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2023 Supply Chain: How China’s Future & Germany’s Dependence on Russian Gas Will Impact Global Trade

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In this episode, Ross Kennedy of Fortis Analysis, Ralph Schoellhammer of Webster Vienna Private University and Albert Marko joined Tony to discuss three main themes: supply chains in 2023, the existence of China in 10 years and Germany’s dependence on Russian gas.

Ross Kennedy led the discussion on supply chains in 2023, and he explained that although supply chain issues have appeared to normalize over the last 4 months, with trans-Pacific shipping rates falling to levels at the start of the Covid pandemic, there are still things to watch out for in the upcoming year.

Albert Marko led the discussion on the prediction that China will not exist in 10 years. This claim was made by Peter Zeihan, a geopolitical analyst, during his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast. He went on to say that some of Zeihan’s predictions sound impressive, but he and Ross Kennedy both have doubts about the validity of this claim.

Tony pointed out that similar predictions were made by George Friedman in his book “The Next 100 Years” (2009), where he said that China would split into 5 countries. However, both Albert and Ross argue that China’s economy, military, and political power are too strong for this to happen in the near future. They also highlighted the fact that China’s growth and development have been hindered by the pandemic, but the country has managed to recover quickly and is still a major player in the global economy.

Ralph Schoellhammer led the discussion on Germany’s ongoing dependence on Russian gas. He wrote about how the green push in Germany has led to a decrease in the country’s dependence on Russian gas, but there are other considerations. He explained that the Russia-Ukraine War had a major impact on Germany’s dependence on Russian gas and that when the war stops, it is likely that Germany will welcome Russian gas again. He also highlighted the fact that Germany’s dependence on Russian gas is not just a matter of energy security, but also a matter of economic and political considerations.

Key themes:
1. Supply Chains in 2023
2. Will China exist in 10 years?
3. Germany can’t quit Russian gas

This is the 49th 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
Ross: https://twitter.com/maphumanintent
Albert: https://twitter.com/amlivemon
Ralph: https://twitter.com/Raphfel

You can also listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/complete-intelligence/id1651532699?i=1000594418263

Transcript

Tony

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Week Ahead. I’m Tony Nash. Today we’re joined by two new guests. We’ve got Ross Kennedy. You may know Ross as Huntsman on Twitter. He’s with Fortis Analysis. And we’ve got Ralph Schoellhammer. Ralph is at Webster Vienna Private University. And we have the honor of having Albert Marko with us again today. So there’s a lot that’s happened really over the past couple of years around supply chains. And we’re going to kick off talking about supply chains in 2023, and Ross is going to lead us on that. But next we’re going to look at China. There have been some claims made about kind of existential claims made about China over the past couple of weeks, and Albert is going to walk us through those. And then finally, Ralph is going to help us talk about Russian or sorry, German energy and German dependence on Russian gas. So let’s get into it, guys. Thanks for joining us. Ross, you know, I’ve seen a lot on Twitter. You’re you’re talking quite a lot about supply chains. And in 20 and 21, you really opened a lot of our eyes to some of those issues.

Learn more about the CI Futures app: https://www.completeintel.com/futures

Tony

So I’ve wanted to have you on the show for a long time. On the screen right now, I’ve got a chart of shipping rates, Asia to us, west coast seafood rates, and those obviously ballooned up in 21, came back down in 22. And we’re kind of now down to about where we were in Q, one of 20. So the last four months, things have really started to calm down in terms of the costs.

But I guess really what I want to get into with you is, are supply chain risks a thing of the past? You know, what should be we be looking for in 2023? I guess that’s let’s just start with that. Are they a thing of the past? And what should we be looking for in supply chains in 23?

Ross

Yeah, I think supply chains have changed in terms of the scope of risk. Certainly it shifted from one to the other. We had a short term risk that was very systemic as far as manufacturing in China being completely disrupted, the ability to ship out. And then we had the entire issue of people changing their buying habits basically by force as far as lockdowns from a lot of events, a lot of entertainment, a lot of things where their dollars are being spent on, not physical things that actually have to be chipped. And all of a sudden, everybody took that spending, they took the stimulus money, and they just began buying things that were feathering their nest or occupying their attention. And so you had the disruption not only of lockdowns, not only of that, but you had this very enormous shift in purchasing from experiences or non tangible things to physical things that have to be shipped. That’s why you saw the run up in stock for Amazon and numerous others, it was because people were doing that right. So we had this enormous crunch that was driven by that fundamentally. And now we’ve seen we have the bullet effect.

Ross

Inventories were dramatically over ordered and now we’ve got inflation happening. So inventories are full and demand is down, particularly on the transpacific trade to the West Coast, the US. China. What we have seen, though, is that there has been container volume shifted to the Gulf. It’s also shifted to the East Coast because we’ve had the risk really since July of last year of longshoreman strikes. And then you have the concurrent risk of rail strikes coming off the West Coast. So we have seen some volume that’s still in place shift. But depending on who you are as a company, we’ll determine if that has actually your supply chain problems have begin to unwind a little bit or if they have really only begun or if they’ve just changed as far as what they are. If you’re a retailer in the US, you really just started shipping over the East Coast if you’re concerned about West Coast risk and you still have to move inventory. But that’s assuming that now the lockdown, lockdown, lockdown, no lockdown, back to lockdown and now no lockdown again with people out sick right in front of the Chinese New Year, if that hasn’t dramatically impacted your business.

Ross

There are some sectors that have been heavily hit by that hard. The impact is less to China in some ways because they’re heavily subsidized in a lot of their industries. The impact is more so, I think, felt by the US. And I know Albert will talk about the China side of that factor. But what we’ve seen now is a dramatic disruption, really, to the way things are. Not in a foreseeable way, not in a way that a lot of people know how to forecast. In a very I would say very unexpected way where you’ve got this sort of well, not unexpected to this group, but unexpected through a lot of supply chain and planners and executives of. They went from huge amounts of demand to very little demand due to inflation here in the US. And then you also have the supply side disruption in Asia. So that’s sort of the twin monsters that a lot of North American companies and European companies are dealing with related to planning this.

Tony

It sounds to me like we have a couple of things in general that are helping to alleviate this. First is price, right? Things are more expensive and so that’s pushing down demand on a volume basis. But we also have China opening up and so that is alleviating supply chains on the supply side. So those two dynamics seem to be really helping us into 23. Have we also seen I know there’s been a lot of talk about this, but to what extent are we seeing rotation of manufacturing locations? Is that a major effect or are we in the early stages of that?

