’t expect that this month. We don’t expect it for some time.

WSN: Is that why the 10-year bond yields in the U.S. dropped from a four-month low, 1.3163? I look at the bloom at the moment. DO you think…

TN: This could be. But it’s also, you know, the current Fed chair may not be renominated by Biden. And if Jerome Powell is out, we’re likely to see Lael Brainard come in, who is very much a monetary policy activist. So we could see a really active Fed, not a conservative and extremely dovish Fed if Lael Brainard comes in. So I think that could be part of the reason we’re seeing expectations change in some of the bond markets.

PS: Can we shift your attention over to oil? Because as you know, the lack of consensus in OPEC+ and with the failure to negotiate production quotas has really put pressure on oil prices again. Is this conflict going to introduce more short term volatility in oil markets?

TN: Sure, yeah. Until there’s agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, I think we are going to see volatility because as the UAE creates a gap in expectations, other players like Russia and other folks can potentially violate the OPEC+ agreement. OPEC doesn’t necessarily have a history of agreeing uniformly very often. OPEC+ agreement has been one where they’ve really abided by it pretty well. And so OPEC is more fractious than it is kind of universal. I think we’re going to see volatility for at least a short time. But I do think there is underlying strength in oil prices. We don’t expect the $100 oil any time this year. Some people are calling for that. But we do see continued build in the strength of oil prices through the end of the year marginal bill.

SM: All right. And looking at other indicators, I mean, the US economy is booming, but the US ISM non-manufacturing figure for June came in below market expectations. Could you give us some explanation on what were the reasons for that drop?

TN: You know, the main reason really is unemployment or employment. Companies have had to cope with fewer workers as these federal government subsidies have kept workers on the sidelines. Effectively, they’ve paid workers to sit at home more than they’d make in hourly jobs. And so small companies particularly have had to figure out a way to work without additional workers. So now a lot of those workers are coming off of the federal stimulus packages. But a lot of these small and mid-sized sized companies have kind of learned how to cope without as many workers.

So they’re not trusting new workers until wages really come down. So it’s really kind of putting an impediment in the path for especially small and mid-sized companies. And that’s where there’s a little bit of doubt in the ISM.

WSN: So are we seeing a new economic model then, Tony, where there’s a lot of what we expect in terms of the full and employment numbers will change?

TN: It’s a great question, I certainly hope not. Over the last year and a half, we’ve seen immense government intervention in markets globally. Was the stimulus too much? Was it misallocated? We can argue that all day long. But the fact is, we’ve seen immense government stimulus and it takes a long time for stimulus that large to wash through the system.

We’re seeing the back side and the down side of stimulus. You know, we’ve seen things like inflation rates rise, you know, all this stuff over second quarter, but that’s really just a year on year number. We’re seeing what’s called base effects there. We’re seeing the same in things like wages and impacts on markets from government activity. So Q2 was a huge anomaly for markets and for government because of what’s happening globally with Covid in Q2 of 2020. As we kind of come back to a relatively normal-ish market, maybe by Q4, you know, we’ll start to see more normal readings across wages across, profits and other things.

So there really is a slow build. And as more of that government stimulus gets pulled out of the market or at least slows down, we’ll start to see things normalize. I don’t necessarily think it’s a new model unless the government insists on continuing to intervene and subsidize markets.

WSN: All right. Thank you for your time. That was Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence, giving us his views on the equity markets and even the fixed income market. But what was really surprising is that he thinks Jerome Powell will be replaced as the Fed chair. I was like, “this is news to me. I thought he was doing an OK job.” And usually I would imagine Joe Biden leading them to do their thing.

PS: That’s right. I wouldn’t expect Joe Biden to have places, political perspectives in the appointment of the Fed chair. But I think there are a lot of key decisions that has to be made. And that whole link between the tapering of his asset purchases and adjustment of interest rates, how do you have that delicate balancing act will be very critical.

WSN: Janet Yellen and Jerome Powell worked well together and Janet Yellen is his appointment. So I’m a little bit surprised by this news. But other news that I was like kind of focused on was also the fact that he thinks at the energy market upside is limited. So I think all of us as investors have to adjust our expectations in terms of the returns, because if you talk about the rally from March 2020 lows to now, it’s about 90%. And that’s staggering.

PS: And Tony is alluding to the fact that the stimulus was too broad, not targeted enough, I think, which basically resulted in a wash of cash, I think, creating a lot of frothy markets. And this is the challenge now.

WSN: So how does the bubble kind of burst, right, without creating chaos? Absolutely. You kind of want to deflate it, but not so much.

SM: And can I also draw your attention to something else that Tony said that caught my eye, the fact that he thinks oil isn’t going to hit $100 per barrel. We’re actually going to be discussing more on oil later at seven thirty after the bulletin with Sally Yilmaz of Bloomberg Intelligence. So stay tuned for that conversation on what the oil market’s going to look like.

Back in the BBC Business Matters, Tony Nash shares his thoughts on matters like United Airlines order of Boeing planes and how important is this order for the US economy? Also, will travel be back to normal and how soon will that be? How about pork prices becoming super cheap, and what’s the outlook for the agriculture commodities in general? And is the work-from-home people be lured back to go and work in the office?

This podcast was published on June 30, 2021 and the original source can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w172xvqdn58y6vl.

BBC Business Matters Description:

United Airlines makes its biggest ever order of aircraft in a bet on a post pandemic travel renaissance; the BBC’s Theo Leggett gives us the full details and how safe the bet might be. As many people abandon the office for working from home, property companies say they need to lure us back to the office by making us want to go back – Liviu Tudor is the President of the European Property Federation and tells us how he plans on making office spaces more alluring. As some companies introduce leave from work for women in menopause, the BBC’s Ivana Davidovic speaks to women about why it’s so hard to talk about menopause in a corporate landscape. Plus, cheap pork has flooded the market as China’s pigs recover from the African Swine Flu – Kirk Maltais from the Wall Street Journal explains how the oversupply of pork has forced US producers to cut their prices to very low levels. We discuss all this with guests Shuli Ren, Bloomberg Opinion columnist in Hong Kong, and Tony Nash, chief Economist at Complete Intelligence in Houston, Texas.

Show Notes

JR: How are you, Tony? Before we get on to the sort of impact on the trumpet or the importance of the travel industry, I just want to think about the importance of this order for Boeing. And I’m remembering that old phrase about GM. What’s good for GM is good for America. I mean, you can’t say about GM anymore. You could perhaps say that about Boeing, couldn’t you? I mean, that’s why this order is important.

TN: It’s important. And I’m pretty sure there’s some sort of subsidy for United to buy it, especially since a lot of it’s being spent in the U.S.. It’s in listening to some of the analysis, it’s pretty easy to be critical of United since they’ve been on government support. But really, the market was pulled by the government, the travel restrictions and everything else. So it’s really hard.

And I’m no defender of United for sure, but it’s really hard to blame them when their market was really pulled because of public health restrictions. So I do think that they’re making the right call here. I do think that travel will come back faster than the fears of many. I don’t think it will immediately react by September. But I do think that they’re making the right call.

JR: You’re not one of these people who thinks that travel will never quite go back to where it was. Actually, there have been certain changes in the way we regard moving around this planet in terms of we can do video conferencing, we don’t have to go to business meetings, we don’t have to go to those international conferences anymore. Is it not a permanent change or is it a temporary one?

TN: I think it’s probably permanent for maybe 30% of people. But if you think about the people who have to see each other face to face, the 30% who it won’t be required for, they will aspire to do that because they want to be like their peers who are actually getting deals done and who are actually meeting people that they need to meet face to face. I used to travel, you know, twice around the Earth every four weeks or something. And if I don’t ever get on a plane again, I am a happy man. But I don’t think I’m most people. I think most people are very happy to get on a flight and go for for a holiday or for business.

