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Energy Market on the Brink: Russia, CNY, and the Fed’s Dilemma

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In the latest episode of The Week Ahead, Tony Nash is joined by Michael Nicoletos, Tracy Shuchart, and Albert Marko. The panel first explores Russia’s recent announcement that it would use CNY for trade settlement outside of the US and Europe. Michael Nicoletos explains that this move could be viable, but it would depend on whether all countries would accept the terms of trade.

Albert Marko believes that the recent rate hike was the right thing to do and predicted that the Fed would raise rates twice more. He also criticizes the lack of depth in the economics department of some central banks, citing examples from the RBNZ and the ECB.

The panel also analyzes the energy market and predicted when we might see an uptrend. Tracy Shuchart updates the chart and pointed out that crude seemed to break the down cycle a bit, leading to a good week for the commodity. The team answers a viewer’s question about the possibility of energy prices remaining low for a long time and offered their perspectives on the matter.

Finally, the panel discusses what they expected for the Week Ahead. Michael Nicoletos predicts that the energy market would remain volatile, and Tracy Shuchart believes that the focus would be on the stock market, particularly the Nasdaq. Albert Marko highlights the importance of watching the inflation data and suggests that investors should keep an eye on the bond market.

Key themes:
1. Russia ❤️ $CNY. Why?
2. Where does the Fed (and other central banks) go from here?
3. When will we see an uptrend in energy?

This is the 58th episode of The Week Ahead, where experts talk about the week that just happened and what will most likely happen in the coming week.

Follow The Week Ahead panel on Twitter:
Tony: https://twitter.com/TonyNashNerd
Michael: https://twitter.com/mnicoletos
Albert: https://twitter.com/amlivemon
Tracy: https://twitter.com/chigrl

Transcript:

Tony

Hi, and welcome to The Week Ahead. I’m Tony Nash and today we’re joined by Michael Nicoletos. Michael is the founder and CEO of DeFi Advisors based in Athens. We’re also joined by Tracy Shuchart of Hilltower Resource Advisors and Albert Marko. Guys, thanks so much for joining us. We have a couple of key themes and I was really in questioning mood when I put these together. The first one is around Russia and the CNY. There was an announcement this week. My question really is why? What’s the point of that? Next is where does the Fed go from here? And really where do all central banks go from here, but mainly the Fed, ECB. Albert is going to lead on that and I know Michael has some views on that as well. That’ll be really exciting to talk through. And then we’ll talk to Tracy about energy. For the first part of this week, we saw energy on an uptrend and we’ve seen a little bit of turbulence on Friday. So when do we expect to see an uptrend in energy? So again, guys, thanks for joining us. Michael, I really appreciate you taking the time from Athens to get involved with us today. Thanks so much.

Michael

Thank you. Happy to be here. Great, love to talk to you guys.

Tony

Great. So first, Michael, I know that you know a lot about China and you follow a lot of their economic activity. And I saw you commenting on this Russia announcement about CNY. Of course, they announced that they’ll use CNY for trade settlement outside of the US and Europe, which is Latin America, Africa and Asia is what they said in their announcement. So that’s about 37% of Russia’s exports. So I put a little chart together. I used UN ComTrade data.

This is 2021 data, which is the latest data that UN ComTrade has. So if they’re really doing that, Latin America is 2% of Russia’s trade, Africa is 3% of Russia’s trade. China is 14%. Okay? And so I guess is all of their trade with China settled in CNY? I seriously doubt it. And then Asia is rest of Asia is 18%. And of that about 1%, just under 1% is Taiwan. So I seriously doubt Taiwan would settle in CNY. But what’s obvious from looking at this chart is Europe is more than half of Russia’s trade. So it’s not as if this is necessarily a massive bold announcement that everything is going to be in CNY from here on out.

Tony

It really is just kind of putting a stake in the ground saying I think it’s almost a best efforts thing. So I guess is this viable? That’s really the question. And Michael, you put out this thought-provoking tweet.

You said if that were the case, China would have no issues running out of USDs. Let’s take that on and help me understand why is China trying to do this and what is the US dollar question that you have around this arrangement?

Michael

Well, first of all, again, thank you for having me. It’s great to be here. Now we need to segregate two things: wanting to do something and being able to do something. It’s clear that a lot of countries which are highly dependent on the US dollar for trading would rather be on something else and not be dependent on the dollar. We saw what happened with Russian FX Reserve when the war started. So clearly this was a warning shot or a lot of countries said we could be next if we go into a fight with the US. So clearly there is a tendency and China wants this to happen as soon as possible. Now, for this to happen, there are a lot of things that need to happen first. I’ll give just an anecdotal example because we get all this news flow and all these headlines where one signs an agreement with another and then two people or two prime ministers come up and say we’re going to do it, and everyone takes it for granted, especially on Twitter. It’s either a fanatic from one side or a fanatic from the other side. So again, I agree with everyone who is afraid of this happening in the sense that a lot of people are saying that the end of the dollar is close and that everyone’s going to go to something different.

Michael

I agree there is the willingness. I’m not sure this can happen soon, and I don’t think it can happen without some conflict occurring somewhere. So an example is that in 2018, Iran signed an agreement with China to sell oil in Yuan. Still, after four or five years, the volumes are ridiculously low. So again, there are agreements, but in order to enforce them and in order for them to happen, they take a lot more time than one would want. So Russia had no option. So because of the sanctions, they still sell to Europe, a few things, but they’re trying to outweigh it by selling more to China. And China and Russia are trying to make these agreements where they will be settling in Rubles or in Yuan. And they try to make these agreements. They want to expand them to other countries as well. However, you see, for example, India. India doesn’t want to settle in Yuan or doesn’t want to settle in ruble. They want to settle in Dirhams, which is back to the dollar. So you get all this information and the data, at least until now, does not support that there is a threat to the dollar.

Michael

There is a threat to the dollar in terms of willingness. There is no threat to the dollar in terms of data which says that this is going to happen tomorrow. So I think that this will eventually happen, but I don’t think it will happen soon. I think until it happens, we’re going to see a few episodes. And these episodes are not straightforward, how they will evolve.

Michael

Now, regarding China and its macro, the reason I’m saying what I’m saying and I’m saying that China needs dollars. China has been dependent, first of all, on its real estate, which was like 30% of its GDP. We saw what happened to the real estate. The second leg was it was highly dependent on exports. There’s a global slowdown. So these exports will have some issues. And now, how has China managed to keep this economy running? I’ll give you a few metrics to understand. The US is an economy which is like 26, I think 26 trillion of GDP. And if I’m not mistaken, its M2 is around 21 trillion. In China, the GDP is around 17 trillion, all in dollars. Okay? And M2 is $40 trillion. 40. Four, zero. So what does that mean?

Michael

The China government prints money. Prints money. Prints money. Because there are capital controls, the balloon gets bigger and bigger and bigger, but the money can’t leave, or it can leave for selected few, and I’ll explain how it leaves. And for the rest, because our capital control, the money can’t leave. So it stays in. But this is in one. Some try to buy gold, some try to invoice over invoice to Hong Kong and take it out of Hong Kong. But when the disparity is so big, clearly there is a problem. There’s an NPL problem. Chinese banks are like four times China’s GDP.

Tony

Sorry, NPL is non performing loans.

Michael

Non performing loans. Sorry. Sometimes they’re non performing. You cannot have an M2 of 40 trillion and a GDP of 17 trillion and not have non performing loans. Chinese banking system.

Tony

Sorry, I just want to go back and I don’t mean to interrupt you, but I just want to make sure that people understand. China has currency in circulation of $40 trillion, and they have a GDP of $17 trillion. Whereas the US has a GDP of what you say 24 trillion. I don’t remember what number you’re… 26 trillion. And they have 21 trillion in circulation. Right. So for all of these people who talk about China being this economic model for other people, why does it matter that their M2 is more than double the size of their economy?

Michael

Let me say something. First of all, let’s put something that the US. Is also the global reserve currency. So everyone in the world wants dollars. It’s not like only the US wants dollars. At this stage, less than 10% of the world wants Yuan. So it’s not like everyone wants to get.

Tony

I think it’s 2.1% of transactions or something like that.

Tracy

2.8%?

Tony

2.8, yeah, transactions.

Michael

Okay. I saw a number which was around 6%. Maybe I’m wrong. Okay. But again, it’s a number which is very small. 

Michael

All this money that is in the economy, if Chinese people were given the choice, they would be able to take it out. The economy is growing at a faster pace than its potential. I’ll give you a number. Right now, Chinese banks are more than 50% of global GDP in terms of size. The US, I think its peak was 32% in 1985 and Japan’s 27% in 1994. So we’ve passed all metrics in terms of the world dominant power or the dominant economy, if you want to put it this way, being a percentage of GDP in terms of banking assets. So the banking assets clearly have a lot of bad debts in there, which we cannot know what they are because the Chinese economy wants the Chinese government wants to control that. Now, there was a special committee put in place this month, I think, in order to oversee the financial situation in China. So I’m pretty sure they’re a bit worried about it. They want to switch from an export oriented economy to a consumption driven economy. But this is still less than 40% of GDP and this takes a lot of time to go like the US is around 70%, but it takes a lot of time to go for 40%, 70%.

Michael

Now, all this money stays in China. They have no option, they can’t do anything. So it’s an issue. And I’ll give you a ratio. If you take their FX reserve, it’s around 3 point something trillion. If you divide FX to M2, it’s around 7%. So if that money were to want if that money wanted to leave, in theory, only 7% can be covered by FX reserves, the fixed reserves of the government. Just to clarify, the Asian tiger crisis in 97, the tigers collapsed when the ratio went below 25%. So they didn’t have that support to keep it up.

Tony

And just be clear for the US that’s 100%, right?

Michael

The US doesn’t have any problems. So this is something that needs to be addressed and I don’t know how they will address it. They try to make all these agreements so that the one becomes a tradable currency and they can invoicing one. So if the Yuan, in theory was to become the global reserve currency tomorrow morning, their debt would become the world’s problem. Now, they haven’t managed to export that, so they need these dollars to keep that balloon, let’s say, from all the area in the balloon to be taken up. They need these FX reserves to keep the money in and they need to build confidence, and they try to build confidence with narratives and not with data. But again, they don’t have a choice right now, in my opinion.

Tony

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https://youtu.be/yYom7Zqezio

Tony

The difference between, say, the onshore and offshore CNY or CNH or whatever, there is a huge difference in perceived value. I would think you can’t change the perceived value of CNY onshore, but offshore, if people are nominating contracts in, say, I’ll say “CNY” in quotes, there is an exchange right there. But again, this M2 issue, which I can’t stress how important that is, I haven’t heard anybody else talking about this. And it’s so critical to understand the fiat value of CNY itself, right, because it’s not limited, and the government because they’re effectively fun tickets with Mao’s face on it.

