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The Business Station Malaysia spoke to Tony about his insights from the Federal Reserve’s minutes released yesterday as well as his thoughts on Chinese manufacturing as activity slowly ramps up again. How long will it take for global supply chains to return to a sense of normalcy?

 

Beyond that, this podcast also get into Germany’s economy as weak economic data dragged down the Euro, and thoughts on whether we’ll see Asian Central Banks cut rates due to the Covid-19.

 

Listen to the podcast in BFM: The Business Station 89.9.

Brexit’s impact on the Sterling and tech stocks at nosebleed-highs are the subject of the day’s market discussion with Tony Nash, Founder and CEO of Complete Intelligence.

 

You forecasted that any loss in trade to be modest at best. Why do you say that?

 

“The nation tariff rate for non-EU member is something like 2.3%–2% on the price of anything is not going make a major difference. The trickier issue is the non-tariff barriers that Europe has. The UK has to navigate around those non-tariff barriers,” said Nash.

 

“In terms of country partners, the US is actually the largest trade partner of the UK. It’s around $67-68 billion a year. The second largest export partner in Germany at about $45 billion dollars. The EU as an aggregate partner is, of course, larger than the US. But the EU as a trade partner is stagnant. It’s not growing from the UK. It hasn’t grown noticeably since 2015/16. Meanwhile, the US is growing at a billion dollars per year.”

 

Where do you see the Pound this year?

 

“We’re seeing the Pound continuing to strengthen until about April. And once April hits, we see some of its strength tail off just a bit,” said Nash.

 

Listen to the Brexit’s impact podcast at BFM: The Business Station.

Over 26 million people are now Disney+ subscribers since it launched in November. Announcing the company’s quarterly results, Disney’s chief executive Bob Iger said the numbers had “exceeded even our greatest expectations.” We get an analysis from Zoe Thomas, BBC North America technology correspondent.

 

Shares in electric vehicle maker Tesla have quadrupled in the last six months. That’s despite several analysts previously predicting the company would go bust, due to its high debts and spiraling costs. Tim Higgins, automotive and tech reporter at the Wall Street Journal, tells us why Tesla’s fortunes appear to have changed.

 

And as a London City worker – reportedly earning more than £1 million a year – is suspended for stealing sandwiches, we ask psychologist Emma Citron what drives people to behave in such ways.

 

Jamie Robertson is joined throughout the program by Tony Nash, Founder and CEO at Complete Intelligence, who’s in Houston in Texas and Stefanie Yuen Thio, joint managing partner at TSMP Law in Singapore.

 

Listen to the podcast at BBC Business Matters.

Tony Nash, founder, CEO and Chief Economist of Complete Intelligence is a guest in RTHK’s Business and Market Discussion podcast. He says that the lockdown of major Chinese cities could make foreign enterprises re-think their supply chain strategy.

 

Some notes below:

 

Do you see this in the US purely as a China problem or is it a global problem?

 

People here are taking precautions. A lot of airlines have stopped direct flights to China. People are concerned about it, but that’s not an overwhelming worry. The preparations that are happening around Asia, but we had this drill before. From a western perspective, it looks like these preparations are being mode and it’s a panic mode. I think Asian governments are doing the right thing by ramping up and preparing for the worst. Best case, it’s not really that bad, but we’ve done all these preparations just in case.

 

How this is hitting tourism, retail sales, trade, commerce because Wuhan is a logistics center. The whole country is virtually shut down. People are not traveling at the moment. You can imagine China will take a big economic hit. One think tank saying economic growth could drop below 5 percent.

 

I would argue that it’s already below 5% for about a year. The magnitude of the response is enough for anyone to get nervous. I think the response is the right response, but it has made people nervous. It’s a difficult balance to strike for the Chinese government. Yes, it will have a hit to the economy. But there may be a sharp rebound.

 

It’s happening over the new year season. But in terms of manufacturing and exports, if these things can be contained before the end of new year, it can be rebound.

 

And that’s because there will be a lot of demands once this is over.

 

How about the impacts on commodities? Copper? Ag products?

 

These are all the typical fear plays when people are worried or when China is in crisis. Traders are shorting because the trade deal may not be implemented. My hope is for the government to turn this around in a couple of weeks.

 

I think that it’s oversold like Gold is overplayed. People are still learning the magnitude of the impact.

 

Do you think this could derail the Phase 1 deal?

 

There are two years for that. This is a relatively short impact like 1 to 2 months. I don’t think the demands will change that much. Because there will be a spike on buying. If this is a medium impact, then this will change.

 

This maybe the event that pushes some manufacturers over the end, and may start moving their production capacity to other areas.

 

And that’s the thing that there’ll be a long impact on the Chinese economy.

 

Absolutely, and that’s where the economy will be stagnant. That’s the main worry.

 

Do you think there will be a big equities sell-off?

 

It’s possible but I don’t think it will happen until we have evidence about the cases or intensity of the impact. We have to wait a little bit of time to see if these are properly reported cases.

 

Listen to the podcast at RTHK.HK’s Money Talk Podcast. 

Huawei chief operating officer appears in a Canadian court to fight extradition to the United States on charges of fraud and breaching sanctions on Iran.

 

The United States Census for 2020 is launched in Alaska, an important exercise for economic planning – we hear from Gabriel Layman, the Chief Operating Officer of Cook Inlet Housing Authority, about the quirks of gathering such huge amounts of information.

 

And baseball is hit by a cheating scandal which could prompt advertisers to walk. And in Japan, a major restaurant chain is feeling the effects of the country’s ageing population.

 

We discuss all this with live guests Sushma Ramachandran, an independent business journalist for The Tribune newspaper in Delhi, and Tony Nash, chief economist at Complete Intelligence in Houston, Texas.

 

Listen to the podcast at BBC Business Matters.

Tony Nash, CEO and Founder of Complete Intelligence gives his analysis on the main takeaway from the US-China phase one trade deal and when could a phase two deal takes place.

 

Tony is a guest commentator in Singapore’s Money FM 89.3.

 

Listen to the podcast at Money FM 89.3.