JR: Okay. I just want to know, have you traveled actually, and spend time in the last year or two by plane?

TN: I haven’t. But it’s not because there haven’t been business opportunities. I just really don’t like to fly anymore. So I’ve done way too much of my life.

JR: Yeah, Tony, the United’s last order actually involved Airbus aircraft as well as Boeing. And that has been this truce between the US and the EU on Airbus and Boeing over the trade war between the two. Do we feel that actually aircraft production is going to get back on track now?

TN: Well, I think that European and Asian airlines will be slow to make capital commitments. I think American Airlines in the U.S. have old fleets and so they have to renew them and their tired fleets, too. So but I think in Europe and Asia, the Asian fleets generally a little bit newer, of course. But I think they’ll be a little bit slower to order. I think we’ll have to say some European countries that subsidize their airlines, like I don’t know if United was subsidized, but I wouldn’t doubt if they were. But European countries that will subsidize their national airlines to help out Airbus, I mean, that’s its fiscal stimulus. It’s all over the place. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

JR: We can come to, you know, about the impact it’s had on the American producers and also on Chinese US trade relations, because that’s where it really starts to get interesting, because the China was importing a huge amount of hogs and also corn and soybean in order to be able to support their industry, which was really under in dire straits.

TN: Right. So there are three layers here. So first, you have the news about the hogs. And I think the the commodity prices sold off on the news, I personally don’t believe it. I think the herd is improving in China, but I don’t think it’s back to normal. You also have commodities like corn and wheat that are elevated on really bad corn crops in China and bad feed crops in China. So there’s been a lower corn crop in the U.S. than usual this year.

And Chinese pig farmers have started to feed them wheat, which is not a normal feed for hogs in China at least. So that’s affected with corn prices and wheat prices, which are which are continue to be elevated partly on the demand in China, but partly on, say, weather and supply and other things in the U.S..

So I do hope for China’s sake that the herd is healed and back to normal. I’m just skeptical of it. But I do think that we are seeing pretty hot and dry summer in the Dakotas and other parts of the U.S. that produce significant part of the U.S. corn crop. And until we start to see rain in the Dakotas and elsewhere, I think there’s going to be pressure on those prices. So U.S. farmers are you know, they’re struggling just to grow. Of course, the ones who are growing are doing well. Those who have crop to sell are doing well because the prices are elevated.

But it’s put pressure also on U.S. consumers because what we saw in the U.S. was a lot of accumulated frozen meat, pork, beef, chicken. And with the shutdown of the meat processing plants in the U.S. with the pandemic, it wasn’t manufactured in the U.S. So we had a large stock of frozen meat in the U.S. that’s now drawn down. And so the supply chains around meat are are pretty tight, actually. So we’re seeing real upward pressure in the U.S. on meat prices. And so that’s part of the reason I don’t necessarily think that the news in China is what they say it is, because there’s still there’s still draw of pork to China now.

JR: That’s really interesting. A whole lot of confluence of different influences that are pushing in different directions. We have seen these very dramatic falls. But you think they may actually be just temporary and just the sort of the market volatility of the last couple of weeks, you think?

TN: Well, I think part of it is weather, part of it is supply chains. I think we’ll see things come back to normal in probably four to five months in terms of U.S. commodities. But I think the summer is going to be pretty volatile still. So if China does continue to have the demand, it’ll put more pressure on the volatility in the U.S..

JR: OK, Tony, what about in Texas? What’s happening there? I mean, you still got supply chain problems, still got sort of the difficulties of actually getting stuff or is there no problem in that?

TN: I don’t think there’s a problem in actually getting stuff, I wouldn’t say it’s the supply chain itself. I think it’s the after effects of the supply chain problems. We also had things like I’m sure you’ve heard of the freeze that we had here in Texas in the spring. That freeze actually killed three generations of chickens. It killed the the chickens that would be sold to market and it killed the eggs.

So we had a several state area where where all of the chickens died because of the freeze that happened in this part of the U.S.. So while people made fun of us for our windmills not working, there actually was real impact. And, you know, we really had an impact here. So we’re seeing an impact on chicken prices. And, of course, meat is substitutional generally. So it’s really pressuring all of the all the proteins. But again, we are seeing vegetables and other things. It’s not necessarily availability per se at the cash register. It’s really the pressure on the price. So whoever pays the most will get it. At least that’s Texas.

JR: Has it got to the point of the poor people it’s a problem. I mean, it’s of a wages keeping up. I mean, is this a real issue or is it just one of these things people say, oh, gosh, prices are going up. It’s, you know, what a nuisance.

TN: Well, because of the the programs that the federal government has had here, I think the minimum salary of someone who actually stays home and collects unemployment is something like 48000 U.S. dollars a year. So for the past, I think 15, 16 months, the people who would be the poorest and who are unemployed are actually making almost 50,000 dollars a year based on a kind of the federal kicker because of the virus. And so while it’s hitting, the people who would normally be the most affected are actually getting more money from the federal government. So the hope is that they’re not feeling it.

JR: Okay, Tony, thank you.

I was talking to my colleague, Rob Young. Now, what I think is really interesting here is the sort of power play between the various people involved, the employee, the employer, the property company. And basically, if the employee has to come back, has to come back to the office, no one’s going to bother to give them fantastic facilities and sort of going to gyms and all the rest of it, if they’ve got to come back. And it’s really depends on that part played between the two. So do you think actually, Tony, we’re going to see any change in the way property companies or employers actually treat their employees?

TN: No.

JR: I’m quite doubtful, too. I mean, it always sort of blue sky thinking about how marvelous our offices are all going to be in the future. I don’t think it’s going to be different.

TN: No. And in fact, I’ll go even further than that. All of the talk over the last year about how work will change. I don’t believe that’s going to happen. You know, here’s what it really comes down to. People need to be in the office. Why? Because work is a couple of things. First, it’s about achievement and what you do. It’s about how much you know, but it’s also about how you politic. OK. You have to be in the office to politic with people. Otherwise, when the next retrenchment comes around, your head is you know, you’re out the door. So people will have to go back to the office and the ones who scream the shortest about not wanting to go back will be invited eventually to go elsewhere.

JR: The only thing I would say possibly is that actually if there is a demand and there’s a shortage of supplies, it’s supply and demand. There’s a shortage supply of certain workers. Employers will put better facilities in place to lure them in and treat them better and give them these kind of privileges, some of which will be the privilege perhaps of working from home if they want to.

TN: Interesting. I actually spoke with the U.K. demographer last week talking about this very issue, and he said there will not be a shortage at all. In fact, over the next 10 years, in 10 years time, there will be something like 600 million people who cannot get a job. Sorry. 420 million people who cannot get a job globally. So there will be people will be competing very aggressively for those jobs globally.

JR: Tony, isn’t that really important for them to be able to see stuff, hands on whatever job that doing really?

TN: Especially for you, surely because the Bloomberg office in Hong Kong is spectacular, according to the office, everything. So I’m surprised you didn’t just move in.

JR: Yeah. Do you get free food at the Bloomberg office as well? I remember that was one of the things where I used to work for Bloomberg a long time ago. And you did get free food in the office. I remember that.

SR: Yes. Bloomberg is very generous. So so these days, like there is free lunch, they have like that the vegetarian option that the vegetarian option with the calorie counts, very healthy food, absolutely free food.

JR: They are making an effort to lure you back in from your pajamas until your comfortable bedroom. Thanks for joining us. Business matters.

The Fed just announced that hyperinflation is not happening in the US. Is this a transitory inflation and how long will this last? Where is the market headed now, then? What sectors and industries will be greatly impacted and how will they react to the vulnerabilities? Also, where is oil headed now that it reached $75 per barrel. Lastly, China’s clamp down on Bitcoin — how much impact does it have to crypto’s volatility? All these and more in this quick podcast with our CEO and founder, Tony Nash.