Tony

Right. And that’s how the PBOC was treating it. And again, when people talk about CNY as a global reserve currency, nobody is looking at the integrity of the PBOC and nobody is looking at how the PBOC manages monetary policy in China.

Michael

I’ll give you anecdotal information. I haven’t checked the number for a few years, but the last time I checked, if you look at the import-export numbers from Hong Kong to China, and you look at the PBOC, and then you go and see the same numbers in the HKMA, you would assume that these four numbers should be the same, not the same. Import should be export and export should be imports. The numbers should be very close. The discrepancy is huge. These numbers do not reconciliate, which means that in some form there is some over invoicing to Hong Kong.

Tony

And you’re not talking about 30%, you’re talking about multiples.

Michael

You’re talking about a lot. It’s ridiculous. So I think if you see the Hong Kong peg has been stable to the upper bound lately because I guess because of the interest rate differential, a lot of money is leaving. So it’s putting pressure on Hong Kong as well. So it remains to be seen what happens there.

Tony

So let me go to Tracy. Tracy, in terms of Russia using CNY, okay? And I know you look at a lot of their energy exports, and of course there’s all this official dumb around sanctions and stuff, but what’s your kind of guess on Russia using either USD or proxy USD, Dirhams or something else as currencies for collecting on energy exports or commodity exports more broadly?

Tracy

Well, first, I think that they prefer dollars no matter what this kind of China saying we want to trade a Yuan. And Russia said, okay, but that was a suggestion. That does not mean that it’s necessarily happening. But what is really interesting is earlier this week, on Monday, Russia laid out conditions for extending the grain, the black seed grain deal, right? Because it was supposed to be for 90 days, but they cut it to 60 days because they’re trying to use that as leverage. And one of the things that they are trying to use as a leverage is they will extend the deal or they’ll give or the other part is they’ll give African countries just free grain instead of selling it. But one of the big conditions for that was for the removal of some Western sanction, specifically to get them back on Swift. And so if that happens, forget it. Everything’s going to be all the trade will be all euros and dollars.

Tony

I thought Swift was terrible and everybody wanted on Swift.

Tracy

I just thought it was important to point out because if they get back on Swift, obviously that’s going to make trading in dollars easy for everything, all commodities across the board.

Tony

Right. And so that goes back to what Michael said initially about kind of these guys really want dollars and all this other stuff. There’s the official dumb of the prime ministers meeting each other, right. And then there’s the factual activities they undertake based on the reality of their position in the world economy. Right. What are your thoughts here?

Albert

I agree with Michael and Tracy to talk about the reserve currency. Switching from the dollar to the Yuan is a joke, to be honest with you. You do have some people in other countries in the Middle East and China and whatnot talking about the death of the dollar and actual serious tone. But anyone with even like a shred of financial backing and insight knows that it’s just an impossible thing. From what it sounds like, it’s more of like a barter system. But that introduces even bigger problems. I mean, you can’t scale it up. There’s no standardization. How do you value things to begin with?

Tony

That’s it.

Albert

Valuing goods and services without using the dollar right now is just an impossibility. And on top of that, you have the political problems that come along with it. I mean, like the Saudis, they want dollars for their oil. They need defense assistance. The Greeks needed US defense assistance. The Turks, as much as they want to make noise again, they’re reliant on the US and NATO for defense and whatnot. These components not just financially, what Michael talked about and decided much more eloquently than I would ever would, but there’s also political components that you just can’t get around in the near term.

Tony

But even if they had a barter system, they would reference the price in dollars, right?

Albert

Well, yeah.

Tony

10 billion.

Tracy

Your chocolate is back to iran did that when they were first sanctioned over a decade ago. They were trading oil for gold, but it was still referencing dollars.

Albert

On top of that, you run the risk of hyperinflation eliminating dollars from your FX reserves and starting to trade away from the dollar. You’re going to end up in a hyperinflation event.

Tony

Right.

Michael

Can I say something? Can I say something? About all these points? I agree with all these points. There’s one more thing. Let’s say you trade in rubles and you trade in Yuan, okay? It means that you’re going to keep FX reserves in rubles or in Yuan. So you feel more comfortable keeping a currency from an authoritarian regime than holding the US. Dollar, which is fully liquid, fully tradable, and anyone in the street will take it at a split of a second. You need many years of track record to build that trust. There are a lot of bad things about the dollar. We agree that I don’t think anyone will say that it’s a perfect mechanism, but right now, it’s very functional, it’s very liquid. And if you want to keep your reserves in US Treasuries, you can sell them at the split of a second. You don’t have any issues with that. If you have Yuan, you’re going to do what? You’re going to buy Chinese government bonds? And how will you sell them if the PBOC calls you and says, it’s not a good idea to sell your Chinese bonds this week? We would prefer you didn’t.

Tony

Bet on the central bank, right? If you’re holding rubles, you’re betting that the Russian central bank is trustworthy. If you’re holding CNY, you’re betting that the Chinese center. So what central banks are out there that you could potentially trust? You have the Fed, you have the ECB, you have BOJ, right? Those are really the only three that are visible enough that have the scale and transparency to manage a currency. And look what the BOJ has done since Abenomics. And on and on and on. Do you trust the ECB? I don’t know. And it becomes, do you trust the ECB or the Fed more? I mean, sorry, but I just don’t trust the ECB.

Michael

I don’t trust ECB. But it’s relative. I mean, you don’t have a problem keeping Euros. Maybe it’s not your preferred choice, but you don’t lose your sleep on holding Euros. Let me put it at this stage.

Tony

That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. Okay, guys, this is great. Let’s move on to the next thing, because I think we all agreed violently here, but I think we’re going to not agree on the next one, which I’m really excited about. So let’s talk about central banks. And where does the Fed and where do other central banks go from here? So, of course, we saw the Fed raise this week. I think it was the right thing to do. Albert, I know you think it’s the right thing to do. Markets have been up and down since then. And Albert, you’ve said that you expect the Fed to raise two more times, and I want to talk about kind of what’s behind that assertion. And then we get silly statements like this one from the RBNZ in New Zealand, where the chief economist basically says, if inflation expectations don’t fall, we’ll be forced to do more regarding interest rates.

Well, of course. Why wouldn’t you do that. So can you walk us through a little bit, kind of just very quick, because there have been thousands of hours of Fed analysis this week. But why do you think the Fed is going to raise two more times?

Albert

Supercore is trending up and it continues to trend up. Services are on fire. Real estate numbers have been on fire. There’s no slowdown in reality. I mean, even the layoffs have been slow. They’ve come from the tech sector. They haven’t come from construction or any other blue collar jobs at the moment. So until we see that, the economy is going to be red hot and it’s a problem for the Fed, inflation overall.

Tony

Okay, so play devil’s advocate here. Banking crisis, Fed had to bail out banks, all this other stuff. So why isn’t the Fed saying, let’s pause on the banking crisis worries?

Albert

Because banks are fully liquid. The big banks have no problem whatsoever. Some of these smaller banks that have no risk protocols are getting exposed. The tech heavy investments are getting exposed. Everyone knows that higher rates hurts the tech sector the most. And those banks were at fault. They didn’t hedge properly.

Tony

Now you have duration risk. I just want to be clear. I just want to make sure that people understand. You’re not saying that they failed necessarily because they’re tech, but they failed because of duration risk and then their tech depositors took their money out. Right?

Albert

Absolutely. But the banking system overall is not really at risk. They’re just shaking out some of the weaker players. But that was inevitable as interest rates have risen. A lot of the problems stem from the Fed and them guaranteeing four, five, 6% deposits, while the banks only do 1%. They can’t compete with that.

Tony

Right. Michael, I know that you think this wasn’t the right action. So what’s your perspective?

Michael

Well, let me say something first. I believe that it was a mistake, and I’ll say why it was a mistake. I think it’s a mistake when you raise interest rates as a central bank and the banks follow by raising rates on the loan side and on the deposit side, what do you do? You make debt more expensive and then you make people because you have, let’s say, a 5% interest rate on your bank, you create an opportunity cost so people want to save. So you reduce liquidity from the deposit side, and also you reduce loan demand because it’s more expensive, and that creates a slowdown. What happened now, because we had ten years of QE, everyone forgot that there was an interest rate on the deposit side. So the Fed, MDCB and all the central banks raised the interest rate. So the loan side adjusted. That became more expensive, but the deposit side stayed zero at 1%. I don’t know where this is in the US. But it’s really low. At some point, people started waking up when it arrived at 4% and they suddenly started saying, okay, I don’t have any interest on my deposit.

Michael

Let me put my money in the money market fund. How much does it give? Three, four, 5%? I don’t know. It’s a much higher rate. So I think I saw somewhere today that around 5 trillion have gone into money market funds. The numbers close to that. So when you take your money out of the deposit and you take it to a money market fund, this is the equivalent of a bank run for the bank that you’re taking the money, it’s a deposit living. It might not feel like a bank run, but on the balance sheet of a bank, it’s a bank run. So this started happening, and again, because of what you mentioned, they had invested in Treasuries and the duration risk was a mismatch. They didn’t do some of them at least hadn’t done appropriate hedging. They started losing money and they started selling this bond at a loss, although they had them at the Healthy Maturity portfolio where you don’t need to take a mark to market loss. And suddenly both sides of the balance sheet were screwed. Let me put it this way. So a few banks started going under. Now, I know that the central bank has come up and I know a lot of people come up.

Michael

And I do agree that there’s no systemic risk. And I mean that I don’t see a cascade of people losing their deposits. But nevertheless, people feel uncomfortable and try to do something about it. Either take them more money market funds or take their money from a regional bank, if they can. To JP morgan or one of the big guys. This creates a big problem for the economy. Yes, there are some signs which show that the economy is still robust. But I think a lot of leading indicators suggest that the economy is slowing down and most of the metrics coming from the inflation side have collapsed. Yes, core CPI is still high and it’s a lagging indicator, so it will take time for it to come down. But I think that given the stress we saw this week and why do I say that? Because we look at the US as a closed system. It’s not. When you raise interest rates as the Fed and you are the global reserve currency, you create a global credit crunch. You saw that last week. The Fed had come out with swap lines for everyone. You saw today that foreign banks borrowed 60 billion in liquidity, the ones that didn’t have a swap line.