Ross

I think we’re in the very early stages of it. It takes multiple years if you’re going to uproot a semiconductor foundry, for example, which everybody’s made a big deal about, the chips act and all that. And I think Nancy Pelosi had a great run financially because of that for a while. But it takes three to four years, even five years, from soup to nuts, be able to get the process of moving something halfway around the world from one location to another. You have to make a lot of things before you install them and then begin making chips. Other things that are able to transition very quickly are doing so. Things that are fungible, where you’re essentially reprogramming a machine to print a T shirt in China versus Vietnam, that stuff is already shifting. You’re already seeing demand pick up for things like garments and textiles in Southeast Asia and India and Bangladesh. Pakistan also has gained a little bit on the textile side, but things that are energy intensive to manufacture, things that require critical raw materials or certain types of inputs that China does very well. We’ll probably talk a little bit about Zahance hypothesis with regards to China, but China is very dominant in a lot of raw material sectors, and assuming they continue to have the energy and labor available, it’s going to be a lot slower to ship that type of stuff away from China.

Ross

But things that can shift. Are you’re seeing more tires produced outside of China again, for example? So, again, it’s very sector dependent, and a lot of people want to make projections or economic plans or suggestions about the way things are on a macro scale without really understanding that in certain ways, china still very much holds the whip hand. And you won’t see manufacturing shift in other ways. You’re seeing it shift very rapidly away from China and that’ll have an impact on them as well.

Tony

Okay, so let’s take a step back to, say, 2019. Okay? We had Trump, who was trying to get different things out of China and bring things to the US. And reduce China’s centrality or centricity to supply chains. And then we have COVID come in, and that really disrupts supply chains. And then there’s this wake up call for people to kind of regionalize manufacturing, right? So this reminds me a lot of, say, 2007 eight, when it started with Japanese companies doing a China plus one, china plus two, China plus three strategy, right? That’s happening again. But after we got through the financial crisis, everyone just was like, China is easy. Let’s just go back and do that. Are we going to see that again? Are people just going to kind of shrug shoulders at the end of the day and go, people are inherently lazy. I don’t want to have to do the work to have three different sites to manufacture this stuff. So let’s just put it back in China. Is that likely to happen? Or was this wake up call the one that really pushes people to have resiliency in their supply chain?

Ross

I think, again, from a sector dependent standpoint, it’s yes and no. To the extent that if the stakeholder, if the primary stakeholder of a company is the US. Let’s say a Honeywell, for example, they will have to pull out US policies. We have reached a point that even if the US has a company is US based and they’re like, we’re going to still try to manufacture there for whatever reason, it is too much of a lift to pull out of there. In a lot of respects, xi Jinping has a vote on that too. If he wants a company out, or if he wants to just see that company’s manufacturing capacity or whatever, he’ll do it. Right. So the bad guy always has a vote on how the fight goes too. So that is one group of companies that very much can be expected to either leave on their own or be forced out in other sectors where a company can be co opted or the US. Isn’t really paying attention. Yeah, I think you’ll see the impetus to just kind of try to hunker down and ride out this ten year sort of economic cold war, if you will.

Ross

In their mind, they’ll do that as well. But again, so many of the unknowns that are driven here are the fact that China has a vast ability, if it chooses to, to leverage its own strategic advantages to push us around the anchor companies there if they want to, to kick them out if they choose to. And for whatever reason, really, outside of a relatively small group of Natsych types and people that do analysis really well, they’re not discussing what the calculus is on the other side. They’re just discussing what the US. May or may not be able to do through our own policy. At the end of the day, particularly when it comes to energy, anything that’s super energy intensive to manufacture, it’s not attractive to restore to the US right now because the Biden Administration, the Department of Energy, particularly FERC, they’re not going to get out of the way, and they have not proven to do that. So we’re not going to be able to make the fertilizers and fuels that we need to if we are continuing to drive them away with terrible energy policy and drive the price of energy sky high.

Tony

And as a Texan, I will tell you, we have all the raw materials here, right? There’s no reason for us not to do that. A lot of Americans may not like Texans, but generating wealth here really does help all of America, right?

Ross

So in my view, particularly when you talk about the Gulf, the raw capacity is there from a transportation side, from a labor side, from a raw material side, particularly energy, to to turn the south MidSouth all the way down to the Gulf into a manufacturing mega region. That that would be one of the great economic success stories of all time anywhere in the world. And that’s a policy issue. It’s certainly not a capability or capacity issue.

Albert

Yeah, the problem with that is the EPA makes a lot of manufacturing in the United States inefficient and uneconomical, just something yeah, we can’t get around it. It’s the problem.

Tony

Okay.

Ross

And Europe has done very well with a lot of that stuff as well, too. But again, it’s subsidized in Europe, some of those offsets, if you will, they’re heavily subsidized. And so the companies don’t bear that burden to the extent that they would in the US. Where that type of thing is just as heavily regulated and penalized with zero subsidy.

Tony

Right. So since we’re talking about supply chains mostly into the US. Since we’re often here, let’s talk a little bit about Germany. We’ve seen German politicians go to China over the past couple of months, and German heads of industry go to China and kind of almost double down on their commitment to China and double down on their dependency. And it almost feels like Germany is having the opposite conversation from a policy perspective that the US. Is in terms of the US. Is trying to reduce its dependence on China. It seems like Germany is just going all in. Is that a misread, what’s going on there?

Ralph

Well, yes and no. There have been voices in Germany getting louder, particularly when it came, for example, to the Chinese buying parts of the harbor in Hamburg or a German Chip producer. So there are some voices that are getting more critical, but overall, the Chinese market is still crucial for German exports. So kind of when the German Foreign Minister, Angelina Bieberk was in Asia a couple of months ago and she said, we will stand side by side with Taiwan in the case of a conflict. That kind of was immediately backpedaled by other German parliamentarians who said, well, the Taiwanese didn’t ask moral support, so we have no intention to give tomorrow support. So I guess it would be very similar to the Russia Ukraine thing. I mean, in a sense, I think what’s always very important when we look at particular German foreign policy, they are not really for or against someone. They primarily want to maintain the status quo. So they want to maintain as much as they can the 1990s early 2000s status quo. That is true in the Asian case. It’s also true in the case with Russia and Ukraine. Right. Because some people say, why are the Germans not more supportive of Ukraine?