This podcast first appeared and originally published at https://www.bfm.my/podcast/morning-run/market-watch/inflation-just-transitory-not-hyper on June 24, 2021.

❗️ Check out more of our insights in featured in the CI Newsletter and QuickHit interviews with experts.

❗️ Discover how Complete Intelligence can help your company be more profitable with AI and ML technologies. Book a demo here.

Show Notes

WSN: So to give us an idea of where global markets are headed, we have on the line with us Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence. Good morning, Tony. Now, the big question, where do you think markets are heading? Which direction are they going to take after Powell’s House testimony that the specter of hyper inflation in the US is unlikely?

TN: First, I think hyper inflation in the US isn’t really possible because the US is a global reserve currency. It’s really, really hard to have hyperinflation in the US. Powell knows this. Everyone in the Fed knows that. But I think in terms of the importance of his speech with the House, it wasn’t really all that significant, partly because he came across as unnecessarily hawkish.

People have been trying to back off of that ever since his speech. Janet Yellen coming out today bringing things back to a middle ground on Friday. So we think we’ll see upside from here. We’re not going to see major upside. We do expect things to get a bit rocky later in the third quarter. But short of dump trucks of cash out on every corner or a major new breakout of Covid, I think we are on a gentle glide path for the next couple of months.

PS: So, Tony, can you help us distinguish the difference between temporary transitionary inflation and what is permanent inflation? Because Janet Yellen is in that transitionary stage. But at what point does it become permanent, in your view? Are the triggers there?

TN: Well, what’s misleading a lot of people today is we have what economists call these base effects. Last year, you saw really prices falling, right? You saw economic decline. So when you’re looking at prices today, people are giving you a price in year on year percentage terms. So things are up 30% year on year. Things are up 50% year on year. Actually, when you compare them to 2019 prices, depending on the asset, of course, plywood is different, these sorts of things.

But things are not really all that inflated given where they were in 2019, which was the last normal year that we had. And then when you look at the supply chain issues we’ve had, you do have some uptick in that. But some of this perceived inflation really is mostly a base effect more than anything else. And then when you layer the supply chain issues on top of that, then it’s really created a mess.

SM: All right. I hear you, Tony. That’s fair enough. However, rising prices in the US seem to be feeding into pockets of the real economy. Which sectors or areas do you see as most vulnerable to this?

TN: Housing, we’ve started to see people put off housing decisions as a result of this. It’s hitting food prices in a big way, especially protein. So pork, beef, chicken, these sorts of things. But we’re seeing corn, soybean and other crop prices rise pretty dramatically as well. Wheat prices are up pretty huge over the past week or so. And then automobiles, when you drive by a car lot, an automobile lot here, they’re really only half full because automakers have had to slow down for a number of reasons, whether it’s the metals prices or whether it’s the chip shortages, the auto manufacturers have had to slow down. So it’s really hit those three sectors very hard.

SM: These companies who are in these sectors, have they been able to actually pass on the rising cost to consumers?

TN: Some they have. But we’ve seen, some food companies or other folks pass them on in housing. Definitely, it’s been passed on directly and in automobiles, yes, but I think it’s a bigger supply chain issue than it is actually inflation issues. So they’ll pass on those costs in one certain form. But I don’t know that they’ll be able to get 100%  or recuperate 100% of those costs.

SM: So are we potentially seeing some margin squeeze from these companies who are impacted in the coming quarters when we look at the earnings?

TN: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think for companies who are complaining about the costs, but if they don’t see their margins squeezed, then we’ll know this is definitely temporary. But talking to almost any manufacturer here from polypropylene or polypropylene to ordering, industrial metals to wheat or something, everyone is feeling the pinch. But again, it’s as much access to supply as it is the cost of supply.

PS: So, Tony, you go upstream from propylene to actually Brent crude, and I think that’s hit $75 highest in 2 years. OPEC is meeting next week to decide whether they’re going to increase production. What’s your take?

TN: The U.S. crude prices are up a bit based on the drawdowns from storage in the U.S. and that’s on economic activity. States are finally kind of the states that had been holding back or finally opening up fully, which is good news for consumption. But with this Delta variant, there’s a real risk. It’s possible that Europe starts to lock down again as possibly parts of Asia start to lock down. Of course, we’ll have certain states in the U.S. that will probably move toward lock down again as well if it starts to impact.

So that’s a real risk on the consumption side. But for the OPEC+ group, they’re sitting on about 5.8 or 6 million barrels a day of production that they had before Covid. So they decided to cut this production so that prices wouldn’t go too negative or too far down. So they have that capacity that they can bring back online any time. If they discuss that next week, I don’t think OPEC wants to see oil prices because of the resentment it creates and the damage it does to consumers.

So I think there’ll be a lot of pressure on OPEC members to open up supply and bring prices down just a little bit. It’s not as if we need to see prices down in the 40s again, of course. But I think there’s a lot of fear that we’re going to see $80, $90, $100 oil and it is giving people a lot of reason for concern.

SM: All right. Well, we’ll be watching that meeting next week, Tony. And in a little bit of time that we have, one last quick question. What are you making about the volatility in Bitcoin that’s been happening this week? How much of it can be attributed to China’s crypto clampdown?

TN: Oh, sure. A lot of it can. About 70% of crypto mining globally happens in China. So as China clamps down, it really brings down the demand for Bitcoin and it brings down a lot of the pressure on the market. So it’s a little bit of regulatory and tax threat in the West, but it’s mostly the supply in China. And so a lot of that’s on the back of electrical grid pressures. So once the summer passes, the enforcement of that will likely lighten up and we’ll likely see more pressure on bitcoin, upward pressure on crypto markets.

SM: All right. Thank you for your time. That was Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence, giving us his views on markets. And I think what was interesting is that we can potentially see some companies being impacted by a margin squeeze because prices of certain goods, like you mentioned, meat in particular, lumber, corn or even, you know, all these downstream materials or byproducts of oil have gone up incredibly. And not all this price increase can be passed on to consumers because face it, the economy is just beginning to recover.

PS: Yeah, you know, because the these shubha transition. Right. Is it an issue of demand and demand is very high. Right. So maybe that when you can pass the price, but if it’s things like supply chain logistics as a result of, you know, breakages and, you know, it’s just all screwed up because of covid. Yeah, I think that’s very hard to pass on to the consumer. And that’s where the margin squeeze is going to take place.

SM: That’s right. And Tony mentioned automobiles as one of the areas where you’re going to see price rises. And I listen to this really fascinating podcast not too long ago on Planet Money, where they were talking about the used car sector. And the fact is that the they don’t have enough used cars to fill up the lots right now. So it really has that trickle down effect when you can’t, you know, produce more cars. Yeah, the second hand market will also suffer.

WSN: Apparently, Malaysia, our second hand market has also seen an uptick because of covid-19. There’s a reluctance for people to take public transport. So in the past, maybe you were you know, you hadn’t decided whether you want to buy a car, but now you’re kind of in that zone where you’re like, I need I need it because, you know, public transport, I’m not comfortable. Maybe this, you know, you think at the end of the day, why don’t I just get it rather sooner rather than later?

Plus, actually, interest rates are rather low. It’s only whether the question of whether you still have a job or whether how you feel in terms of sentiment.

PS: It’s fascinating because we talk about rising car prices and it’s also a lift to many things, lithium, SEMICON chips and all that. But on the flip side, we also talk about high oil prices coming through at the pump.

WSN: So we’re not so much for us because we are still subsidizing you run 95 Batla.

PS: Yeah, some of it’s going to be some of us. Pomerol 97.

SM: OK, I’m not one of those there.

PS: Well I do admit I do because my Volvo requires it. OK, in any case that is a challenge. I think in the long term it will hit the paycheck. Yeah. And the pocket later.

WSN: Well up next, we’ll be taking a look at the papers and the pottle. Stay tuned for that BFM eighty nine point nine.