Michael

And we see today Deutsche Bank being in the headlines and Commerce Bank being in the gate. So you might think that the US system is okay, but it creates a domino effect, which we’re starting to see. We saw Credit Suisse going under in a deal, which was not, I’d say, what we would think of. I believe that that deal in combination with the high rates is probably the root of the problem in the sense that they destroyed the capital structure, they wiped out all the 80 ones without wiping out the equity holders. Which means now that in Europe everyone’s wondering if my 81 is of any value. And that creates another uncertainty in combination with the higher interest rates and the stress that has started to build up. I think we’ve passed the moment where, okay, it could be debatable if they did right or if they did wrong. The US bond market is saying that it was wrong. It was a mistake. The two years at 370. And so the bond market went from the one side and the Fed went on the other side.

Tony

Why? The two year at 270 is important.

Michael

373, 70. Sorry, yeah. Three seven. Because if in two years you’re getting 3.7% and the Fed fund rate is five someone, it means that someone is buying a two year bond getting much less. Which means what? It means that the market is saying rate cuts are coming soon. So the market is saying there’s no way we can keep it this way. And the Fed is saying the opposite. Historically speaking, the bond market has been right. If you take it into context, it could be this time that they are wrong. It feels to me, at least from the stress I look in global markets and not in US. Only, that things are getting a bit out of hand. And having a bank like Credit Suisse go under, which is a big bank, and having all the central banks come in together on a Sunday night to give up swap lines, it means that the stress in the system, it’s much bigger than with yeah, but Sunday night.

Tony

Is the best time to get swap lines. Okay, so you talk about European banks, but we had Mueller from the ECB out this week saying, I wouldn’t worry about a financial crisis in Europe.

So we have ECB guys out there going, yeah, Credit Suisse happened and we know Deutsche is an issue, but I wouldn’t worry about that in Europe. So I think we’re seeing statements from Yellen, the Fed, the ECB, other guys who are saying, no, there’s nothing to see here, but then we see things kind of blowing up all over the place. Right, and then we have a question especially specifically for you, Michael, from a viewer who said, I’d like Michael’s thoughts on the EU, particularly banks, pensions and future growth prospects. So can you talk us through? How do these banking issues in Europe flow through to European pensions?

Michael

First of all, let’s say something. We’re talking about the US and.

Albert

Duration.

Michael

Risk on the bond losses. Let’s remind everyone that at the peak of QE 18 1818 trillion worth of bonds had negative yield, and these were mostly Europe and Asia. So pension funds and banks in Europe which are forced to buy these bonds were buying bonds. With a negative yield. So they were losing on day one these bonds from -50 basis bonds have gone to two and 3%, the losses on these are much greater and pension funds will have much bigger issues than the ones that have in the US we were talking about a pension crisis in the US. But the European one is pretty bad too. Just look at in France, they raised this week the year that you take your pension from 62 years old to 64 and the country is burning to the ground. Now, you understand that it’s 62 to 64. It’s not like they made 62 to 70 years old. So it’s very delicate. And the situation in Europe, given the negative bonds, given the interest rate hikes and given one more thing in Europe, given that Europe doesn’t have the dollar and it has the Euro was mostly a supply driven issue.

Michael

It means that we were importing oil and energy from Russia and from everywhere and all these commodities were priced in dollars. So as a Europe tell, the price of these commodities were more expensive. So inflation was a supply driven problem. I think there’s a report, I think from the San Francisco Fed two thirds of the inflation was supply driven in Europe. So when inflation is supply driven and you raise rates to stop it, you’re using the wrong medicine to stop the problem. You need to crash the economy in order for this to stop. This is not really efficient. Now, in the meantime, you have yields going higher and now the yields that we see on our screen on Bloomberg or anywhere are not the yield real yields because the ECB is in and tries to contain the spreads. If you left the market low, I’m pretty sure the spreads would be much, much wider. And you have the new thing which came up this week when the Swiss National Bank decided that tier one, additional tier ones would be written off and equity holder, an equity holder would be saved. Now, imagine what happened. You probably saw what happened this week, all the 80 ones in Europe got smashed because everyone says I don’t trust this instrument.

Michael

I don’t know. Yes, central bankers will come out.

Tony

These are the cocoa bonds that came out in I think, 2013, right?

Michael

Yeah, there are a few of them, yeah, but it’s a cocoa, it’s contingent convertible. It means that they’re convertible be converted to equity if something happens. Let me put it as simple as it is, but these are supposed to be wiped out before the equity. So the question is what prevents for something else similar to happen again, the ECB came out, BoE came out, they said this is not accepted. But the fear and the is now everywhere. So you have a combination of factors. You have a factor that this ECB has been raising rates when I don’t think it’s a proper mechanism to address inflation in europe, they’ve created a slowdown. If you see Germany’s numbers and everywhere’s numbers in Europe, the economy is slowing down fast. You have a discussion on the capital structure of lending, which is very critical in the way companies and banks go and borrow themselves and all this at the same time and when the US. Is draining liquidity from the global system. I think the situation in Europe is very tough. Again, after 2008, I don’t think we have a systemic risk on our hands and the risks never materialize in the same place.

Michael

But I think things are about to get tough and it’s going to be much worse before it gets any better.

Tony

So what I would offer back, and I think everything you’re saying is valid and Albert Tracy, let me know if you want to think about this, but in the US. We have a presidential election next year. There is almost no way that we will see the US economy crash in the next 24 months because Janet Yellen won’t let that happen. And so we may see issues in Europe and we may see Europe and the rest of the world suffer based on US interest rate and monetary policy. But the US. Will do everything, the current administration will do everything they can to keep the US. From crashing in that time. And I’m not just saying this because they’re Democrats, Republicans would do the same thing to keep the economy afloat in the year before an election.

Albert

Albert, what do you think about that? It depends on what is happening specifically with debt ceiling, right? I mean, Janet Yellen and the Biden administration would gladly let the economy sink, the market sink anyways if they could blame it on escape both the GOP on the debt ceiling not getting hyped. So that’s definitely something you need to watch over the next six months because it is campaign fundraising season and they can’t really agitate their voters all that much, to be honest with you. Certainly the political component is going to be high over the next twelve months.

Tony

Okay, great. Let’s move on. Thank you for that, guys. Let’s move on to energy.

Michael

Can I say something?

Tony

Absolutely. Yes, please.

Michael

What appears to be happening right now, at least in my eyes, is that the Fed is using interest rates to attack inflation and it’s using the balance sheet to give liquidity. So these two do not go in the same direction at this point. The question is if they can do this for a long time. It doesn’t feel to me that they can. But at least right now they’re giving liquidity on the one side and they’re raising rates on the other side. I’m not sure they can do this for us.

Albert

We’ve actually talked about that at length here. But it’s not the Fed. It’s really the treasury. Sterilizing QT They’re coordinating.

Michael

They’re coordinating.

Albert

Of course they coordinate for the most part, but sometimes in the last six months or the last twelve months. Powell and Yellen have been at odds with each other in policy. So this is a lot of the reasons why the markets has just been topsy turbine. Don’t understand which way it’s going because you have conflicting policy and agendas from the treasury and the Fed.

Michael

So you feel it’s conflicting or do you think it’s coordinating? They’re doing it on purpose. That’s what I haven’t figured out yet.

Albert

I think the want to eliminate excess cash in the system is coordinated but I think the policy of how they’re doing that is conflicting and that’s going to be a bigger problem, say second half of this year.

Michael

Okay, sounds logical, but it’s one of these things that pass on me. I don’t know if they’re doing it on purpose or if they do any as you say, because they’re using other tools and they step on each other doing so.

Albert

My rule of thumb is to side with incompetence rather than conspiracy.

Tony

Okay.

Michael

It’s not conspiracy when the Fed chairman talks with the treasury guy?

Albert

No, I am absolutely in your corner on this one. I absolutely believe that they talk and coordinate things for sure. I just think that their agenda at the moment doesn’t line up 100% of the time.

Michael

Okay.

Tony

Very good. Okay, thanks for that guys. Tracy, let’s talk about energy for a while. Up until Friday we had a pretty good week for crude. I thought we were breaking that down cycle a bit, but we’re seeing some chop in energy markets. And so we had a question for you from a viewer saying when do you see oil and natty in a sustainable uptrend?

Tracy

Yeah, nat gas is a whole other issue. I think it’s going to be very difficult really. We’re trading in the range that we’ve been trading in most of the time for the last 20 years or so. That $2, $3 range has been very comfortable for nat gas. We produce a lot of nat gas. Yes, we are building out LNG facilities and yes, we have had problems with freeport and such. I just think that we probably won’t really see a big spike in prices unless we see another energy crisis in Europe, do you know what I’m saying? And then we’re going to have to force to sell even more. So for right now I would kind of get comfortable with nat gas about that range. But if it starts breaking above like 375 or so I would start getting bullish. But for right now, just kind of in that area where it’s been comfortable most of the time. Right. So I think it’s going to be a while for that. So we got to kind of assess the situation in Europe as we get to summer air conditioning use and to next winter if they have a bad winter, I think it’s going to be a few more months at least down the line for natural gas as far as oil is concerned.

Tracy

Brent said about $75 right now, saudi Arabia would like it around 80, 90 range is where they’re really comfortable. I think right now what we’re going to have to get through is we’re going to have to really assess we need more time to assess Russia’s situation. They just extended that 500,000 barrel a day cut out until June. The latest records do show that they actually have cut that much so far in March. So the cut is happening, which also means that they’re experiencing kind of a pullback in demand, even though they have really it’s more on the product end rather than, I should say, rather than the crude oil end, because they have floating storage, they have ships piling up everywhere with product. And so I think that will help clear their excess product a little more. So it’s really on the product end and that we also have to see everybody’s freaking if the Fed again decides to stop raising rates or pause. I think commodities really like that situation just because of the cost of carry and transportation and storage for all these commodities is very expensive. Right.

Tony

Because.

Tracy

You get bank credit lines for that. Right. And so I think that’s putting downward pressure on markets right now. And then obviously fear of recession is kind of kicking in again after the recent bank crisis in the US. And in Europe. And so I really don’t think that we’ll see higher prices. I mean, typically this is the time of year we do start seeing higher prices heading into high summer demand season. But we’ve also been seeing, I think everybody expected China. China demanded to shoot up right away. That’s taking longer than anticipated, which I kind of have been saying that on this show for quite a few months.

Tony

Long time. Exactly.

Tracy

So I think that there’s a lot of factors involved right now. I do think, again, it’s higher for longer. Historically still, prices at $70 is high for oil. The market is crashing by any means, just coming down from geopolitically induced spike last year. I think it’s higher for longer. And definitely I could see prices go into that $110 range, but likely into 2024. Not really this year, obviously, unless something happens. Okay.