Ralph

Or are they all in the pockets of the Russians? I don’t think that’s the case. I think German policy is to maintain a status quo when it comes to exports in China, when it comes to energy with Russia and everything that quote unquote disturbs the peace is seen as a nuisance, and they usually kind of bet on the party that they hope can end that nuisance as quick as possible. And then I think was a little bit the miscalculation in the Russia case that they originally believed that this is going to be a war like Georgia, like other earlier conflicts, that this is going to end very quickly.

Tony

And we can all pretend it didn’t happen, right? If it ends quick, it didn’t happen.

Ralph

Precisely.

Ross

And that didn’t happen too, that are like leading indicators of German behavior with regards to China. BASF is one of them. Not only is BASF not recognizing its potential position of dominance on the vitamin and specialty chemical side, it’s actually doubling down on China and expanding its manufacturing operations there, not retracing from it. And if you look at Mercedes, for example, I love Mercedes Benz as a company, and I think they make some of the most amazing machines in the world. But you’re not going to tell Mercedes, get the hell out of China. They’ll do, and they can.

Tony

But they have got Volkswagen cans. Mercedes can.

Ross

Volkswagen can.

Ralph

And as a quick second point of this, the German energy planet, we’re going to talk about this a little later in more detail, but they still want to double down, particularly on solar and wind. And they need China as a partner to have good relations with China because they control most of the supply chains in these areas. So as long as Germany doesn’t really have this often announced but never actually materialized u turn in their foreign and domestic policy, this is not going to change. So I think, as you guys correctly point out, whatever the headlines say, whatever the Sunday speeches by politicians are, I think the underlying indicators still strongly point towards not just Germany, I would say all of Europe kind of being at least economically very benevolent towards China. And I think sooner or later, with the exception of some Eastern and Central European countries, I think many Europeans would be more than happy to renormalize relations with Russia as much as possible.

Tony

Let’s get on that later.

Ralph

Okay.

Tony

Before we move on, what do you see in supply chains that people aren’t talking about, that we need to know about? What is a thing where you’re just like, gosh, why don’t people see this? What is that? What’s supply chains?

Ross

It’s food. Probably the biggest and most obvious one that comes to mind. Everyone’s talking about semiconductors. That’s an obvious one too. But that gets beat to death. And frankly, the US. Really holds some major strategic advantages with that as well that don’t get discussed enough when we talk about that issue. On the food side, though, particularly with regards to China and Russia, russia is an enormous manufacturer of certain fertilizers. That’s very true. Now. The US. Has tremendous optionality with Canada next door. We make a tremendous amount of nitrogen. We have the ability to make more. We do find for ourselves on phosphates. We have significant phosphate reserves on the potash side. Canada has the far and away the most reserves in the world and an untapped capacity to move more to the US. So I don’t subscribe at least as far as like Europe and the US are concerned to the macro nutrient issue of NP and K that you’ve heard recently and for a long term elsewhere, that Russia and China control the world on it. They don’t. We do find out fertilizers amino acids are an enormous issue. Vitamins and micronutrients. And those are the ones where, when you’re talking about there’s roughly ten major vitamins that go into animal and human nutrition, but particularly into animal feed to keep them alive, to help them grow faster, to help them produce higher quality meat and eggs and milk.

Ross

Almost all of those vitamins are 90% or more manufactured in China, most of them at 100%. When you talk about key minerals that needs to go into their diets, whether it’s a zinc, calcium, or you see sometimes manganese and magnesium added in as well. Other than Turkey, India and Brazil, most of that stuff comes from China, too. And then you talk about the big amino acids. The US. Is far and away the largest meat producer in the world per capita, even more so than China. But we make about 40% of the amino acids needed in the diet. So we make far and away adequate supplies of DDGs or soybean meal that we use as the crude protein and the crude fiber. But the other 20% of that is completely, almost completely controlled by China. And then BASF and one other company based in Switzerland. And so if they turned off the tap on that, I hope you got it, that she’s not watching this, they turn off the tap on that, it would be crushing for our food sector.

Tony

So is there anybody who’s talking about rotating that production elsewhere? Any company is making that?

Ross

Adm and Cargill talk about it because they’re the only ones that actually make the stuff in the US. In ADM’s case, they manufacture in house. In Cargill’s case, they’re actually the glucose or dextro stream that gets fed into that fermentation cycle to make aminos. You have Ivana and Blair, Nebraska. You’ve got two companies in Iowa, korean and Japanese. And that’s CJ and International and Naji Namoto. They are also an over the fence agreement with an extra cargo, corn mills. That’s it, really, as far as that type of product in the US. We could expand that capacity relatively rapidly. But we have seen amino acids in particular go through so many expansion contraction, volatility cycles that to an American company, particularly one that’s publicly owned, one like Adm, the juice isn’t there for them. They’re not going to take a 20 year investment risk on something that on a year to year basis could lose a lot of money.

Tony

Okay, but if they had to, how long would it take to get that up and running?

Ross

It takes less than two years to build a wet corn mill. But if you were to expand fermentation capacity at any of the already existing wet corn mills in the US that are making, let’s say, high fructose corn syrup, I think of Golden Growers, which is a 50% joint venture with Cargill up in the southeastern corner of North Dakota. All they’re making up there is high fructose corn syrup for food. They can easily convert that stream into fermentation inside twelve months or less. So we do have a dormant quick to market capacity, relatively speaking, the faster we could get that type of thing online, you could do it with subsidies, you could do it with some market protections, you can do it in the food bill and just add certain things in there that favor that type of production. So these are not unsolvable problems. Vitamins. We are, pardon the language, if China really does decide to cut us off on that, that becomes very problematic in a hurry because it’s three to five years to get vitamin production online. If you’re talking synthetic vitamin production, all of that is adjacent and utilizes coproduct from the petrochemical industry.

Tony

Okay. So when I hear this stuff, it makes me wonder, with all of the money that the federal government puked out in 20 and 21 and early 22, this seems like a relatively small investment.

Ross

And it’s very small. A couple years to build a massive vitamin plant? Yeah, you could co locate a vitamin plant right next to Port Arthur, any of the places that are along the Gulf that are very dense and natural gas, and within 24 to 36 months, depending on permitting, if you put a fast lane in place, you could do it in 24 months. And the expertise exists in the US. To build that.

Tony

Okay, thanks for that frustrating example, but it’s something we need to talk about, right? And people need to know about it.