Tony Nash joins BFM for another podcast where they discussed mainly the US meme stocks and what might the Fed do? Equities are trading in a range and what is the catalyst of that? They also discussed oil prices and inflation in China as China’s Producer Price Index surged to its highest since 2008.

This podcast first appeared and originally published at https://www.bfm.my/podcast/morning-run/market-watch/are-meme-stocks-just-relying-on-momentum on June 10, 2021.

❗️ Check out more of our insights in featured in the CI Newsletter and QuickHit interviews with experts.

❗️ Discover how Complete Intelligence can help your company be more profitable with AI and ML technologies. Book a demo here.

Show Notes

WSN: So to help us make some headway into why markets are in the red, we have on the line with us Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence. Good morning, Tony. U.S. equity markets seem to be trading in a rather tight range. What do you think the catalyst is going to be for markets to move either up or down?

TN: Sure. Everyone’s waiting for the Fed tomorrow morning to understand what direction and at what pace the Fed will tighten if they tighten or they twist or whatever they do. So it’s very much a fed and stimulus driven market. And people are waiting for the Fed to give them the sign for what’s next.

PS: And, Tony, the perspective on meme stocks like EMC, Clover Health, what’s happening there? Because yesterday there was a bit of downward pressure on them.

TN: They’re fun when you’re in the market with them, right? But you have to keep an eye on them all the time. I was talking to somebody earlier today who said they just bought one for fun. I think it was this morning. And 20 minutes later, they had made like 40 percent on their money and so they sold out. So, you just have to keep an eye on it minute by minute.

So if you’re in Asia, trading stocks is going to be a late night for you. But during the day here, people will buy in. They’ll see what happens. If they’re losing too much, they’ll sell quickly. If they’re making money, they’ll sell it once they hit their target.

WSN: So, Tony, you’re basically saying that all these treats have almost no fundamental basis in terms of valuations, is just momentum, is it?

TN: No, no. We’re at that point in the cycle where you’ve been on a small cap and make 40 percent. You’re not seeing much movement at all in the large cap stocks. You’re not seeing much movement at all in the indices. We’ve really gone to the long tail to see where the action is. And that’s really a scary time for the market.

The Fed knows this. They’re smart people, so they know that people are effectively gambling. So you’ve seen the kind of fears come out of crypto currencies over the past month. I wonder how that will happen. Or I expect the Feds to come out of equities or at least some of these more risky equities with some sort of Fed discussion.

WSN: So they fall dramatically like what we saw with Bitcoin. I mean, at one time, Bitcoin was up almost close to a hundred percent. And then on a year to date basis, it’s only up 20%. Is it all going to end in a bit of tears?

TN: It depends on which stock it is. Most of them are really just sentiment-based and very short-term sentiment-based. The Fed will suck money out of the economy or throw money into the economy. And if they do something to suck money out of the economy, then you can see that stuff. You could see those mean stocks really get boring really quickly.

WSN: So what are your expectations then in terms of the Fed and what they plan to do? I mean, how much of it is going to be driven by me, CPI numbers? Are you expecting inflation to be transitory or perhaps something more persistent?

TN: Yeah, I think well, you know, I think we’re going to see inflation to to be sticky for a few months, probably August, September. And we’ve been saying this for a while. But once once things are moving and there isn’t the kind of delightful surprise of reopening kind of at some point in the future. And it’s it’s happening already. You know, I think a lot of the excitement is going to fall out. There is not much more stimulus that can come out.

And so I think we’re going to hit a point where people kind of look at valuations and look at, say, revenue numbers and are just a little bit worried. So on the inflation side, things like eggs, the corn price, we expect the corn price to continue to rise in the summer. You know, soybean, these sorts of fundamentals, meats and proteins, they’re going to continue to rise on. Issues, but some of these other things like like some of the metals, these sorts of things, they may fall off.

TN: You’ve already seen copper start to stabilize. And so, you know, we see some of these things that have reached a point. We’re not sure that they’re necessarily going to go much higher, but we think they’ve kind of stabilized in a zone.

PS: And, Tony, you were mentioning just now about the defacing of equity does explain why treasuries rallied. Hot tenure yields are now at one point forty nine percent.

TN: Yeah, I think it does. I think people are you know, people are in a lot of cash right now. I mean, you see you see people worried, at least some of the the active investors that I know over the last, say, two months, more and more of them have moved to cash because they’re a little bit worried. So that’s not a big call on my part, saying we’re going to have market fallout. It’s just an observation of the more people I talk to, the more saying, look, we’ve really taken out of a lot of these speculative trades and really taken it to cash.

WSN: And let’s talk about oil. I mean, oil prices inching up or actually brought past the seventy dollars per barrel for WTI. Are we going to see U.S. shale producers return in a big way or will they take a wait and see approach?

TN: Do you know? You’ll see you’ll see an incremental return of shale producers. The real problem is that the OPEC plus group has about six point five million barrels sitting on the sidelines per month. So that’s accumulated. Right. And so they can turn that back on any time. So shale starts to come back in. They start to incrementally add barrels to the market and it pushes the oil price down. So I’m not all that worried about seeing, you know, a three figure oil price because there’s so much supply in the market and demand is coming on very slowly.

WSN: So do you think prices will be around this level? Can it break past 70 convincingly?

TN: It can. I mean, I think you can see you can see a little bit of upside from here, but I am not necessarily sure that we’ll see, you know, over 80 dollars or something like that on a sustained basis. There are a lot of people saying oil, the same people when oil was in the 30s, that it was going down a 20s and it would be there for the next two years. So, you know, I think you get the extremes in a lot of these commodity calls.

But but I don’t necessarily think we’re going there. It’s possible, but but it’s not within our outlook for sure.

WSN: All right. Thank you so much for your time. That was Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence, giving us his views on global markets. I think an interesting conversation about meme stocks because really that has grabbed headlines and a bit of question marks about what is driving price direction. And it’s actually not fundamental. It’s momentum. Maybe people just watching this and trying to make a quick buck out of it.

PS: If you’re in a different time zone, which I think Tony was alluding to, be prepared for very late nights at a roller coaster. Right. So if you’re doing the trading day and you can monitor and you can cut your losses, I think that’s the way to go. But if you’re based in Asia.

WSN: But I, I would I would put a caveat. I think this is not for everyone. Clearly, I think this is for maybe perhaps people who are a bit more sophisticated, willing to to stomach the risk reward because it could go either way.

PS: Well, we’ll think about it. Right. There is no theme in meme stocks.

WSN: You know, it’s whatever people like.

PS: Exactly. You’ve got Hertz a car rental. You’ve got GameStop a game gaming business. You’ve got AMC theater. There is no connection. There is no basis to see it as a collective theme. No one is going through. Maybe they all going through a hot time when some form or another. But it’s very hard to live on. That’s what you sit following the fundamentals.

WSN: Yeah, most of them actually in in the red. In the red, they’re all suffering from losses or they’re actually businesses, which like Blockbuster was one meems at one time, which is clearly going out of fashion. But, you know, there’s some for whatever reason, retail participation or interests.

PS: So it’s counter fundamental.

WSN: Yeah. Buy what you like.

It doesn’t have to make sense. But talking about something the markets like Singapore grab has has postponed the expected completion of its merger with the US. Back now, this ride hailing and food delivery giant Worx working on a financial audit for the past three years as the requirement, as per the requirement by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Now, according to a statement released yesterday, the deal is now set to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year versus earlier expectations of completion in the third quarter.

PS: I mean, grab post it really strong numbers. They’re consolidated. Group merchandise value rose 5.2 percent to USD three point six billion dollars. That’s equivalent to the total value of merchandise all over C2C extreme right now with strong food delivery growth offsetting a decline in rate, healing the companies that it didn’t provide revenue or profit. But grabs it in April, it’s set to have a market value of about 40 billion dollars after the combination with Altimeter Growth Corp., the spec of Brett Gutsiness, Altimeter Capital Management, now the combined entity stock will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker Greb after the completion of the deal.