Michael

Do you think if the Fed poses or whatever reason, or if they do a rate cut, do you think that commodities will explode or do you think.

Tracy

I think if they cut, commodities would get really excited. I think if they pause, they would get excited. Right. I think we would see a rebound in a lot of these commodities, grains, things of that base metals and industrial metals and oil. But if they start cutting, then I think that they’ll really like that because then they don’t have to throw product at the market because they can’t afford to store it.

Michael

Thank you.

Albert

I’m actually quite bullish for oil in the near term. One of the reasons is I’ve heard through the grapevine that the Chicanery and the futures market and I’m reading that hedge funds and other money managers sold the equivalent of 139,000,000 barrels of oil in futures over seven days a week and a half ago. So, I mean, to me, it’s like they’re almost out of ammo when it comes to suppressing oil at the moment. And any little flare up or anything is probably going to be bullish for oil and probably shoot right back up to 80.

Tony

So what could that be, Albert?

Albert

It could be a natural event. It could be weather, I mean, some kind of economic policy stimulus from Europe coming out there, or even the United States going into, like Tracy was saying, the travel season and whatnot. It could be anything, really. I mean, I think the market is just begging for some kind of bullish signal for them to run it up.

Tony

Okay. And Tracy, if you’re sitting in Europe because energy prices were such a factor in 2022, what are the main things that you’re worried about? Their nat gas storage. Has that been depleted much over the winter?

Tracy

No, it wasn’t depleted. They just had to start injections again because what we are seeing is that this really started in fall of 2021. Everybody kind of forgets that the crisis started before the Ukraine invasion, but what we saw is industry start to shut down, especially industry like smelting and glass blowing and things of that nature that require a lot of energy. Right when nat gas prices started spiking, and that was well before that summer of 2022 spike, they didn’t need to spike much where we saw a lot of those industries shut down. So what we’re seeing now is that since prices have been muted for long enough now, now we are seeing manufacturing and whatnot pick up with the numbers came in overnight for Europe. We’re seeing manufacturing pick up again. We’re starting to see some drawdowns finally in storage. Spain in particular has really ramped up a lot of their industry that had shut down prior. I have to say, natural gas prices are still more expensive than they typically are in Europe. Even at this price, right, they’re still higher than normal. So this is also why we’re not seeing a flurry of activity.

Tracy

As soon as prices came down, you have to realize that relative to where they were, they’re still generally high. But we are seeing, I think people are getting used to kind of this price range for Ttf, which is Dutchnet gas. And so we are seeing in manufacturing and industry pick up again in some of these traditional industries that require a lot of energy. So we’ll have to see, and if that really picks up, companies are going back to where they went to fuel instead of gas. We’re seeing them go back to gas now. And so that’s really what I’m watching on the energy end. Is this just one off, kind of, or does this continue throughout the summer?

Michael

Okay.

Tracy

Sorry.

Tony

And then everybody’s favorite energy secretary, Jennifer Grandholm, had some comments about refilling the Spr this week. Can you fill us in on that? And what does that mean for markets?

Tracy

Basically, she said we’re not filling in the Spr, refilling the Spr anytime soon.

Michael

Sorry.

Tracy

She said a few years, which means a lot more years unless there’s a change of administration and a policy change. But I would say from until the election not going to see an Sbr, which makes sense because they know that if they fill the Spr, what’s going to happen? Oil prices are likely going to go higher, and they can’t afford that going heading into an election year. And so I think that’s really why they kind of pushed that off. That’s kind of what’s going on with that.

Michael

Can they be saying something and doing something else?

Tracy

Yeah, but we would know if they’re actually filling the Spr or not because it’s a public auction.

Tony

Okay, why don’t we just stop calling it the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and just call it the Petroleum Reserve? Nothing strategic about the way they’re using the Tactical Petroleum Reserve.

Tracy

They’re using it as a piggy bank. Right.

Albert

Instead of strategic, you use slush fund, petroleum reserve.

Tony

Right, exactly. Okay, guys, one last question, I guess. What are you looking for in the week ahead? We’ve had a lot of volatility over the past couple of weeks. Michael, what are you looking for in the week ahead?

Michael

I’m focusing on central banks and interest rates. I think the issue will be banks. Again, I think the big stress in the economy is private markets and not public markets. BCS, private equity, all these investments need to do write downs. It will take a bit more time for them to do that. It doesn’t happen that fast. They don’t adjust as fast as public market. I believe that bank we will see that stress mostly on banking stocks. A because the cost of funding goes up, b because the capital structure is put into a discussion. C because they continue to raise interest rates. And there is a stress within, I think, focusing on what happens to the banks and to the two central banks. Again, we’re looking at the same thing, unfortunately, but the problem is not in the same place. But these are the indicators you need to look. I believe that you’re going to see inflation coming down fast. That’s my expectation. Maybe I’m wrong, but if you see inflation coming down, it’ll make the life much easier for central bank. Yeah.

Tony

And for all of us. Do you expect to see, like VCs, for example, some VCs close up because of the cost of funds and a lot of these banking issues, or do you think it really doesn’t impact them much?

Michael

I don’t know if they’re going to close down because it’s a 510 year investment. It depends if they can reinvest or if they have to liquidate. But I think funds that are coming up to their maturity, they need to liquidate or they need to roll over. It’s going to happen at a much lower price than they thought, or they’ll have to wait one or two years more. So I think that stress is going to show up somewhere.

Tony

Tracy, what do you see over the next week?

Tracy

I think it’s type based markets. There’s not really a lot coming up as far as oil is concerned. OPEC meeting is the following week, which we already know they’re going to do nothing. So really, next week, end of month stuff, there’s not a whole lot going on in the commodities world, really newswise next week. So I think probably see the same sideways action.

Tony

Okay, great. Robert, what are you looking for? Let me ask a little bit of a kind of loaded question with that. As springtime is coming in in Ukraine, do we expect that to heat up at all as things warm a bit there?

Albert

Well, yeah, I would say yes. Geopolitically? I think it would be advantageous for Russia to do something to stay face. Absolutely. But for the week ahead, I think the narrative shift I’m watching for the narrative shift of interest rates to banking, like Michael was talking about, I think Yellen is most likely going to come out and try to guarantee 500,000 in deposits and even talk about 750 and get it up there and just get the crisis over and done with. So that’s what I’m looking for.

Michael

Okay.

Tony

Wow. Would that require congressional no, they can use emergency powers. Everything’s. Emergency power is great. Perfect. Okay, thanks, guys. Thank you very much. Really appreciate your time and all your insight, and have a great week ahead.

Albert

Thanks.

Michael

Thank you very much. Have a great weekend, too.

Tony

Thank you.

Categories
Week Ahead

Preparing for Economic Turbulence: The Fed’s Q2 Danger Zone and Russian Oil Cuts

Invest and trade better with CI Futures. Check your options: http://completeintel.com/pricing 👈

In this episode of “The Week Ahead,” host Tony Nash is joined by Brent Johnson, CEO of Santiago Capital, and Tracy Shuchart, a commodities trader at Hilltower Resource Advisors, to discuss the most pressing economic themes for the upcoming week.

One of the key topics of discussion is the Federal Reserve’s “Q2 Danger Zone,” which Brent believes could be a potentially scary time for the economy. He notes that we are still less than a year away from the first rate hike, and it often takes 12-18 months for rate hikes to show up in the economy. By the summer of 2022, we will be right in the heart of that time period, coinciding with YoY inflation numbers that should come down due to the crazy comparisons from the previous year. Brent warns that even if inflation remains somewhat sticky, we could see a bunch of disinflationary prints at the same time, which will make it challenging for the Fed. Moreover, by that time, Owner Equivalent Rents are expected to fall, adding to the Fed’s challenges.

Tracy then delves into the topic of oil production and cuts, specifically Russia’s decision to cut 500k barrels. She explains what this means for the market, how it could impact crude prices, and who will be hurt the most – Asia or the West. Tracy also raises an interesting point about Russia’s decision to smuggle oil through Albania despite the cuts, leaving us with questions about their motivations.

Finally, the discussion turns to commercial and industrial loan growth, which saw a sharp rise after rate hikes started. Tracy explores why this is happening, and what it means for the economy. She believes that companies are taking out loans to fund capital expenditures, which is good news for the economy as it indicates that businesses are investing in themselves and their future growth.

Key themes:
1. The Fed’s Q2 Danger Zone
2. Capex & C&I Loan Growth
3. 500k fewer Russian barrels

This is the 55th episode of The Week Ahead, where experts talk about the week that just happened and what will most likely happen in the coming week.

Follow The Week Ahead panel on Twitter:
Tony: https://twitter.com/TonyNashNerd
Brent: https://twitter.com/SantiagoAuFund
Tracy: https://twitter.com/chigrl

Transcript

Tony

Hi, everyone, and welcome to The Week Ahead. I’m Tony Nash. Today we’re joined by Brent Johnson and Tracy Shuchart. We may be joined by Albert Marko at some time, but we’re just going to focus on Brent and Tracy right now. Guys, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. I really appreciate it.

https://youtu.be/yYom7Zqezio

CI Futures is our subscription platform for global markets and economics. We forecast hundreds of assets across currencies, commodities, equity indices, and economics. We have new forecasts for currencies, commodities and equity indices every Monday morning. We do new economics forecasts for 50 countries once a month. Within CI Futures, we show you our error rates. So every forecast, every month, we give you the one- and three-month error rates for our previous forecast. We also show you the top correlations and allow you to download charts and data.

CI Futures is available for $50 a month, $75 a month, or $99 a month. You can find out more or get a demo on completeintel.com. Thank you.

We’ve got a few key things, themes we’re going to cover today. First is the Fed’s second quarter danger zone. There’s a lot setting up for Q2, and Brent’s going to talk us through that. Then we’re going to get into Capex and CNI, commercial and industrial loan growth. And then finally, we’re going to talk about those Russian barrels that are coming off the market this month, and Tracy will talk us through the impact there.

Okay. Guys, thanks a lot for taking the time. Brent, when I asked you what you want to talk about, you really want to talk about this kind of Q2, potentially Q3, these issues that we may see in markets in that time. Can you help me understand or help us understand what are you looking for there? Because there’s a lot going on, of course, and you can talk us through a number of items. But I have a tweet from Daniel Lacalle, who’s joined us a few times talking about the ECB under pressure for faster rate hikes.