Ross

Albert will tell you this. It’s not talked about much in DC. I’ve briefed numerous Senate committees over the last year on this. A couple of House committees, a whole lot of staff members and Congressmen to their faces. And I show them the charts, I show them the numbers. And it’s really outside of anybody who’s part of the Midwestern congressional delegations. They have no idea. It’s completely foreign to them, and it’s really one of our pacing. Strategic risk.

Albert

Yeah, there’s like deer in headlights when you start bringing up these complex issues, supply chains and asymmetrical responses that the Chinese hold against us, it’s just nothing. It just doesn’t register.

Tony

Yeah, it’s terrible. Okay. Thank you, Ross. Sober, let’s move over to you. And I want to since we are talking about China, let’s talk about, I guess, a Twitter discussion that you and Ross had last week where you invited him on the podcast to talk about some of Peter Zaan’s comments about China.

So, just so everyone knows, I tried to connect with Peter Zion on Twitter and invite him to come on, but he’s very popular and we’re really small time for him, so I don’t blame him for not coming on.

Ross

But anyway, he just doesn’t want to be challenged, maybe.

Tony

Well, possibly. Look, the guy is a great speaker. When I watch him speak, I wish I could speak that well. Right. He’s obviously very smart and he says some stuff that sounds really impressive. Big old predictions, all that stuff. So, having said all of that, he was on Joe Rogan last week and talked about China and basically said that China won’t exist in ten years. Right. Now, this, to be honest, is a derivative of George Friedman’s hypothesis in a book called The Next Hundred Years that was published in 2009, where Friedman said that China would split into, I think, five countries. You know, part of it owned by Japan, part of it, you know, whatever. It’s it’s a really interesting book where he talks about a research in Turkey, a stronger Mexico, all that stuff. I definitely recommend that to people. Some of the stuff doesn’t sound real, but directionally it’s interesting. But Albert, both you and Ross have opinions on this, and you can talk about any of the stuff that Peter Town said. But I guess, broadly, do you see China as a nation state by 2033?

Ross

Of course I do.

Albert

It’s an absurd comment to say that it’s going to break apart within ten years. I mean, you’d have to have something cataclysmic to break up some major industrial nation into ceasing to exist. I don’t understand how that could possibly even come to come to fruition. I mean, China has a strong economic growth. They’ve brought up a middle class, they have a CCP that’s a centralized government that can initiate policies and stimulate the economy at will. They have a grasp on the country, they have a good grasp on the population. Everything that you see that comes out of these protests or whatnot, that’s something that the politicians in China allow you to see. And it’s a messaging thing. I was on here what is it, like, a month ago with Atlantic Council guys, and they’re about the COVID lockdowns and whatnot, and I said, this is your signal that China is opening. And literally, I think it was like a week later, they opened. The thing is, people look at China and they take things at face value with politicians and with data that comes out of China at face value, and you simply cannot do that.

Albert

As much as we blast the Chinese for their belt and road initiative, the key component of that is they have food security coming through that. They have farmlands in Africa, they have meat coming through the South American border. And even if we were to cut off their meat supply, by some measure or another, they still can fish the Sea of Japan, that has 5% of the world’s fish. So they have options for feeding their population in a pinch, and they have the stability and the military and the police force to keep people aligned. So I don’t see how, barring a meteor hitting the place or barring some kind of like, supercharged COVID starting to kill millions and millions of Chinese people, I don’t see how it’s even possible, even logical, to say that it can end up ceasing to exist in ten years. Just the asymmetrical challenges that the world would have to bring China down if they tried to would be devastating for the global economy.

Tony

Yeah. Ross, what do you think there?

Ross

Yeah, I think almost every discussion about the demise of China ignores one simple thing, and that’s not unique to Communists. Will to power is certainly very baked into the cake when you’re talking about communism. But in terms of strategic optionality, china has done a better job than any communist country ever at reinforcing their flanks strategically in a lot of different ways. And so you have to account for that. You have to account for the agency, again, of the adversary, which I think a lot of the discussions about the decline of China do not account for. It at least makes it incredibly complex and certainly is by no means is anything certain one way or the other. On the demographic time bomb issue. I have a very cold hearted way to say this. I don’t think they care. I don’t think they care. When you look at an enormous number of people that are, on the one hand, potentially would die off in some sort of food shortage, certainly with the reopening the percentage of people that at least from the people I talk to and deal with in China on a daily basis. It’s not a lot of young people, it’s not a lot of the productive workforce.

Ross

Again, just like in the US. It’s a lot of people that are unhealthy or older or both. And so you’re talking about people that already have significant respiratory issues in the cities, then getting hit with any sort of cold that’s beyond a basic cold, it’s going to be a problem for them. Right. So even if they survive, you’re still talking about a percentage of the population that in the communist mentality are viewed as less productive or drains on the state’s resources. They don’t really care if a lot of these people die. They truly don’t. And some level of very minor famine where they have the ability to begin to marshal resources and shepherd them a certain way where they can even target who wins and who dies, that type of thing, we will see in that sort of scenario. And they will be able to almost indefinitely put on not indefinitely, but for a much longer. Period of time be able to put off the more severe impacts of a demographic time bomb. And the other issue is, of course, too, they’re atheistic, right? They don’t recognize Christianity or a Jewish god or an Islamic god or whatever.

Ross

So they’re really unbound by any sort of traditional moral or ethical constraints that we have in the west. And so who knows what sorts of technology, what sorts of medical procedures and things they’re pursuing that will in addition to things like automation, they’re now one of the top 15 most automated manufacturing economies. A lot of the robots in the world have shifted production to China from Europe. So they’re dealing with things in a way that all these other models talk about the demographic time bomb don’t account for. They’re going to be a smaller population, but I think long term that also may be baked into their calculus or even serve the interests of what they’re looking towards. Absolutely.

Albert

Yeah, I could have said it better myself for us, I mean, the Chinese are pragmatic. They don’t make foolish mistakes when it comes to their existence. They went out and bought grains for a year and a half. They went out and secured meat for a year and a half. They took advantage of the Ukraine war and secured energy supplies for a year and a half. I mean, they’re not some kind of blind entity that’s going to be taken by surprise. They know their challenges. They understand these problems. There’s something that it’s not as simple. The population goes down, they’re in trouble, they cease to exist. Those dots I just can’t connect.

Tony

Sorry, Ralph, you had some comments.