But I’m just going to be really curious, what’s the appetite going to be like? Maybe we’ll get some color in terms of really how well they’re doing financially, because a lot of these type of apps, I mean, super apps, as you know, they might have really, really very strong top line numbers, but profit might be non-existent or really dismal. Right. Because all of these apps were basically trying to create market share at the expense of anything else.

And this is the challenge with growth stocks, where you have this risk of higher interest rates, you may not get the valuations you want. So this is the challenge. And you see the contrast between China and us in China as we were talking a Jacuzzi yesterday, all the IPO for quite retail centric. But if you see what’s happening in the U.S., the IPOs are not so retail centric, you know, yes, they tend to be quite B2B driving enterprise growth and all that because it’s a different market in this market.

And they don’t really think about growth in the way maybe China thinks about it.

WSN: Yeah, but I’m just curious what kind of valuations at the end of the day they’ll get so but we definitely, definitely be watching this space very closely. I think this is clearly Southeast Asia’s big unicorn that everyone is keeping your eye on. BFM eighty nine point nine.

Our CEO and founder Tony Nash is back on the BBC Business Matters for the discussion on US banks and why they are not helping enough during the pandemic, India’s Covid and their vaccine efforts, and Friends the Reunion. 

This podcast was published on May 28, 2021 and the original source can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172xvqbttq78ml.

BBC Business Matters Description:

Big US banks have been criticised for not doing enough to help ordinary people during the pandemic. The bosses of JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs were grilled during an appearance before US lawmakers.

Also in the programme, following the deaths of more than 315,000 people from coronavirus, India could fast track the clearance of some foreign vaccines in a bid to speed up vaccination in the country. The BBC’s Rahul Tandon has an extended report on how the country’s rollout is going so far.

Staying in India – we look at the relationship it has with Twitter. The information technology ministry in India has criticised the social media giant after it expressed concern over the potential threat to freedom of expression in the country.

Plus, as the cast of TV sitcom Friends reunite for a one-off special to look back at the making of the show, we discuss why it remains so popular.

Show Notes

RT: Then from Houston, Texas, we have the founder of Complete Intelligence, Tony Nash. I’m always very reassured to have Complete Intelligence on the program as a man of limited intelligence. Yes.

Tony, does that mean looking ahead and this is not a reflection on the current CEOs, but banks are going to have very different CEOs because it’s not all about the numbers anymore, is it?

TN: Well, I think these are smart CEOs, they can handle handle their own. I don’t necessarily think these guys are not skilled enough to handle these topics. These banks handle these topics every day. I think the range of questioning, to be honest, really shows just a lack of focus. These companies are better served when they focus on an issue and go deep on it.

RT: What should they be and focus on? What would you focus on?

TN: Whether it’s green loans or whether it’s access to finance are such rich topics that they could have spent the entire hearing on. And I think the hearing was really meant for a lot of one liners so that people could be seen in the media more than really a desire to dig deeply into this. So, for example, the the fees that were levied, the saving rate of Americans right now is 21 percent. Normally that’s five percent or seven percent, something like that, but it’s 21 percent.

So Americans generally have money. I’m not saying that it wasn’t the overdraft fees were not unfair in some cases, but it’s not as if that was kind of a massive hot button issue really until today. Americans hate banking fees. I think everyone hates banking fees. But I think it was just kind of an opportunistic thing to talk about.

What would have been really interesting to talk about is how those major banks, specifically for things like PPY loans, they did not cater to small businesses, OK, they catered to their largest clients.

RT: Interesting points that from Tony. What do you think? Tony. Anyway she’s part of the world that you know very well here entering an emerging market that should he said there with this strong man, but that’s something you’ll have to do if you want to grow your business.

TN: I think what Twitter has done with government accounts globally is it’s put a label this is from a government account or this is from a person who works for the government. So in the West and I’m sure in the U.K. and other places, you can see, for example, Chinese government spokespeople put out things that are obviously false that Twitter doesn’t police. They have to apply the rules evenly to everybody. So if they’re going to apply these rules to an Indian government official or an American government official, they have to also apply it to a Chinese government official or a Japanese government official. The problem that Twitter has is it is not treating its users equally around the globe.

RT: Twitter having to deal with people from countries. You may not be telling the truth. You mentioned China there. But if an Indian member of the government appears to be not telling the truth and Twitter says so, there’s nothing wrong with that. It has does to stand up on that principle now or does it cave in and say to the Indian government, “OK, we’re going to follow that rule because your market so big?”

TN: Well, Twitter is supposed to be a non-partizan platform. And so they are intervening as partizans at times, and that’s just not fair.

RT: They shouldn’t say anything. Just let people say what they want?

TN: I think they label as a government account. And if it’s seen as government propaganda, then either they let it go or they apply it evenly across all government accounts.

RT: Tony, if I can come to you firstly in Houston, in Texas, a personal question, I suppose. I mean, have you been vaccinated? Tell us a bit about the vaccination situation where I would imagine it’s quite good.

TN: So Texas has about 40 percent of its population vaccinated, and I think it’s 22 million people. So it’s nothing on the scale. I haven’t been vaccinated. I’ve wanted people who’ve needed it to go first. So I’m happy to wait on that so that older people or people at risk or whatever can go first. But the U.S. generally has about 40 percent of the population vaccinated. So things are pretty well advanced here. I was glad to see the U.S. government start to support India about  a week and a half ago or something two weeks ago? I think it was really, really late. I think they should have supported India much, much earlier.

RT: Well, I think it’s very admirable that you’re that you’re that sort of attitude that you’ve taken to vaccination. Tony, if you want to get vaccinated in the U.S., what’s the process that you have to go through? One thing that intrigued me was that in India, a country where many people still struggle when it comes to the Internet, the booking system is only online at this particular point in time and only in English. You obviously have large Hispanic community in Texas. Tell us a little bit about how you book it and sort of language abilities that.

TN: It’s online in Texas that I haven’t booked again, because I’ve been waiting for all these other populations to clear, but in Texas it has to be in multiple languages. I mean, we have such large communities here, not just Hispanic communities, but Vietnamese communities and other communities. So it has to be in other languages on the site. A look while we’re talking and if I can find it in time, I’ll let you know.

RT: Great. But if you can’t go online because, you know, there are many parts of the world, as you know, my parents struggle to go online. Sometimes they struggle with many things, really. But online is one of them. Can you make a phone call in Texas to get it? Is there another way? Can you just walk into a center?

TN: I’m not sure if you can just walk in, but there are multiple ways of contact. I’m on the website now, so there are multiple ways to contact. It’s a very, very simple website and it’s a multi-language website. So, yeah, there are multiple ways to get in touch with them with phone number, toll free telephone numbers, even for hearing impaired telephone numbers. So there’s a lot of ways to contact.

RT: Can I just say that was Complete Intelligence there from Tony just getting on the website and doing some live reporting for duty. Certainly did a great job at the Olympic Games are being held in Texas, Tony. And they weren’t vaccines available for the local population. And then you had thousands of people coming in, athletes who would get the vaccination. Do you think that would annoy people?

TN: I don’t think it would annoy people, I mean, Texas is open, we have sporting events and concerts and everything that are alive now. So I, I think Texans view is, look, if you want to get the vaccine, that’s totally fine. If you don’t want to get it, that’s totally fine. And so, you know, if a lot of people were coming in with vaccines, I think people would be fine with it. I don’t think they would they would be concerned if they knew that infected people were coming in. But if people were coming in, you know, checked with vaccines or without vaccines, I don’t think anybody would really mind either way.

RT: Quickly, do you think it’ll go ahead to.