We’re seeing similar stuff in the US. But markets keep going up. What are you thinking?

Brent

Well, I think there’s a couple of very, I guess, poignant and competing narratives fighting each other right now. And they’ve been fighting each other for a while. And I’ll explain why I think they’re fighting each other. But I’ll also explain a little bit about why I think Q2 and Q3 have the potential, again, there’s no guarantee. We’re all speculating here. But has the potential for one of these narratives to kind of come to the fore or something to change dramatically in Q2 or Q3. So I think the first narrative that has been around for a year now, so we’re almost still not yet, but very close to now, the one year anniversary from the first rate hike. And I think a lot of people forget that it hasn’t even been a year yet since they started raising rates. And typically when you raise rates, it doesn’t have an immediate impact in the economy. Sometimes it takes nine months, twelve months, 18 months for those rate hikes actually kind of work there through the economy and have the full effect of them show up. So we’re not even to a year yet, but in another three or four months we’ll be in the 12- to 18-month range when they typically start to show up.

Now, in the meantime, we continue to have inflationary prints that are stickier than some people have expected. Again, part of the reason markets have been pretty favorable for the last two, three, four months is the expectation that rate hikes would slow and potentially even reverse and maybe we even get to a cutting cycle. And as a result, the markets are front running that. But now in the last couple of weeks and so at the beginning of the year, we had a big rush up in bond prices as rate hike expectations came down, and stock prices and commodity prices. But for the last month, let’s call it since the, to the last week of January, 1 week of February, I’ve kind of turned it violently sideways. We’ve gone up and down and up and down and up and down, but kind of just treaded water. And actually if you look back two years, we’re kind of where we were a couple of years ago. We’ve gone up and we’ve gone down, but we’re kind of where we were two years ago. But because of the stickiness, the relative stickiness of the inflationary prints, this idea that rate hikes are now going to go the other way is starting to get a little queasy.

And maybe they’re going to have to go back to 50, maybe they’re going to have to go longer, maybe they’re going to have to go higher for longer. And so now markets are trying to figure this all out. And so the reason I think once we get into Q2 and Q3, it gets very important is for two reasons. One, if things stay sticky in the meantime, the Fed may have to either keep hiking or continue to message higher for longer. And then if at the same time all of the previous interest rate hikes start to show up in the economy and then at that point we are going to be in the heart of the year-over-year inflationary prints. And those will most likely show negative. Even if inflation is still high, it’s probably, you know, I think was it last June or last July we had the 9% print in inflation. So even if this year it comes in at 7%, it’s going to show a negative two year-over-year. And so that puts the Fed in the position, okay, inflation is starting to come down, we’re making progress. But you still have high inflation.

So does that mean that they stop or do they start? And it’s going to be at the same time where all the previous rate hikes are going to be showing up in the economy. Right.

Tony

Sorry, go ahead.

Brent

No, but my point is we’re getting to the point where a lot of the decisions that have already been made would naturally start showing up in the economy, but we’re not quite there yet. In the meantime, the Fed is in a tough spot as to whether to continue rate hikes or to slow them down because we are seeing some disinflationary pressures. Right. And so they’re in a tough spot right now.

Tony

Yeah. When Powell spoke, gosh, I think it was in the last meeting, he talked about the lag effects of Fed policy, and it was almost in a defensive way, saying, hey, it may not look like much is going on, but there are serious lag effects to our policies and you better watch out. And I think that’s when they rolled out the 25s or they started rolling out the 25s.

I’m not sure that at this point I see an end to 25s. Sam Rine’s on the show talks several times about how it’s at least 25s until mid-summer. Right.

Brent

I think so.

Tony

And I think we’re starting to get some nervousness from the pace of inflation in Europe. And I think that’s kind of bleeding over here a little bit because people are seeing the prints in Europe and saying, gosh, is that coming our way too? The ECB is going to have to hike faster. And so what’s that going to do to say, the dollar and other things as well? And when we have a relatively strong dollar, the impact that’s having on commodity prices, it mutes them. Right?

Brent

So now you just touched on something else that’s very important to understand. Okay. So if Europe is pressured to keep hiking, or at least hiking more than expected, that has the potential, again, no guarantee. Not everything trades on rates, but it has the potential for the dollar to fall more. That’s why the dollar has fallen for the last four months, is the pace of rate hike expectations. So if we already have sticky inflationary data and then the dollar starts to fall in price again, that can actually provide a tailwind for the inflation that the Fed is trying to counteract. Right. So again, it puts them in this tough spot. The other part that you just mentioned is, and this is where it gets tricky as well, is if you look over the last year, but not just last year, if you look over the last ten years, oil is about where it was a year ago and about where it was ten years ago. Natural gas is below where it was a year a you go. Huge drop off in about where it was ten years ago. Corn is about where it was ten years ago.

Wheat’s about where it would… Copper? You look at all these commodities, they’ve actually come down quite a bit from a year ago. But what has remained the stickiest is the wage data or sorry, wage inflation. Those costs, I know we’re going to talk about that at some point as well. And that could be more to do with a structural issue that the Fed has really no control over. Right. If people have, they’re retiring, they’re moving out of the workplace and they’re just not coming back. And so you have a demographic issue where there’s just not enough supply of labor. It pushes up the price of labor. That is something the Fed could influence, but not as easily as they can influence asset prices. And so, again, you get into this situation where I think everybody knows the further down the road we go, the higher the likelihood we have some kind of an event, right? Whether that’s a crash or just a volatility explosion or whatever it is, I think everybody knows that something down the road is not going to be good. Now, whether that’s six days or six months or six years from now, that’s the debate.

But I think we all know that there’s the potential for this great event. And again, if we get into Q2 or Q3 and it hasn’t happened yet, and you have this confluence of all these events that I’m talking about and in the meantime, asset prices have gone higher or at least held where they’re at, you have the potential for this bursting of this bubble, for lack of a better word.

Tony

Right? Go ahead, Tracy.

Tracy

Sorry, I had a question. So we’re seeing that two-year and five-year inflation expectations start to rise again. So what do you make of that? And what does that mean for the Fed and the Fed’s decision? Right?

Brent

Yeah. Well, I think this gets to everything we’ve just been taught it puts them in a tough spot because they’ve already… They have very clearly started to slow, right? Now, they have said we’re going to maintain and we’re not cutting and we could be higher for longer. But there’s no question that they have, at least for the last four months, have not been hiking at the same pace that they were last summer. But the worst thing for the Fed is if they’re back at 25 basis points now, or if they were to indicate that maybe we’ll have one more hike of 25 and then we’ll be done. But then you get inflation starting to rise again. I mean, that’s horrible for that. That’s the worst possible thing for the Fed and it throws their whole object not objectivity. It’s not that their repu… Not that their reputation is great anyway, right? But after getting the last couple of years so wrong, for their credibility to be challenged again is a really tough thing. And I’ve mentioned this before, you cannot underestimate, in my opinion, you cannot underestimate the influence of getting it wrong would have on Powell’s legacy. And I think he’s been very clear that he doesn’t mind having asset prices lower.

In fact, I think he wants asset prices lower. And so while I completely understand the argument for they’re going to have to cut, I don’t think he can personally take the risk of stopping hikes too soon because the risk of stopping too soon is extremely high for him personally.

Tony

I want to go back to your wages point for a minute. So, you know, when we have a company like Walmart make their minimum wage $15 and then that cascades through the economy because it doesn’t hit everyone immediately, you know, there’s a lag to that hitting the economy too, right. What you talk about? And it doesn’t just hit people making below $15. Those people who are making $15 are like, wait, I was making 15. Now everyone’s making $15. So it cascades up a little bit, right. And it cascades out. And so that takes months to hit also. Right. So that just happened in January, this impact on wages, at least for the next couple of months, right, or do you think it happens?

Brent

I think so. And again, when we get to an event, let’s call it either a credit event or a contraction in the money supply or a bursting of an asset, whatever, when we get to an event and things turn the other way quickly, then that stuff can change quickly. But until that happens, there is a tailwind for them to get worse or for the structural wage inflation for them to work themselves through the economy. And the other thing that I think many people forget this is that and I got to be careful how I say this because… I don’t want to confuse people and I don’t want people to think that I’m just absolutely bullish, because I’m not. I do think we’re going to have one of these credit events, and I do think disinflation is more likely than runaway inflation. But until we get that event, there is an inflationary tailwind, not just because of the things we’ve already talked about, but because of the higher rates. And what I mean by that is, as long as the banking system doesn’t contract and there’s not a deflationary crash, the higher rates are actually pumping more money into the economy.

Right. It wasn’t that long ago you had to go out ten years on the yield curve to get anywhere close to 4% return on your money. Now you can put your money in the closest thing to cash and get 4% on your money. So the people who have the money in their accounts are getting more money pushed into it because the Treasury has to pay higher rates. And that’s just now, kind of, again, the federal funds rate has been slowly ticking up, but some of those rates that people receive are just now resetting higher or have just started to reset higher in the last couple of months. And the further we go along without this “event”, more money gets put into their account in the form of interest payments. And that’s a tailwind because now you have more money to spend.

Right. No, the point that I just want to make is that I believe that we’re going to have this event and I think we’re going to have it sometime this year. But until we have it, there’s a tailwind. So it’s almost like it’s going to be speeding up into the wall.

Tony

How much of that tailwind, Brent, is… People have put on pretty easy trades for the past few years? And how much of that tailwind is people who have a little extra money in their account who just want to make that one last trade, right?

Brent

I think there’s a lot of that. I think there’s a lot of that. And that’s typically why it ends badly, right. If you think about an exponential curve, it goes up and up and up and up and up and up, and then it crashes and it’s because those last people are trying to get that last little trade in. And the other thing that I’ll say is I think this is really important to understand and we were talking about it a little bit before, so it’s repetitive but for the people on the show. It was last summer Q3 of last year where the yield curve inverted. Actually, it inverted just slightly in Q2 of last year. But then the real inversion took place in Q3. And at the end of Q3, we had a point where the stocks were at their lowest level in two years. The VIX was at its highest level in two years. The dollar was at its highest level in two years. And I actually at that point, I even sent out a tweet that said to probably do for the dollar to pull back. And I bought, I took off all my equity hedges and I actually bought equity calls and people were like, why the hell are you doing this?