Ralph

Yeah, just that I fully agree with Albert and Ross said, and I think the demographic part what is often overlooked. I mean, imagine you as a dictator, right? What kind of population would you like to have? One that is on average in the early 20s, or one that’s, on average in the late 30s or early forty s? I think an older population is easier to control because we see this in the Middle East and in Palestine. In these areas, it’s young men who are the biggest problem for social stability. If you can find this golden middle ground of late 30s, early forty s, I think that actually could be to the advantage of the stability of the political system. The only thing because Ross, you mentioned the religion part. I mean, I don’t know if this is still true. It was definitely true a couple of years ago, right, that China had the fastest growing Christian minority in the world. So that doesn’t matter if it doesn’t penetrate the political system or the political leadership. I’d be curious. That’s kind of the only scenario where I would see major changes if all of a sudden kind of these ideas, for whatever reason, start to penetrate the inner circle of Chinese leadership in a kind of ancient Roman scenario.

Ralph

Where all of a sudden the Roman Empire became Christian in an exaggerated fashion. But otherwise, I think you guys are completely right. The I think the the rumors of China’s immediate demise are strongly, strongly exaggerated.

Tony

Yeah. Let me let me add a couple things here. I think when when people make comments about the demise of China, I don’t think they understand modern Chinese history. If you look from, say, the mid 50s until today, certainly well, I guess the 19 teens until today, right. The the volatility that you’ve seen in China’s social structures, the conflict you’ve seen, the famines you’ve seen, the deaths you’ve seen. And certainly in the CCP area, the tolerance that the population has had for leadership, whether that’s coercive tolerance or whether that’s genuine tolerance, they have tolerated a lot. Okay? Now, when we look at, I think, part of the pressure on the CCP, maybe not China as a nation state, but the CCP as a ruling party is through much of the CCP’s existence. The population was very poor and not very educated. And this was Deng Xiaoping was really the one to say, hey, we need an educated leadership. Because until then, most of the people kind of dumb and not really well educated. And a lot of the universities were closed down in the 60s. Right. And so they really started having this educated leadership in the an educated business class starting in the 90s.

Tony

Right. And so you now have a very widespread level of education, and you have a pretty widespread communications platform where people can understand what life is like in other parts of the world. And so I do think that there will be more pressure put onto the CCP to open up and to do things like respect individual rights, whether that’s Christian or not. It’s something that with wealth comes an expectation that individual rights are respected. Right? And so if somehow there was some sort of economic regression where people were poor again, fine, but that would make people really angry. But as people get more wealthy and as they get more educated, I think that does put more pressure on the CCP to be more responsive to the population. Because in the past, people would go into their government guy or woman and they didn’t really have any ability to push back, say, intellectually necessarily. Right now they can go into their government representative and go, oh, that person’s stupid. They don’t know what they’re talking about. And we do that in the US. And we do that in Europe, and we go, our politicians are stupid.

Tony

Right. And so that’s happening more and more in China. And so I don’t think that it leads to the demise of China as a nation state. I think it leads to heavy pressure to the CCP to evolve into something different. And I’m not sure what that is, but I think the pressure on the CCP to evolve will become immense over the next five to six years. And maybe that’s what Dion meant and he just kind of simplified language.

Albert

I don’t know. The CCP morphing into something slightly more liberal is obviously going to happen. I mean, they’ve used actually done quite a good job of promoting national unity. If you want to give them any sort of praise, you know, national unity within China has risen over the past five to ten years. The CCP, like I said, they’ve been around for 70 years. Tony, you said that they’ve got a grip on the country, and I just don’t see it releasing anytime soon under any circumstances.

Tony

Let me just go back and say one thing. We’re all disagree with you. It’s a rare moment of disagreement, Albert, but I actually think the CCP are terrible planners. They’re terrible, yes, they bought things for a year and a half at a time, but they’re just terrible planners. And because they have such a heavy current account surplus, they have the money to make up for their mistakes. And that’s been their situation for the past 30 years. But I think in general, central planning is horrific, and I think Chinese central planners are incredibly awful. So the belief and I’m not accusing you of having this belief, but I think there is among kind of Western intellectuals, there is a belief that Chinese are amazing planners. And central planners, they’re really thoughtful, and I think that’s garbage because it’s just not true. They make a lot of mistakes.

Albert

Oh, no question about that. When you start talking about, like, central piloting and strategic moves, the Chinese have not been historically not been good. You’re right. But those are like 2030 years out, right? I’m talking about four or five years out. They usually don’t make mistakes when it comes to their own domestic politics within the country itself. I mean, they’re they’re still around 70 years. Nothing’s, you know, nothing’s changed, really, in 70 years. So in that respect, I would give them credit to, hey, for national unity’s sake, if they keep themselves in power, they’re done a good job for everything else.

Tony

They do a terrible job. Yeah.

Ross

Again, the dog not barking so much for China when they talk about this stuff. This is the first time we’ve ever seen any sort of synergy between the PLA and the CPC leadership. There has historically been a significant externally, people don’t realize it, but if you’re in the game, you give it. There has always been a historical significant antagonism in a lot of ways between PLA senior leadership and the CPC, the civilian Mandarins, if you will. And this is the first time that we’ve ever seen. And going all the way back to Mao and before him, any sort of cohesion, whether it’s enforced at the barrel of a gun or not, but cohesion because of all these corruption purges that she’s been on since he took power in 2012, going all the way now to today. We’re seeing for the first time, really, the output of a unified PLA CPC kind of mega deep state, if you will. And that gives for the first time, the civilian side a lot more control over what has historically been a multi trillion dollar dark economy and revenue engine of China. And that’s that massive network of shell companies and enterprises that the PLA owns through everything that they’ve got.

Ross

And I’m not saying necessarily we can predict yet what this means, but if that cohesion, if that’s some sort of maybe for the first time unity, if you will, from a political side and from a commercial side, the more that’s.

Tony

Going to look like, the more that happens, the more fragile that whole infrastructure becomes. It becomes so inflexible. And I think for the adversaries of China, that’s a great thing. So go down that path as fast as they can because it creates a very fragile infrastructure within the Chinese government.

Albert

I’m glad that Ross brought that up because I actually had a Tweet thread today about something similar where Xi has been messing with the CMC, which is the PLA Navy’s group that kind of operated away from the CCP and was instrumental in dialogue with the US navy. He’s like, pretty much eliminated those leadership and starting to put his own people in there. So there’s room for error. When you put civilians inside of a military complex.