TN: The Olympics, yeah, I hope it does, but I’m not optimistic, I mean, I’m going to say no at this point, but I really wish it would. The world needs something positive to focus on, and an Olympics would be an amazingly positive thing for us to focus on that issue.

RT: I think we all need something positive to focus on. Which one of you is the big Friends fan or are you both maybe.

SR: I like friends, but not a super fan.

RT: Tony.

TN: That was I was in my 20s when friends was out, so it was just kind of on in the background. It was kind of about people around my age. We had Seinfeld, we had Friends. I mean, the 90s was some really great TV. So it was good. It was a good show.

It was of the time Ross had girlfriends of different races. Ross, his ex-wife was in a same sex couple. Now you know all that stuff. So, I mean, I hear that criticism. But I think at some level, you would always do things differently if you could redo them. But at the time, I think they did a lot. You can’t see history through today’s lenses. You really have to look at it at a contemporary through contemporary lens. And at the time, they were doing a lot of.

RT: Yes. Thank you very much to both of you. Let us end the program, whether you like it or not, with a theme tune from friends.

This week in markets it’s all about the rising spectre of inflation in the US, and how it informs and shapes the markets, especially in the context of jobless claims and GDP data due out later today.

This podcast first appeared and originally published at https://www.bfm.my/podcast/morning-run/market-watch/investors-pause-to-ponder-as-markets-near-records-and-prices-rise on May 27, 2021.

❗️ Check out more of our insights in featured in the CI Newsletter and QuickHit interviews with experts.

❗️ Discover how Complete Intelligence can help your company be more profitable with AI and ML technologies. Book a demo here.

Show Notes

KHC: So to discuss markets, we’ve got on the line with us Tony Nash, the chief executive of Complete Intelligence. And Tony, let’s start with the recent stimulus measures and, of course, the rising specter of inflation. In your opinion, what is your sense of whether the inflationary numbers are transitory or rather more permanent in nature?

TN: I think it really depends on the products you’re looking at. So if we look at products like lumber or corn or some of the eggs, the non protein, meaning hogs and cattle, if you look at the plant type of eggs, that inflation seems to be coming off. It seems to be at least off of the peaks for now if we’re looking at the protein stocks. So pork and chicken and beef, the storage of protein products is pretty low.

In some cases, it’s 20 some percent below the product that we had a year ago. So I would expect an ongoing rising prices for things like meat over the next three to six months. But oil, I think we’re range trading in oil. I don’t necessarily see a spiking up in oil. We haven’t seen inflation in oil like we’ve seen in other commodities.

PS: Still in U.S. With respect to the stimulus, I think that’s resulted with individuals having a much higher level of personal savings. How do you think that is going to be utilized in the coming months?

TN: Sure, yeah. The personal savings in Q1 of this year was around 21% of Americans income. So there’s almost a lot of fiscal stimulus in the US. Normally, if we look 20 years ago in 2001 and the same quarter, the savings rate was 5%. So it’s more than four times normal. So how do we think it’s going to be spent? Probably on services, probably on things that people haven’t been able to do while they’ve been locked down for things like travel, restaurants.

I would expect to see a lot more spending at restaurants later in Q2, Q3 and Q4 of this year travel. Well, we definitely expect that to come back. But the hotel spending we think may be more regional rather than national or international.

WSN: So, Tony, does this mean that we should start looking at these kind of stocks? And so you’re talking about hospitality, aviation, even restaurants. Should we be buying these companies?

TN: No, I think it depends on the stock. It really is the type of market where you have to look at the individual stocks because valuations and really almost any other gauge for measuring the value of a company is pretty stretched right now. So you’d really have to identify the type of investing on it to make and really look at where you think that’s going over time. So will these valuations hold? Will the different metrics that people are looking at going to hold? A lot of these things are already baked into to the price of equities. So I’m not sure how much more we can juice out of these equities right now.

WSN: And this is not just the the sectors that we talked about. You’re talking about generally the broader market overall be over everything. So then how should we determine our asset allocation? I mean, should we move back into cash or should we look at other markets, for example, not just US?

TN: Well, yes, I think you really have to look at it on an opportunity by opportunity basis. I think we’re at that point in the market, in the cycle where you really have to evaluate every single opportunity individually. I think a lot rests on the upcoming Fed meeting on June 15. So we’ll know on June 15th as the Fed signaling that they’re going to tighten a little bit is going to be a little bit of taper. Are they going to continue running down the street with their hair on fire, just throwing cash out to everybody? If it’s the latter, then sure, we have some ability to stretch these values even more. If not, I think there’s going to be a lot of care taken and we’ll see a little bit of rotation into some things like gold and other things.

KHC: So more immediately, Tony, this week we’ve got jobless claims data and of course, GDP. How, if at all, with those data points, shape your investing decisions going into the weekend.

TN: Well, I think unemployment is a big one because last month’s number was so terrible, so if we have another terrible unemployment rate, it’s easy. If last month was terrible and it was a one off, then fine. But if it’s another terrible number, then I think that’s a really bad sign. But the Fed and the Treasury are wrestling with the fact that there’s really too much stimulus out there. So people are paid an extra twelve hundred US dollars a month to stay at home instead of go out and get a job.

So a lot of small business owners, restaurants and shops and these types of hourly workers, those employers can’t afford to hire people or the people making who would normally take those jobs are literally choosing to stay home and collect unemployment instead of get a job, because, again, they’re making more than a thousand dollars a month, literally by refusing to take a job. So that’s a disincentive for people to join the workforce, but to stay actively unemployed.

Supposedly, they’re looking for a job, but to not really take a job because they can make so much more money. Now, you have something like twenty seven states in the US that have now said they no longer want the federal unemployment kind of accelerator, which is that three hundred dollars a week extra on top of the normal unemployment people would get because the states are seeing that their companies are having a really hard time finding work.

And so if they no longer take federal money, then those small companies and those change will have an easier time finding workers.

PS: And Tony, can we give you a perspective on the current crypto volatility in your view, whether it will cause the contagion effect on price levels of traditional assets like equities or bonds?

TN: That’s a good question, you know, crypto came off big time, right, last week and over the last couple of weeks, and then it is interesting that there really hasn’t been a contagion to speak of. And a couple of notable things. When we’ve seen equities fall that much or commodities or something, there’s always a contagion. Right. And what always happens is central banks come in to intervene and help the markets. And what I’m wondering is that expectation that central banks are going to intervene, does that accelerate the contagion effect so the central banks would bear save the market, the potentially contagious markets with those markets because of falling and it hasn’t gone over to other markets?

Nobody expected central banks to intervene in crypto. So it’s a really interesting study on how markets function and also what people’s allocations were. I mean, a lot of people have money in crypto. They may not have a lot of money in crypto, but it’s a widely distributed asset that people have. It’s also seen as kind of a lottery ticket and gamble.

WSN: So Tony, do you have money in crypto?

TN: I don’t know if you guys follow me on Twitter, but I talk about my 19, 20 year old daughter who put, fifty dollars in crypto, and I think she was up six times at one point. I think now she’s up. Well, she’s probably still up six times. She was up, I think 15 times at one point.

PS: But she stood up.

WSN: So, yeah, you’re still the richest in the house.

TN: You know, your student, right. I got in with a little bit just after her, so. But it’s not a big bet. I’m just really curious to see how this asset performs. One of the learning she’s had is take out your principal as soon as you can, and she’s done that. So everything she’s playing with is profit. And I think that’s the guy that a lot of crypto investors are using is, hey, take out your principal when you can. Everything else is profit. And let’s just see where it goes.

KHC: Well, thanks, Tony. She has a good teacher. That was Tony. That is the chief executive of Complete Intelligence. Just on the back of what he was talking about with the stimulus checks. I mean, I’m rereading one of Jim Rodgers’s book, which got it to that last night. And when he was traveling through China, he noticed that in China, 30 percent of income is typically going to a savings rate in America. That number in the 90s when he wrote this book was around about two percent.