And I said, Because the yield curve is inverted. And they said, that means there’s going to be a recession. And I said, yeah, but usually that takes twelve to 24 months to show up. And historically in that twelve to 24 months, between the time the inversion happens and the recession arrives, you typically get a run in equities. And so that it kind of goes counter. Everybody thinks higher rates, you don’t want to own equities that’s bad for growth, but in actuality it ends up that way. But in the short term it’s actually typically, historically good for stocks. And so to be honest, and I fully admit it, that trade worked, but I sold it way too soon. I chickened out because I see this wall coming, right? But had I held it for this last six months. It would have been a monster trade, but I sold it after, like, one month because I chickened out on it, to be quite honest. But that’s something that’s very important to understand. And here’s the other thing, and I’ll give you some historical context and it’ll explain two things. It’ll explain the magnitude of the run that can happen, and it’ll also explain the horrendous result that can come up afterwards.

And that is it. From 1926 to 1929… Let’s call it, from 1920 to 1926, you had seen stock prices run very high. It was like the Roaring 20s, right? And then in 1926, the yield curve inverted and it stayed inverted until 1929. And in that time period, from 1926 to 1929, the long-term US Treasury fell 30%. So if you were invested in bonds during that yield curve inversion, you lost a lot of money, just like last year, right? But guess what stocks did over that three-year period? They more than doubled. They went up 150% with the yield curve inverted for three years. And now we all know what came after 1929, right? After that last trade, to your point, pushing that last trade into the market, then you had the huge fall. We could very easily have something like that again. Now, I personally am not in the camp that we’re going to go into another Great Depression. I don’t think it’s going to play out that way, but I can’t rule it out. But it’s all of these cross currents.

It’s because I understand the tailwinds and it’s because I see this massive wall that we’re racing towards that I think right now is the hardest environment I’ve ever seen to be an investor, or at least to be an investor with conviction, I think it’s very hard. The good news, and I would encourage people to think about this, the good news is that in the last ten years, if you didn’t have conviction, it was very hard to sit on the sidelines because you got no return in your account. Interest rates were zero, but you can now sit on the sidelines, wait for clarity and get paid 4 to 5%. That’s not a horrible idea. Right. So, anyway, that’s kind of my soapbox moment.

Tony

These are all great points for it. I guess it’s just time for people to be careful. I don’t think you’re saying the sky is falling today. I think you’re saying, just don’t hold the bag. Yeah.

Brent

And I’m not saying you can’t make money. I’ve used this analogy with clients a few times to explain what I mean, because I said, Couldn’t stocks run another 15 or 20%? And I say, yeah, absolutely they can. I said, It’s like when Evel Knievel jumps over the fountains at Caesars Palace and then his son does the same thing. Well, Evel Knievel  crashed and broke every bone in his body. Robbie Knievel landed the jump and was fine. Got a lot huge glory, but they did the same jump. So whether you landed well or land poorly, if you took the same amount of risk. So I’m not saying you can’t make money over the next six months by being in the stock market. I’m just saying you’re taking a lot of risk in order to do it. And if you don’t want to take that level of risk, you can sit in T bills and get 4.5%. That’s not a horrible that’s not a horrible sideshow. Right?

Tony

Right. Yeah. And just for people who aren’t familiar with Brent, I don’t know who isn’t? But he’s not a total doomer. Right. You’re not this, you know, permabear.

Brent

And I try not to be.

Tony

I just don’t want people to think you’re kind of a permabear coming on and try to spread kind of the permabear gospel. You do change your views as markets change, and this is just kind of a sober view on kind of where we are.

Brent

I own a lot of equities for my clients right now. We have participated in the run, but we have not been levered on it. And I’m not all in on that trade, but we own stocks in our portfolio. We think it’s time to be careful. We think you should have some hedges, we think you should have some cash. But we’re not sitting in our bunker just waiting for the sky to fall.

Tony

Great. Okay, that’s all good to know. Time to be very, very sober about things. You mentioned loans and interest rates, and Brent, you were mentioning some things about commercial and industrial loans. And Tracy, you’ve talked about capex, especially in energy, pretty regularly. And Brent, you were saying something about the CNI loans have risen over the past year, even as interest rates have gone up. Can you talk us through that?

Brent

Yeah. So this is kind of another part of the narrative. The combating narratives that I think people forget is many people didn’t think the Fed would ever be able to raise rates. But not only did they raise once, they’ve been raising them for a year now, and they’ve raised them aggressively. And the markets have not collapsed, to many people’s chagrin and many people said, well, as soon as the Fed starts raising rates, they’re no longer going to be increasing the money supply. Okay, that’s fair. And I know a lot of people think that the central banks just print money and flood the market with money. But where the real printing of money comes from, where the real creation of money comes from is when banks loan money. When you go down to your bank and you take out a loan, they don’t and let’s say you take out a million dollar loan, they don’t take somebody else’s million dollars and give it to you. They create it out of thin air. That’s rational.

Tony

Million dollars?

Brent

That’s right. That that’s a new million dollars that’s now in the economy that wasn’t there before. And so a year ago, loans had been coming down aggressively since COVID so they’ve been ramping up, I want to say, like in 2020, it was around $2.4 trillion. And then after COVID, they did all these PPP loans and it spiked to like $3 trillion. And then since the PPP loans, it’s just been steadily every month down, down, down. But I think it was last March or April, it stopped going down and it actually started to tick up. And now it’s been going up for a year, and so it’s up about 10% or 15% from the bottom. So that’s the creation of new money. And despite the fact that the higher rates have not yet caused anybody to go bankrupt, it’s starting to happen. And BlackRock had this happen to them with one of their funds recently. But despite the raising rates, you haven’t seen mass bankruptcies yet. And not only that, you see new loans being taken out. The existing supply of money is still there because we’re not getting the big credit contraction, and new money is being created through new loans.

And so again, you have this tailwind that’s actually speeding things up towards this wall that I believe we’re heading towards. It’s kind of part of the same thing we’ve already been talking about, but it’s just another facet of it.

Tony

No, it’s good. Some economists are going to ride in and say “that’s not technically new money.” But it is new money, right, because it’s circulating in the system and people are using it. Okay, so what drives that? I mean, it seems to me that when you have interest rates kind of steady for a long period of time, people tend to say, well, I can always put that investment off until tomorrow. But then when you see interest rates start to rise, people wake up and go, whoa, wait a minute, I better make that investment before it rises even more. Is that what’s happening?

Brent

I’m actually not an expert on this, and I don’t know for sure, but here’s my theory on it. And so I’m sure we’ll get a lot of people that tell me I’m wrong, but this is kind of how I think about it. I’ve been on record in the past as saying low rates are deflationary for the reason you just explained. If the market condition is so bad that the Federal Reserve has to resort to these extraordinary measures and pull interest rates to zero, is that really an environment where you want to go borrow a million bucks? Maybe, but that’s kind of scary, right? And so I kind of feel like low rates keep people from borrowing money and keep people and it’s borne out, if you look at these reports, that’s typically what’s happened. But if you are in an industry and you are competitive in that industry, and you want to remain in that industry, and you have not taken out that loan. But then let’s pretend as an example, you own a shoe store in Dallas, right? And you compete with a couple of the malls and a couple of the other independent sellers.

And a year ago, they took out a loan and bought more inventory and increased the size of their showroom or whatever it is. And you didn’t. But now we’re a year ahead. Market is holding up. Everybody’s going to those new stores to buy shoes. They’re not coming into your store as much. And in order for you to compete with them, you need to build a bigger showroom. You need to buy more, whatever it is. Well, now your loan costs two or 3% more than it did a year ago. And so now your question is, if I want to remain in this business and the crash doesn’t come in the next two months, if I wait another three or four months, our rate is going to be 2% higher? And so they’re kind of behind the eight ball. And so what I think happens is, as interest rates start to rise, if you need the money, you will borrow it. And we get into…

Tony

A friend who is doing a restaurant franchise who’s going who went through that exact process in terms of deciding when to take out money. It was extremely low. Interest rates started to rise and he felt urgency to get his loan locked in and got it locked in because of the change of rate, right? And the perception of the future change of rate made him so those expectations play.

Brent

I did the same thing. I bought a place in Puerto Rico last summer, and I think our mortgage is around 5%. It had been like 3%. If I’d have done it three years ago, we did it at five, and now I think they’re at six or seven. But that was part of my calendar calculation. It’s possible that rates will go higher. Now, it’s also possible that they’ll crash the three, in which case I refinance and I’ll be fine. But the point is, as money gets more expensive, if you’re going to stay in business, you need money. And so we get into this other theoretical thing where money is a gift. And I say money is a gift and good. And a gift and good is something that typically when something rises in price, the demand falls. But not with a gift and good, with a gift and good is as demand rises, price rises. Or as price rises, demand rises as well. And it’s because you just need it. It’s like this drug you just have to have. And as interest rates start to rise, you will pay more and more and more. And people say, well, if it gets too high, they won’t pay.

And I always say, okay, maybe but if high interest rates keep people from borrowing, then explain to me why Visa is in business and why loan sharks exist. They exist because even though they have rates, people need money and they will borrow at high rates. And so I think that’s kind of what we’ve seen as well. Again, I think this is all going to end, but all of this contributes to where we see markets at today.

Tony

Yeah, I think you’re exactly right. Tracy, can we change this focus of capex to energy? Because it’s pretty well known and you’ve talked about several times that energy hasn’t invested in the upstream since 2014 or something, right? So do you think that rising interest rates and there is some change in the tone of ESG speak in the US over the past couple of months? Do you think the rising interest rates may push some of these companies to start investing in the upstream, or is that just completely ridiculous?

Tracy

I’d be hesitant to say, yeah, I think oil companies are going to jump on board with this because we still have this rhetoric in the west saying that we’re phasing you out in ten years. We want you gone. And so oil companies are therefore they just don’t want to spend the money. And it doesn’t really matter what rate it is at. It’s good news. We’ve seen Vanguard leave the Zero Alliance, and we’ve kind of seen a lot of these banks kind of push back and a lot of these investment funds kind of push back on this ESG narrative. But I just don’t think that’s quite enough until we see governments really focus more on ESG. And even though, say, for example, and it seems hypocritical, we’ve seen Germany, for example, their coal usage skyrocketed in 2022 as they’re closing nuclear plants. Meanwhile, they’re pushing this green initiative. The problem is that since natural gas prices have come back down to prices that they were pre-summer of 2022, I think that they’ve become very complacent. This is how natural gas prices will stay, and natural gas prices are going to stay low.

But that’s looking at the European economy, on the other hand, the damage has already been done. We’re already seeing some deindustrialization in Germany. You have BASF leaving forever. You have a lot of smelters across the whole of EU that are just not going to come back online when they had to. In fact, a lot of them started shutting down in fall of 2021 before the Ukraine invasion. And the thing is, you can’t just reignite those glass furnaces. It takes a lot of money. You have to keep them running 24 hours, 24/7. You know, we’re just not seeing that industry come back, unfortunately. And the ironic thing is if we go back to BASF in particular, they are moving to China, who is buying cheap Russian oil.