Ross

That’s a path that I would say if we see a decline of China as an actual aspiring global head of mine, if you will, I think it’s more likely to come from that vector than it would be any sort of demographic time bomb considerations.

Tony

Yeah, I don’t disagree with you. Okay, guys, let’s move on to Germany. Ralph, you had sent a Tweet earlier, I think you sent it a couple of days ago talking about the German energy mix and the push for clean energy in Germany and how ultimately that will lead to more demand for Russian gas.

Can you talk us through that hypothesis? I know you wrote a detailed thought piece about it. Can you talk us through that and then help us understand when the Russia Ukraine war stops, how long before Germany goes kind of rushing into Russian gas again?

Ralph

Yeah, I think the first and most important takeaway is that the underlying German energy strategy has not changed despite the war in Ukraine. And maybe just to sum it up a little bit, in 2021, where we have the most recent numbers, right, about 40% of German electricity production came from coal and nuclear, all kinds of coal. So lignite and black coal. And they want to phase that out in the next ten years. Actually coal, they want to phase out now faster than originally planned. So that means they have to replace 40% of their electricity production. But at the same time, until 2030, the expectation is by German industry that they will have an increase in 20% of demand. And what is the German plan to kind of meet replacing the lost coal and nuclear and meeting this new demand of 20%? The plan was always gas fired power plants and that plan is still in place. So they still want to double their gas fired power plants. And of course the question is where’s the gas going to come from? Now, the quick answer is always it’s going to be US LNG, but I think this is just going to be an affordability problem at some point.

Ralph

The Germans spent $440,000,000,000 only for energy related matters this year, just to give you a comparison, the entire EU spent $700 billion as the so called relief package for COVID. So just to give you a dimension, we are just talking about Germany here, so this is not sustainable. That’s 12% of their domestic industrial output, so they cannot do this forever. And secondly, kind of the more geopolitical thing, I think they prefer close cooperation with Russia than being dependent either on the US or being dependent on Italy or Spain and these areas where LNG would also come through. So I think that on the medium to long run, if there isn’t a window of opportunity to reopen the gas flow from Russia, which is of course still going on, to other pipelines, I think they will jump on it. And the last point, which I find quite intriguing, because everybody says Nordstream Two, Nordstream One, that was sabotaged by the Americans, but apparently, if you look at it, one pipeline of the Nord Stream Two net is still operational. So to me this looks more if I would speculate, but of course I’m speculating here is that the Russians say, no, we cannot destroy Nordstream One.

Ralph

We leave a bit of Nordstream Two in place because then we have to start at some point Nordstream Two and then kind of when this is already happening, we just also start Nordstream One again once it’s repetitive because that was always in place. So I think the underlying energy outlook is still the same and I think as soon as there is a ceasefire or something, this is going to happen. At the very last point, we talk a lot about gas, but of course there’s still the unanswered diesel question when it comes to energy between Russia and Europe. So, as I said, I think if there is a chance to re engage in the energy market with the Russians, I think Germany primarily, but I think other Europeans as well would be very happy if they could re engage in this area with Russia.

Tony

Perfect. I’m going to stop you real quick and I know Ross has to jump in a couple of minutes. Ross, what thoughts do you have on that, on Germany’s dependence on Russian gas?

Ross

I think it’s obvious if you work in the commercial world, if you deal with German companies, whether it’s a buyer or a seller or supplier, whatever it may be. I do think you’re seeing a play out the clock scenario here. There is obviously positive alignment at a global scale between Russia and China. And there’s disagreements or things where maybe one surprises the other with some of their behaviors, but in general they’re positively aligned. Major German manufacturers doubling down in China is actually an adjacent indicator. Russia is still the cheapest source of natural gas that Germany itself can get its hands on. And it’s not I say this somewhat facetiously, but also sincerely, it’s not like the Germans and the Russians don’t have a history of secret relationships or conflict benefit maybe them or conflict. So I do think that as long as there is a strategic alignment on a long term basis of Germany and through infrastructure and through relationships that have really been built deeply since the end of the cold war connection to Russia, I think it would take a lot to really completely sever that completely. Because on a long term basis, if they don’t have replacement energy capacity, which they don’t not at this point, germany would stand to be tremendously disrupted by that.

Ross

I don’t think they’re going to let it happen, not for NATO, not for the EU.

Ralph

And maybe to add something, since Ross is still here as a supply guy, the other thing is even the idea they would have to double their renewables, including wind and solar. And the problem is, wherever they can build those wind turbines, they cannot get those transmission lines built basically from the north to the industrial heart or in Bavaria, for example. On one hand is because the lines are too expensive and too long at the moment. And the other thing is nobody wants them in their neighborhood, right? Nobody talks about this. So on paper it’s easy to build them, but every little municipality, every local politician says, sure, you can make those transition lines, but not here. And then this has basically been on ice for a long time now. So as Ross also says, I think at some point it’s either continue spending oodles of money, which at some point I think will just get too expensive, or find ways either openly or secretly, to increase imports in the energy sector from Russia.

Tony

Ross, I know you have to jump. I just want to thank you for your time. We’re going to continue the conversation, but I look forward to having you on again. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

Ross

Thanks gentlemen.

Ralph

Thanks Ross.

Tony

Ross, one of the things you said was that Germany would rather source gas from Russia than from southern Europe. Can you help us understand why that’s the case?

Ralph

Yeah, because I think this is one thing that has been overlooked in the entire debate when it comes to the Russian position. Let’s also Twitter a little bit for the French position that a shift towards the east in focus both economically and politically is not in Germany’s interest. So as many I say now fantasizing. But I don’t mean it in a disrespectful way of a new kind of Baltic Polish Ukrainian alliance under the military protection, let’s say your military cooperation with the UK and the US. That is not something that Germany is particularly interested in because they want to remain the major power in Central and Eastern Europe and a new formed bloc with 44 million Ukrainians is not something that they are particularly interested in. And the same is true with kind of shifting the energy focus, let’s say towards Italy or towards southern Europe. It’s the same thing. I think this is not the kind of power shift that they want to see. And just as a quick add on to this is often forgotten, germany together with the Czech Republic as a smaller player, particularly France, they have been the major electricity exporter in Europe.