So Americans don’t have a culture of saving. They have a culture of spending. And because they get the stimulus checks, I think there’s a longer term discussion about what this is going to do on the job market because the Americans getting more money than they used to get in their previous jobs by sitting on their backsides in the couch. Right.

WSN: But it’s just not correct. They are going through and. Correct.

KHC: Yes, but they don’t behave this way. Right. They don’t save it for the long of the. And rub it Robinhood or they couldn’t buy an iPhone. Right.

WSN: I think this is the Robin Hood in the iPhone. You know, I want to put this into context. Yes. I’m sure some spend their money that way. But there were also some people who really need it, of course, check. So like in any economy in the recovery, you’ve got this case shape. So, you know, but I think what does this mean for the U.S. economy in terms of inflation? Pressure is the job market as well?

PS: Yeah, I think the question was whether they should have been more targeted, the stimulus, because he was quite overreaching and basically touched, I think, about 80 percent of people. That’s the challenge in question here.

As US and other markets decouple in terms of recovery trajectories, should investors adjust their portfolio? BFM spoke to Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence, on the major selldown of cryptocurrencies, as well as his thoughts on oil, gold, and inflation.

This podcast first appeared and originally published at https://www.bfm.my/podcast/morning-run/market-watch/whats-next-for-crude-oil-gold-and-cryptos on May 21, 2021.

❗️ Check out more of our insights in featured in the CI Newsletter and QuickHit interviews with experts.

❗️ Discover how Complete Intelligence can help your company be more profitable with AI and ML technologies. Book a demo here.

Show Notes

RK: Well, choppy waters, to say the least. There is a little bit of a mixed day yesterday over in Asia. But right now, to talk more about global markets, we have Tony Nash CEO for Complete Intelligence for more insights here. Tony, good morning and thank you for joining us on the line. Now, it looks like the U.S. and other markets are beginning to decouple in terms of recovery trajectories. How do you think investors should allocate their portfolios according to this scenario?

TN: Well, obviously depends on the time, but I think that some action was taken yesterday in the U.S. around Fed comments as people were trying to decipher whether those comments were positive or negative. And today, I think they realized they were actually fairly dovish comments. So the U.S. is positioning itself to grow and other parts of the world say Europe and parts of Asia are still very conservative about opening until, you know, I think with the places that are being fairly conservative about opening, it really depends on investment, really depends on government assistance, monetary policy, you know, these sorts of things.

So investing in those markets depends on support that those companies are going to get and how how those investments will perform.

LM: Yeah, I’m just wondering, there has been increasing fears about inflation. Is that influencing or changing your views right now?

TN: Well, so, you know, we’re realizing that things like like lumber prices, which a lot of people talk about, that’s been a processing issue in sawmills. There’s a lot of raw lumber out there. Those prices in many cases are the same as they were like, say, 10 years ago. OK, it’s the process into their bottom and making issues in a number of other areas. One area that we’re keeping an eye on is crude oil, which I know is important later, of course.

And we’re not we don’t expect a dramatic rise in crude oil prices, partly because I still have six million barrels a day on the sidelines right now. So even if we saw a dramatic uptick in travel and other activity, power generation and so on, there’s spare capacity on the sidelines for a lot of countries to be holding down. So we don’t expect to see and short of having production cuts, we don’t expect to see dramatic oil price rises because that that supply will come on the market as needed.

RK: Right. And beyond crude, Tony, do you know crude oil in general is quite correlated to inflationary pressures and prices, but beyond crude oil, are you paying attention to any other commodities out there? Because, you know, we’re seeing a surge in all of them. Which ones particularly catch your eye?

TN: For industrial metals are the ones that have really rallied from, say, November or December through this month? What we expect is not pricing to continue to stay strong, but the rate of rise will will slow down.

OK, so we’ll continue, for example, to see high copper prices, but we don’t expect copper prices to rise at the same rate as they had been for the past five or six months. We see that across the board in a lot of commodities where we have seen really dramatic rises based on, you know, government spending, monetary policy and also uncertainty about the direction of the dollar when these things are positioned in or denominated in U.S. dollars. We’ve also seen over that same time, because it’s so going that in China we saw the Chinese renminbi appreciate pretty dramatically, which made the dollar denominated commodities really cheap.

And so there’s been accumulation of those commodities in China, whether it’s food or whether it’s industrial or metals. And we’ve seen that stuff accumulated in China because these things are really kind of pretty cheap for them in China in terms.

RK: And one more commodities. Want to get your views on here, Tony, is gold because it’s seen some strengthening over the last few weeks. In fact, you know, it was more towards the high single digits. Now it’s at the one percent range. Do you expect it to break into the green? And what kind of range do you expect for the year?

TN: You know, we do expect gold to continue to rise at least through August, August, September. We think that there’s kind of a sweet spot and people take a pause on, say, cryptocurrency. And as people look at some of these other metals and other commodities where the growth opportunity has slowed, we do expect attention to gold as well as kind of other inflation and currency risk type of focus will turn to gold as well. We expect there to rise through those then kind of a pause late Q3 and then we expect that to continue toward the end of the year.

So we’re not looking at a doubling of prices or looking at a know, low double digit type of price rises in.

LM: And Tony, twenty twenty one was supposed to be a bumper year for U.S. IPOs. Is it still buoyant or has sentiment turned more south?

TN: No, no, even seems like like Robin Hood starting to offer fractional IPO shares on their platform. So where IPO are typically restricted to a select few? We’re starting to see some things happen where where smaller investors are given opportunities in some of these IPO. So we do expect that to continue as long as investors are there to invest in IPO. And we don’t necessarily expect that that will taper off dramatically. We may see some hesitation if we see markets turn south in June, July, but we won’t necessarily see a dramatic taper off to the end of the year.

NL: So we have seen the major sell down of crypto currencies. How is the volatility affecting crypto companies like Coinbase and market confidence to gain legitimacy with institutional investors?

TN: Yeah, no doubt it’s hurting their credibility because cryptocurrency has kind of become a bit of a mockery over the past week or so, we assume on tweets and a number of other things. But I don’t necessarily believe that crypto currencies are a thing of the past. They haven’t been retired yet, but we do expect to see cryptocurrency is more regulation, more explicit regulation and kind of soft infrastructure around cryptocurrency like Coinbase that goes along with it. They’ll have the infrastructure to be able to help in that crypto investors who along with regulation and do just fine.

TN: So I don’t think crypto her dad the new not necessarily realize that they thought they may, but but I do think it’s still something that’s viable within the broad based interests.

RK: Thank you so much for your time this morning. That was Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence. And let’s take a quick look over at the coin prices right now. Bitcoin thing, a little bit of a recovery. It’s up two point six per cent now, forty one thousand dollars and on a year to date basis, up to forty one point six percent year to date, still far off from the 100 percent or 90 percent year to date gains we saw earlier this this year.

We take a look at Etha. It is now two thousand seven hundred and seventeen dollars, or seventy two thousand two hundred eighty dollars a coin up a little bit, point four percent year to date, up 275 percent.

NL: Yeah, very quickly as well. Taking a look at a piece of news, the first quarter of 2021 doesn’t appear to be working out in a week’s favor. According to the F.T., Quarterly losses almost quadrupled on year to over two billion dollars.

RK: We work not working. Yeah, that’s a headline in the making right there. The losses incurred as so far this year, three point two billion dollars in 2020. Revenue fell almost 50 percent on year from one point one billion to six hundred million dollars. And the company lost around 200000 customers from a year ago. And this, of course, all information, according to the Financial Times, because this is not a public listed company just yet. In fact, they’re looking to try and go public again later this year after their first failed attempt a year to be eighty nine point nine.