Brent

Crazy, right?

Tracy

Because it’s cheaper to do business over there in general. But so I think at this point and we’ve also at one of that, we’re also seeing companies, oil and gas companies, in the UK, sort of because of their windfall taxes. That’s affecting business as well. And so they have decided to either leave the UK altogether we just had Suncor in Canada sell all their assets in their joint venture to BP. And we heard from Shell, Equinor, and BP all said that whatever we wanted to invest in UK, we’re not going to do that anymore because of these windfall taxes. I think that we’re running up against a lot of problems here that are more government-oriented, bureaucratic-oriented than our state central bank oriented, rates oriented.

Tony

We have had some state governments in the US push back on ESG. Right. And we did have a bill in Congress that passed that was pushing back on ESG, but there’s a veto coming or something on that bill, is that right? Governments are getting involved to some level.

Tracy

Absolutely. We have 20 states right now, basically, that are pushing back on the ESG narrative, saying, we do not want our pension funds investing based on ESG. We want our pension fund, our state pension funds, investing on what we think is going to make us money.

Brent

That’s going to make money. Imagine that. Right?

Tony

That would be a good focus.

Tracy

So there are 20 states involved in that. Texas is one of them. Florida is one of them. So that’s still kind of going through the court system at this point. And as far as this new, the amazing thing is this ESG legislation that will likely get vetoed was that it passed the House and the Senate. That’s huge. That’s a huge shift, right? Not by a small margin, I mean, relatively speaking, when we’re talking about other pieces of legislation. So the narrative is shifting in the US. So I think it’s too early to say where this is going to go, but it is definitely something worth keeping your eye on.

Tony

Great. Okay. All right, that’s good. Let’s talk about the Russian supply cuts going into this month. They’re going into this month, Tracy, what does that mean? Can you kind of put that in perspective of their overall supplies?

Tracy

Yeah, I think in general, what people expected was when they announced this and they announced this in a month ago, that oil prices were going to skyrocket. But I don’t think they were doing that to raise oil prices and stick it to the west, right. And raise oil prices that they wanted to see. What they wanted to do is narrow that spread between urals and ESPO, which are their two main crude grades with respect to Brent, because that’s how the prices quoted, European oil prices are quoted in Brent minus whatever the spread is. Right. So what they wanted to do is they wanted, after the price caps and all of the sanctions, et cetera, they wanted to, we saw those prices, those front month prices in those particular grades fall dramatically. And so I think what they want to do is narrow the spreads. And so really, that’s what I think that whole thing, that whole decision was aired for.

And then you also have to understand that Russia includes condensates, which is those lighter oils within their total oil production, whereas the rest of the world does not. And so we don’t really know exactly where that 500K is coming from. Are they those like NAFTA, or is it pure crude? And where that really remains, just so people kind of understand the market over there.

Brent

I think Tracy and I might be wrong, but you’re the expert here, but I think another contributing reason that they cut production is, to your point, in order to get that spread closer, right? Because the discount was pretty significant. Right. And a month ago, I think they announced the production cuts, and a month ago, they announced that tax revenues were falling and as a result, they were going to have a budget deficit this year. But what I didn’t see until kind of a couple of weeks ago was that as a result of the production cuts and as a result of the tax revenues falling so severely in Russia that they are changing the way taxes are calculated on Russian producers.

Tracy

Exactly. Exactly.

Brent

And they are doing and this is not going to be in favor of the Russian producers, they’re going to increase the taxes on the Russian producers to try to alleviate that budget deficit. So I don’t know that they were 100% correlated, but I don’t think that they’re unrelated. Right? In other words, if they’re going to tax Russian producers at a higher rate, and it is taxed on the difference of the spread between the west and Europe, they not only want to get the spread closer or the price higher, the discounted price higher, and then tax at a higher rate. So it’s kind of a double whammy on the producers.

Tracy

It’s a double whammy on the producers, but it’s income for the government.

Brent

Right, exactly. No, exactly.

Tracy

You know what I mean? And this is the same thing I was kind of talking about earlier on another podcast. What is interesting is that Russia is suddenly buying this huge fleet of vessels, right? So they own the vessels and they’re now insuring themselves. So the government’s making money no matter what. They’re just paying themselves. So Russia is not really losing money on this, even with the price cap and with that spread being lower. Now, if you look at and moving on to that, there was just an independent study done that assessed the international sanctions impact on Russian oil imports. And I think it was researchers from Columbia University, University of California, and the International Institute of Finance. And what they discovered is really that Russian crude oil is really selling for $74 right now, all is said and done, which is well above the $60 price cap. All we hear from mainstream media is they’re losing money, they’re losing money. But in reality and I read this paper, and I’ll post it on Twitter later if anybody wants to read this paper. It’s very interesting and it’s very well done. They essentially are selling oil above the price cap, and there’s no way to stop. There’s no way to stop.

Tony

Yeah, sanctions are great, but if there’s no enforcement mechanism, they don’t mean anything. And the Russians know that. Russia, Iran, China, they all know how to circumvent.

Tracy

Iran is the most sanctioned country in the entire world as far as the oil industry is concerned, and they’re still making money, and they’re still able to export, so.

Brent

Shows you how powerful oil is.

Tony

Right, exactly. So, Tracy, who does the 500,000 cut hurt? Is it hurting Asia more, or does it hurt markets generally, globally, just because it’s crude oil?

Tracy

Well, I think, again, it’s very hard to decipher because we don’t know what 100% is being cut. Is it all oil, or is it just these light condensates? And so I think in general, I don’t think it hurts anybody in particular, because if the markets were that worried about it, well, it would be at $100 right now, easy. Right? And so I don’t think markets are that worried about it. I also think markets are kind of let’s wait and see what this actually is. And that brings to a second point, is that right now what’s happening is that we’re having a bifurcated market, right? So the oil market, which did its thing for 30 years, 40, 30 years very nicely, trade routes were settled. We were in this crew. Now we have literally a gray market. I mean, we always had a black market in the gray market, but, I mean, now we’re talking 10 million barrels a day in the gray market, not a few million barrels wherever else. So we’re talking about a large 10 million barrels, which is approximately Russia. And this is a gray market right now, right, because they have their own vessels again, their own insurance. They’re doing ship-to-ship transfers. They’re doing all these shady stuff offline to kind of mitigate and get around Western sanctions in any way possible. And so we really are seeing this market where it’s going to be harder and harder if you’re a barrel comes here, it’s going to be harder and harder to actually track these barrels because that gray market has exploded in volume.

Tony

Interesting, you tweeted a story about some Russian crude being seized in Albania. So that’s one of the, I guess, paths to circumvent. Can you talk us through that and why that’s important?

Tracy

Well, I think that it was interesting because this is not something that, you know, again, there are offshore ship-to-ship transfers going everywhere. You know, particularly if you look off, Spain is a very big on ship-to-ship transfers, right, in Greece. I just thought that was interesting because my first thought was five minutes later, it’s going to be on the black market via the Albanians.

Tony

Sure.

Tracy

But yeah, I mean, they just happened to get caught and too bad that Albert’s not here. He could probably better explain the Albanian relationship.

Brent

It was probably him.

Tony

Okay. I guess the message that I’m getting pretty consistently and tell me if I’m wrong, these are sanctions put on by Europeans, but through Albania, through Greece, through Spain and other places, they’re circumventing the sanctions. When I say “they”, I mean people in Europe are circumventing the sanctions that their own governments put on. Have I misread that?

Tracy

No. I mean, I think that everybody’s trying to kind of find a way around the sanctions right now. And you have to remember, this only applies to seaborne Russian crude. I mean, we still have gas pipes into Europe and we still have oil pipes into Europe right now. So it’s really only seaborne crude.

Tony

So when it’s piped, it’s fine.

Tracy

Yes.

Tony

That’s amazing. Really amazing. Okay, great. Hey, guys, listen, let’s just take a quick look at what you guys are expecting in the near term. What are you guys looking for, say, for the next week? What’s ahead? Tracy it sounds like energy markets are kind of sideways for a while.

Tracy

I think we’re kind of stuck in this $70-80 range right now in WTI. OPEC is very comfortable at $80-90 range for right now in Brent. And so, you know, I think that as we move closer to, say, high demand season and we get more clarity on China and what their domestic demand is going to really look like, I think we could definitely see a push to the upside. But for right now, I think markets are very comfortable where they are, and I think OPEC is very satisfied where markets are right now.

Tony

Okay, great. That’s what events happen, though, right?

Tracy

When everyone’s coming, right? Exactly. You never know what could happen. You had what the story this morning from The Wall Street Journal say EU is leaving. I was like, what? No, they’re not. And they retracted the statement.

Tony

You leaving OPEC and all that stuff? Yeah. Crazy. Brent, what are you looking for in the next week or so?

Brent

I kind of think we’re going to continually have this violent sideways. I think markets are going to go up one day and they’re going to go down the next. And I think in general, I don’t think we’re going to get real clarity in one direction or the other until at least the Fed meeting. Possibly. We do have CPI that comes out a week before the Fed, so that will have a big impact, no doubt, unless it comes in right on the number, which in which case it will be violent sideways again. But I’m trying to just be nimble right now. Again, I don’t have any huge convictions either way right now. I kind of have my long term view while I understand the short term tailwinds, but I think it’s a time to be prudent rather than a time to try to be brave. So that’s kind of a cop out answer, but that’s kind of the truth right now.

Tony

No, I think that’s a great way to put it. Time to be prudent rather than time to be brave. I love it. Okay, guys, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. This is great, great insights. So I appreciate it. Have a great weekend. And have a great weekend. Thank you, thank you.

Brent

Thank you.

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News Articles

Complete Intelligence – an AI-powered intelligence platform for strategic investment and procurement decisions

This article first appeared and originally published at https://cxcreate.io/complete-intelligence-an-ai-powered-intelligence-platform-for-strategic-investment-and-procurement-decisions.

Complete Intelligence – a fully automated and globally integrated AI platform for smarter cost and revenue planning.

Complete Intelligence provides actionable, accurate, and timely data to make better investment and procurement decisions.

The platform provides an integrated global model to ensure that actions in one market, country, or sector of the economy are reflected elsewhere in markets, industries, and the global economy. International trade, economic indicators, currencies, commodity prices, and equity indices are all factored in to create a proxy of the global economy. Over 1200 industries in more than 100 countries are covered!