Ralph

They in some cases quite literally had the hand on the light switch and I think this is also something that Germany doesn’t want to lose. Now, I don’t know to what extent they are aware of this themselves, but I think if you look at German behavior towards Ukraine, towards Russia in this entire conflict, even now, at the moment, right, where they say, yeah. We might deliver Main Battle tanks if the US delivers them first. And if the Polish deliver them first, then maybe we’ll do it as well. I think this hesitancy is not just facetiousness on part of the Germans. I think it is kind of being concerned that the power could shift further towards the east into this kind of Polish Baltic Ukrainian new power center and it would be economically weaker but it’s already militarily potentially significantly stronger. So I think Germany is playing a kind of geopolitical game here that is not we can have a moral debate whether we agree or disagree but I think from what they are trying to accomplish it’s at least partially understandable and it’s a truly last point. There was a moment if they would have really kind of switched entirely their energy policy in February continuing the nuclear power plants and shifting other areas, I think then it would have been credible that they say they want to kind of emancipate from Russian energy, from Russian gas but they didn’t do anything of that kind.

Ralph

So this is why I think that on the long run, on the medium to long run relations between Russia and Germany will improve, whatever that means for other players.

Tony

I think it’s so interesting that the Polish Baltic Ukrainian that is such an ancient political entity from centuries ago, right? And so it’s just interesting that these things are coming back. But I want to push a little bit harder on that. As much as you say they would rather source from Russia than from southern Europe, why are they so hesitant to source gas from southern Europe? Because it’s a part of the EU, it wouldn’t be a political kind of lever that the south would pull.

Albert

It would be Tony. It would be because the Germans have Spain, and Italy is indebted to Germany a significant amount of money. Right. So that upsets the political dynamic from the Germans being able to counter the French and what are they doing within the EU? So you have a political economic dynamic here where Germany just does not want to give money back to the Italians in the space.

Tony

Okay, so what you’re saying is Germany would rather empower a hostile Russia. I would rather enrich a hostile Russia than give up the political power that they have over the south by giving them money. They would rather have the thumb on southern Europe and control them politically than actually help enrich their fellow Europeans. I wasn’t aware of this.

Ralph

I used to do this 20 years ago.

Tony

I don’t as much anymore.

Albert

I would do the same thing because Russia is not in my political sphere, and there is little to zero chance that the Russians are going to attack NATO lands. So from the German perspective, I get cheap power from Party A, and I still control Party B and C over here under my thumb. Why would I change that dynamic? I would never do that.

Ralph

The German area or the German sphere of interest that they are interested in is central. It’s Europe. Whether it’s the European Union, they don’t really care what’s going on in further to the east or, for example, between Russia and Ukraine, which they have shown quite openly up until February. I think Albert is precisely on the money here. So this was a very good deal for Germany.

Tony

Wow. Just another reason for me to think that the EU, as I’ve thought for the last 30 years, is just a cynical political grouping rather than a functional union.

Albert

It’s very nation states have their own interests at heart. Always first and foremost, before you want to talk about globalist or community.

Tony

Sure, yeah, absolutely. Okay, guys, this has been great. Can you just before we kind of end this, can you guys help us think? What are you looking at, let’s say for the rest of January, kind of the week ahead, the next couple of weeks ahead? What are you guys looking at with, say, ECB or Fed or markets? What are the things that are on your mind right now that you’re looking at for the next week?

Albert

I don’t know about the next week. I think Opex is next week, so it’ll probably be pretty muted before the Fed in February. But honestly, I’m looking at Russia whether or not they desire to have a new surge into Ukraine, albeit a smaller one, more tactical. But they need a win for the PR before they actually try to come into actual peace negotiations, because it’s just not sustainable, what they’re doing right there right now.

Tony

So do you think there will be peace negotiations, say, in March, April, something.

Albert

Like that, as plausible at least June, July, maybe?

Ralph

June, July.

Tony

Okay, ross?

Ralph

I’m kind of looking at the German economic numbers at the moment because they have all been very celebratory, because in the fourth quarter, apparently it grew by 1.9%. My suspicion is that these numbers were particularly pushed because Germany was simply pumping so much money into the economy. This is something oliver, you mentioned this a couple of times on your Twitter feed as well. This is something I don’t think enough people talk about that whatever the ECB does, a lot of this is going to be offset by European programs of pumping money into the system via alternative means. So kind of the celebratory mood that now it’s, I think, just 7.7% inflation and not 10% inflation, I think that’s just going to be temporary. And the same is about economic growth. So this idea that there will not be, as I think Goldman Sachs said, and a couple of other economists as well, that there will not be a recession in Europe next year, I’ll be very surprised. I prefer not to be that one, but at some point I know Albert has said something similar ones, but I’m growing increasingly suspicious of these numbers because they don’t add up with anything.

Ralph

When you talk to people in the industry, when you talk to the banking sector, they tell you it’s not all doom and gloom, but it’s definitely not. That all. Next year we’re going to grow beyond our expectations.

Albert

The celebratory chance for the Europeans right now completely missed the fact that they are dormant. They’re in a zombie state. There’s nothing going on in Europe at the moment. So once they start kicking things back up and manufacturing and demand inflation is going to go right back up to where it was a year ago.

Tony

I never trust a preliminary economic data release. Never. Always wait for the second or third revision. So when markets move on a preliminary release, it’s moving on the belief that other people have expectations around it. Right? And so it’s just this reflective, expectations based move rather than based on the numbers themselves. And I always will often say this on my Twitter feed wait for the revision. Don’t trust the initial preliminary data release because it is PR. It’s nothing more than PR. Maybe it’s directionally correct, maybe, but those preliminary releases are PR. So on that optimistic note, guys, I want to thank you for your time. This has been fantastic. We’ve had such a great, deep discussion. So thanks very much. Have a great weekend and have a great week ahead. Thank you.

Albert

Thank you, Tony. Thanks, Tony.

Ross

Thank you.

Categories
Podcasts

Musk opens Tesla factory in Germany

Tony Nash joins the BBC Business Matters podcast for a discussion around what’s happening in the world right now: Malaysia’s working class, Tesla’s new branch in Germany, Biden’s recent visit to Europe, lifting of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, energy crises in Europe, and so much more.

This podcast first appeared and originally published at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172xvqwxfg1cr7 on March 23, 2021.

Show Notes

ST: Tony Nash, economist in Texas, CEO of Complete Intelligence and host of The Week Ahead, a weekly YouTube show on markets and geopolitics. Hello. Good evening, Tony.

TN: Hi. Good evening. Good morning.

ST: Tony, let me bring you in here on this one as well. I mean, you may be living in Austin, Texas, at the moment, but is there anything you want to pick up on because you grew up in this area?