Our CEO Tony Nash recently guested at the BBC Business Matters to share his thoughts on the lifting of the vaccine patent protections to help in manufacturing more vaccines faster. Is that fair specially in this time of need? Also discussed are the special case of Facebook and Twitter’s suspension of Donald Trump’s social media accounts, college football, and the growing industry of recycled furniture.

This podcast was published on May 6, 2021 and the original source can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172xvq9r0rsxwz.

BBC Business Matters Description:

The US government has backed a temporary suspension of intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines in a move likely to enrage the pharmaceutical industry, which strongly opposes a so-called waiver. Shares of the major coronavirus vaccine companies were hit by the announcement but is it just an empty gesture? We speak to Jorge Contreras, Chair of the Open Covid Pledge, a group that is lobbying organisations to share their patents and copyrights in relation to vaccine efforts. We also hear from Thomas Cueni, of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations. And there’s no status update for Donald Trump anytime soon; Facebook decides to uphold it’s ban of the former US president. We speak to Issie Lapowsky, Senior Reporter at tech site Protocol. Also in the programme, college sports in the United States are a big business, but the athletes taking part have typically been compensated through scholarships rather than salaries. But could that change? The BBC’s Will Bain reports. Plus, the Swedish furniture retailer Ikea has launched a scheme in the UK to buy unwanted furniture back from its customers, in a bid to save items from going to landfill. Hege Saebjornsen is the company’s sustainability manager for the UK and Ireland explains how it works. And we’re joined throughout the programme by Tony Nash, chief economist at Complete Intelligence in Texas and the writer, Rachel Cartland in Hong Kong.

Show Notes

VS: Tony, do you think, people in Texas will be as upbeat as George, our first speaker?

TN: Yeah, absolutely, I think people here are pretty happy about that. A couple of weeks ago, there was an uproar in India over Americans not sharing vaccines with India. Houston has a very large Indian community. And so we were very supportive of everything that could be done to help get vaccine components and vaccine intellectual property to India. So this is a positive development in every way.

VS: And so in terms of an anxiety of giving vaccines away before the population is fully inoculated, does that not exist in your experience?

TN: I don’t think so. There’s plenty of capacity, at least in Texas, if you want a vaccine today, you can sign up to get it. So it’s not really an issue here. I think India has the manufacturing capacity and the know how to do very good vaccines in India. So once the licensing is clear and the components are there, they can manufacture for India and for many parts of Asia, Middle East and Africa.

VS: Tony, what does this actually mean for Donald Trump? He’s not allowed to use social media at the moment.

TN: There are other social media channels, but I think it’s bigger than that. I think the real issue here is around what’s called section 230 in the U.S. government, which allows websites to not be considered publishers. And under Section 230, they are supposed to provide unrestricted access to posting content unless it’s a rules based system. This is clearly a personal deal. Whether you like Trump or not, this is this is making special rules for an individual. I think the bigger issue is around whether Facebook and Twitter and the other social platforms are abiding by Section 230 or whether they should be considered publishers. The BBC is a publisher there and certain things that the BBC has to adhere to that Facebook doesn’t. And so if Facebook was a publisher, they would have to adhere to the rules that the BBC abides by. So if they’re going to restrict postings like this, they should be a publisher. Otherwise, they need to have rules that they enforced regardless of the individual, regardless of the political party, regardless of the country someone from. I think they need to be applied consistently.

VS: So this idea of this board is a way of sort of perhaps circumventing that.

TN: But nobody does. I mean, nobody if you ask anybody in America, nobody actually believes this is an unbiased board. It’s just a fallacy so…

VS: Wide ranging from all around the world, different types of backgrounds. So you can kind of argue that they are a mixed background with lots of different worldviews.

TN: I run an artificial intelligence company. Nobody in the technology community, hand on heart. I actually believe this is an unbiased view. I’m sorry. It’s just not true. And it’s a big pretend game to act like this is unbiased. I’m not on Trump’s side here necessarily. But if you’re going to make rules personal, that really companies lose credibility as a result of that. And all I’m saying is that Facebook should be considered a publisher and they should abide by the rules that publishers like the BBC abide by.

VS: I’m sure it’s not going to last that we’re going to hear from this issue. And for those of us outside the United States, we don’t understand the significance of college football in everyday American life. Tony, you’re in Texas. Can you paint us a picture of that?

TN: Yeah, so college football is not professional and it’s kind of professionalizing, but by professional, I mean paid, right. So this California bill starts to professionalize college football. I think part of the problem with that step is that we have students who come out of high school effectively 17 or 18 year olds who have really raw talent. They’re not necessarily trained to play professionally. They typically spend time with high caliber coaches in universities to develop their skills in their craft over three to four years. Many of them go out early to try to go pro, but it’s over three to four years and then they’ll go into the professional leagues and make money.

So there is a very large investment that universities are making into those athletes. And what happens at the university level is,  when students come to a university, they do get a scholarship. The athletic dorms are not normal dorms. They are first class dorms. The food they eat is first class food. I’ve been in their cafeterias. It’s amazing. So they are not treated like normal students. So they do get a lot of advantages above a scholarship, but there’s this huge investment in their skill. And so, the other side of this is if students want to get paid when they leave high school, they’re welcome to try to go pro after their senior year in high school when they’re 18 years old.

And so if there’s a problem with them getting paid, they’re welcome to to try to join the draft and go through that process. They can do it at any time. They could go pro at 18 years old. I doubt many of them, if any of them, at least in football, would would qualify, would get drafted by a team.

VS: As you say and say presumably then, sports is encouraged at quite a young age, given how lucrative it can can be.

TN: Sure. And so they can try to do that, LeBron James actually went into the NBA out of high school, he never went to university. So there are kind of phenoms who can do that and, more power to those guys. They’re welcome to do it. But university, so the school where I went, where I did my undergrad is Texas A&M University. It has the largest revenue sports program of any university in the United States, very large. But the facilities that Texas A&M has for their student athletes are amazing. They rival any pro facility. And so what’s happened over probably the past 20 years, I would say, is a dramatic kind of upskilling and a dramatic improvement of not just the facilities, but the coaches.

And so there are coaches who go from college level to pro and back because the skills that they impart on the students are are amazing. So, the path to getting paid for your sport is one that is always there. They can always go pro straight out of high school. LeBron James did it, other athletes to it. But it’s a very, very, extremely rare process, I think, paying student athletes. Part of the reason I like college football, I prefer college football to pro because you root for a team in college football, you don’t root for an individual in pro football, really. It’s rooting for individuals. And it’s not really a team sport as much as it is at the college level. So I think a lot would change. I really do think a lot would change.

VS: When we heard that about Rachel’s lockdown project. Lack of. And are you cycling anything?

TN: Always, you know, so we just moved back to the U.S. about three years ago, so we’re not recycling much, but when we lived in Asia, we would regularly recycle as my kids grew up, as we worked through furniture, we would regularly, regularly recycle in Singapore.

There’s a guy named the current goony man in every neighborhood who would come and take your recycled materials. And so we would work with with him and he would donate it or something like that. So, you know, every community has its own way of dealing with these things.

VS: Do you sell on furniture that you don’t know because of these websites these days? You can do that well now.

TN: We do that as well. And it’s pretty common. I mean, there are loads of websites where we can do that. So it’s pretty common. We don’t really throw away much big stuff there. We had my son, my son’s bunk bed here. We just sold it on one of those sites about six months ago. So, yes, it’s very common.

VS: Costly to these sites around. Don’t say I wonder if if a company or a retailer decides that they’re going to buy back things. They’ve actually got quite a bit of competition, haven’t they?

TN: Yeah, I mean, I think they’ve probably done that calculation, it’s a pretty crowded market, so, you know, people will dispose of it in a pretty economic way and make money where they can. So I don’t know that everything will be coming back to them.

That’s probably just a small, small fraction that will actually.

VS: Thank you very much, Rachel and Tony, for joining me today.