Download the report to get the full story.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD REPORT

Complete Intelligence and Oracle

About this report


Based on interviews with Tony Nash, founder, CEO, and Chief Data Scientist, this brief report introduces Complete Intelligence, one of a growing number of highly innovative companies supported by the Oracle for Startups program. The company, founded in 2019, is already significantly improving the forecasting and budget planning of a variety of large corporations through its advanced AI-driven intelligence platform. The theme for this month is around startups in the energy and utility sector and how they are innovating, changing the competitive landscape, and contributing to sustainability. CX-Create is an independent IT industry analyst and advisory firm, and this report is sponsored by the Oracle for Startups program team.


The business context for Complete Intelligence

Commodity price volatility and a post-pandemic surge in demand drive the need for more timely and accurate forecasting
Businesses coming out of lockdown have increased demand for commodities, from energy supply to raw materials for their products. In Europe, benchmark prices for natural gas to power their factories and heat their buildings have risen from €16 megawatt-hour in January 2021 to €88 in October. This, in turn, has sent electricity prices soaring. (Source: Euronews). While some have locked in prices through forward-buying, others have been exposed and seen profit margins plummet, unable to pass on price hikes to their customers.

But it is not just energy prices that are volatile. Semiconductor chip shortages have impacted many industries that depend on them, from automotive to electronic household goods manufacturers, putting a brake on their post-pandemic recoveries despite strengthening demand.

The growing demand for clean and sustainable energy sources and precious metals, like copper and lithium that power batteries have also seen tremendous volatility. As major industrial companies digitally transform their organizations and business models seeking elusive growth, the importance of data and AI are increasingly recognized as fundamental to success.


Forecasting and budgeting needs data science, not spreadsheets
The ability to sense change, respond quickly and adapt rapidly relies on a synthesis of massively increased volumes and varieties of data, both from operational and external sources. Data volumes are too complex for manual approaches and spreadsheets and require AI to extract insight and meaning from this complex array of external demand and supply signals. The old industrial-age planning approaches can’t cope. They are too slow, involve armies of accountants and analysts, and political wrestling between departmental heads, and are often based on opinion and inaccurate forecasts leading to erroneous budgeting decisions.


Complete Intelligence provides the accurate evidence base for budgeting and forecasting decisions


When markets are relatively calm and stable, the cycle of annual planning and budgeting makes sense. But amidst continual volatility and dramatic accelerated change, the planning cycle is too slow. It fails to mitigate the risks unfolding at such speed and is impacted by a confluence of so many variables, like extreme weather, scarcity of raw materials, pandemics, and weakened supply chains. An array of intelligent internal and external feedback loops is needed to mitigate risks and optimize resources in pursuit of the company’s goals. This is what Complete Intelligence provides with its integrated and modular intelligence platform.


Key observations


• Complete Intelligence provides the accurate evidence base for budgeting and forecasting decisions
• The Complete Intelligence Platform consists of three modules – CI Futures, RevenueFlow and CostFlow
• Forecast accuracy has rapidly improved, and error rates are now around 2%, which compares favorably with traditional methods and error rates of 35% or more


Complete Intelligence, the story so far


Tony Nash, founder, CEO, and Chief Data Scientist, is steeped in market intelligence. A former VP of market intelligence firm IHS (now IHS Markit), and The Economist Intelligence Unit, where he was Global Director Consulting and Custom Research. He observed that large international companies he had supported typically followed an annual budgeting cycle based on often inaccurate or opinion-based data. It was not unusual to find large teams of people, sometimes several hundred involved in the process and heavily reliant on gathering data from multiple departments in complicated spreadsheets. The process could last several months, and the variance between forecasts and actuals was often above 35%, which could erode profits or tie up resources unnecessarily.

Trial, error, and persistence
As a data scientist familiar with cloud technologies, he developed algorithms to improve forecast accuracy and a complete process from data ingestion to forecasting and testing the results. He started developing the machine learning ML algorithms in 2017 while still consulting in Asia from his base in Singapore. His first iteration failed to produce a level of accuracy that would provide a sufficiently compelling proposition. He wanted to get down to an error rate of no more than 5%-7%. He adopted the ‘ensemble’ approach covering thousands of different scenarios layering external data on commodities such as the copper price with a customer’s actual costs, identified in their general ledger.


Ready for launch late 2019
In 2019, Nash returned from Singapore and set up his company in The Woodlands, near Houston, Texas. He continued his work on the algorithms and developed a commercial product ready to launch in early 2020. And then Covid-19 struck.


Through Covid-19, companies first tried to understand the changing environment, then remained risk-averse until public health, business environment, and supply chains became more stable. This has been a challenge for a cutting-edge machine learning firm like Complete Intelligence. It is only as the environment has begun to stabilize that enterprises have sought new solutions to legacy problems. With that has come a renewed interest in Complete Intelligence and deployment at a large scale.


Solution overview
The Complete Intelligence Platform consists of three modules

The Complete Intelligence Platform hosted on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) consists of three forecasting modules:


CI Futures – to forecast market trends. Covering over 1,400 industries in more than 100 countries and a database of over 16 billion data points from proprietary and publicly available data. Millions of learning algorithms are used, which factor in the most recent global events.


RevenueFlow – provides accurate results for demand and forecast sales and revenue projections.


CostFlow – to enhance product line profitability and improve supply chain and procurement outcomes.


Figure 1. provides a diagram of the Complete Intelligence Platform


Figure 1: Complete Intelligence Platform by Complete Intelligence.

Market data is ingested from multiple trusted data sources like national statistical agencies, multilateral banks, multilateral government bodies, commodities exchanges, bilateral trade bodies and combined with the client’s data from their general ledger. A multi-layer testing and validation process used to ensure the accuracy of the data to be used in any forecast. Third-party data is
gathered via internet spiders and APIs.


The platform provides an integrated global model to ensure that actions in one market, country, or sector of the economy are reflected elsewhere in markets, industries, and the global economy.
International trade, economic indicators, currencies, commodity prices, and equity indices are all factored in to create a proxy of the global economy.

A comprehensive list of futures, currencies, and market indices is covered and accessed through a highly graphical and easy-to-use interface. Almost 1,000 assets, with historical data from 2010 and
forecasts over a one-year horizon, are provided. More assets are being added all the time.


The platform is designed around three attributes:
• A globally integrated model
• A data-driven process without human intervention in the output
• A simple means of interfacing with the platform.


The platform can be connected to existing ERP systems and automatically upload pricing data from the general ledger at a very granular level for each item.


The Complete Intelligence Platform supports a variety of use cases:
• Supply Chain & Purchasing Optimization – help lower costs, anticipate risks, and provide input to sourcing strategies.
• Sales and market entry strategies – by identifying higher growth markets and optimizing resources
• Strategic Financial Planning – identifying growth markets and fine-tuning resource allocations in each market to minimize exposure to currency fluctuations.
• Mergers and acquisitions – provide a snapshot of cost structures and projections of future costs and profitability of target acquisitions.


Forecast accuracy has rapidly improved, and error rates are now around 2%
Nash’s persistence has resulted in significant levels of forecasting accuracy. A twelve-month forecast now sees error rates around 2%, which gives users considerable confidence compared with traditional methods, where the error rates are often above 35%.


As well as dramatically improving forecast accuracy on markets, revenues, and costs, the onboarding process to going live is a matter of a few weeks. After that, forecasting takes hours, not months.

Current position

Successes to date

While still a relatively new company, Complete Intelligence has already proved its value to several large companies.


• A major petrochemical company wanted to improve its predictive intelligence capability for feedstocks and refined products. They asked Complete Intelligence to examine nine categories across crude oil, gasoline, diesel, natural gas, and gas-to-liquid (GTL) products. Monthly forecast averages are provided by category with extremely low differences from actual results on the order of 3% or less.


• A global furniture company wanted a more explicit link between their sales and revenue planning and their sales teams in China. Complete Intelligence built a sales forecasting model that more clearly identified and utilized market demand drivers and connected these directly to their business. An analytics-based approach to identify the drivers of sales by city and industry. Complete Intelligence built a city and industry-level forecasting tool that determined the company’s growth trajectory and provided recommendations to support the direction and transition of their sales teams.
• A global chemicals company needed a better understanding of the trends for costs in their supply chain and a more precise way to manage margin expansion and contraction at the bill of material level. Complete Intelligence was commissioned to forecast factor inputs and currencies for the key categories. The forecasts were calibrated based on the component make-up of the bill of materials. This enabled the client to identify the direction of the materials pricing and the impact on their BOM. Through the process, the client learned how to anticipate cost movements and protect margins.


Current go-to-market model

Complete Intelligence sells directly to large organizations, mainly targeting CFOs and COOs with a broad view of their companies and strategic decisions.

The company also has strategic partnerships with Microsoft and is listed on the Azure Marketplace and with Oracle as part of the Oracle for Startups program and hosted on OCI.


Other partnerships with Bloomberg and Refinitiv allow for exchanging financial and market data and connection to their platforms.

  • More transparent accuracy reporting so customers can view accuracy/error for every line item
  • More robust and flexible data visualization for clients to utilize Complete Intelligence forecasts within their visual narratives
  • More sophisticated data science to account for detailed sentiment and other qualitative factors
  • Do-it-yourself forecasts for customers to do ad hoc forecasts for any data at any time. This will enable teams within a company to do their own sophisticated, reliable forecasts without waiting on their in-house market analysis or forecasting team with complicated macros and massive spreadsheet workbooks
  • Embedding Complete Intelligence forecast APIs into ERP and accounting software.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and the Oracle for Startups program prove their value to Complete Intelligence
When asked what he felt about the relationship with Oracle and the Oracle for Startups program, Nash said, “Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is very flexible and secure. The Oracle for Startups team has been great. Oracle has been the most responsive and helpful of all our partnerships, connecting us to the right people to help with marketing, sales, or technical questions. I really feel that they want
us to succeed. I’m a huge advocate of the Oracle for Startups program.’’

CX-Create’s viewpoint
The Complete Intelligence Platform addresses a fundamental business need


Providing a global proxy model on markets, commodities, currency fluctuations, and many other aspects and making this easily accessible for business people will significantly improve strategic
investment and procurement decisions. The emphasis on accurate and timely data supported by ML models will make it easier for business people to make informed decisions, stripped of personal
bias. Digital transformation should lead to a more agile and responsive organization. The more progressive organizations will want highly attuned external signals that are constantly updated,
enabling them to de-risk investment decisions and optimize resources for growth. Complete Intelligence provides for that.


Summary details
Table 1: Fact sheet