TN: Sure. Yeah. I think what Jessica says about the migrant labor is a key issue because it prices a lot of Malaysians out of working class jobs. So if those minimum wages apply also to migrant workers, then it presents a fairer playing field for Malaysians. Without that, it’s a labor arbitrage and it’s a domestic labor arbitrage. So I think the Minister has a tough job ahead of him in that respect. I do think, though, as you mentioned in your interview, it’s a good time for energy. And I think if Malaysia can swing the current energy prices into investment and technology, I think they could look at some seriously interesting opportunities.

ST: Yeah, indeed. As he said, he was being helped by the price of oil at the moment. All right, Tony and Jessica, for the moment. Thank you both very much. Tony, let me come to you on this one. You’re based there in Austin, in Texas. So is Tesla. Now, when are they opening their big factory there?

TN: First, I want to say I love the statement that Germany is not known for risk affinity. I thought that was a highlight, but the Tesla factory in Austin started production in December of 21, and they have a grand opening on April 6 of this year. So they’ll start rolling cars off the factory line. It should be in April.

ST: Okay.

TN: So it’s a hugely optimistic statement by Tesla to do all of these openings. It’s fantastic.

ST: Yeah. We have to wait and see where the plans are for the next one then. Tony Nash in Austin, Texas, what do you make of this? How is this going to go down with American producers?

TN: I think when these restrictions were put in by the Trump administration, the sense that I always got was that the UK got caught up within some of its Brexit and immediately post Brexit issues. My understanding of that time, that era was that the tariffs were really focused on countering subsidies and nontariff barriers. And the UK steel industry is not as reliant on subsidies and nontariff barriers as the European steel industry is. Of course, there are some, but my understanding was that that wasn’t as big of an issue for UK steel. So I was always confused why the UK got caught up in this. So since it’s out, I don’t think specifically UK steel is the issue. I think Chinese steel is the bigger issue by American producers, and the dumping of Chinese steel on global markets is really the main focus.

ST: Just as a quick aside, the other items that got caught up in this. I don’t know whether they’re sort of like a little footnote and almost like an aside to this, the jeans, the whiskey and the Harley Davidsons.

TN: Look, the UK is suffering on that side of the deal, right? I mean, if you can’t get American. I’m sorry. I’m just kidding. So anyway, once it’s done, all that stuff will go through, which is great. So a little bit of bourbon next time I visit London would be great.

ST: Oh, no, we need to take you to enjoy some Scottish whisky, I’m sure. But that is the other question that’s always in the background now of this one now coming through to the forefront is now this is out the way. Could there be talks again, restarted again on that sort of full scale free trade deal with the US? Do you see that as happening anytime soon?

TN: I think Americans would welcome it. Absolutely. I think there is a warm spot in many Americans heart for the UK, and I think Americans would absolutely welcome it. There would be almost zero opposition to it.

ST: All right, Tony, for the moment. Thank you. Tony. Let me bring you in. Now, President Biden is traveling to Europe in the next few hours. He’s starting with a NATO meeting, also meeting with EU, European Union and G7 leaders. They’re now to Poland for discussions about the humanitarian response. What do you expect from this felt that this is more of a signal that he’s actually there. He’s made the trip or something more significant?

TN: Well, I think he has an opportunity to do something very significant when he speaks to the European Council. The EU right now is developing a defense plan and putting together plans for hundreds of billions of euros worth of spending on defense. And if Biden were to endorse that at the European Council, it would send the message that the US is very supportive. Unfortunately, within US government, within State and Department of Defense, there are career bureaucrats who are opposed to Europe defending itself. So if Biden were to make a very clear statement at the European Council that he supports Europe putting this debt package together to put its own very strong defense together, it could be a significant trip.

ST: How is this playing back at home for him? I was looking at his approval ratings earlier. He’s a new low of 40% as according to a poll conducted or in the last couple of days. Is that as a result of what he is saying or what he is doing at the moment or anything else?

TN: The biggest thing that’s dragging him down right now is inflation. And the White House has really tried to say that inflation started when Russia invaded Ukraine, and Americans know that it started much earlier. And so Americans have been very skeptical since the White House has tried to say that inflation lays at the feet of Russia. They’re very skeptical. His polling has really declined over the past, say, two months, partly because Americans feel like they’re being misled on that, and it hits people’s petrol tanks and it hits their pocketbooks and everything else. That’s the biggest issue that can make him unpopular.

ST: But I mean, just staying, though, with his stance on Russia and Ukraine, how is that particularly playing out at home? Would people like him to get more involved or less involved? And is it purely just domestic matters that they have on their minds at the moment?

TN: I think people see the news and hear the news on it and kind of the headline, Putin is a bad guy. It’s hard to disagree with that. But I think many Americans that I speak it to and many who I see say in social media and other forums, they just don’t want to get directly involved. Americans are happy for Europe and happy to support Europe to solve this problem. But Americans generally, from what I can tell, just don’t want to get involved. So we’re happy to send aid, we’re happy to send materials and so on and so forth. But most of the Americans, at least that I talk to, maybe I’m only talking to a minority of people, but they really don’t want to see American personnel on the ground there.

ST: Yeah. There are suggestions that he will announce measures to end European reliance on Russian energy, or at least some sort of plan or ideas or opinions on that. What could he possibly suggest? What could he put on the table, throw on the table for that?

TN: Texas where I’m living, we have a lot of gas in Texas, a lot. We flare a lot of it, which means we burn it at the well, that will require many more vessels to transport liquefied natural gas, sure. But we’re very happy in Texas to support the energy to Europe. So I would think that part of a plan has to include US energy going to Europe. It may not be all of it, but it surely should be part of it.

ST: Not just the tankers, but obviously the ports that are able to take that on board and then the infrastructure that would be needed there. Tony, it’s cost of living that’s dominating the headlines for you, isn’t it?

TN: It is, yeah. I’m really curious to see what Jessica is going to say after that. So we live in Texas for the energy capital of at least the Western Hemisphere, if not the world. So seeing, say, WTI and Brent at the prices they are is really helpful to my neighbors. It’s really helpful to the state government here and the taxes that we raise. Unfortunately, there has also been a massive influx of people into Texas over the past year or two years. So I have a friend who’s selling a house right now in Houston, and the price has risen by 30% in the past six months or something like that. So real estate inflation here. It’s not just petrol or gasoline, it’s not just energy, it’s real estate. It’s everything. As I said, we’re seeing an influx of people from outside California, New York, other places coming into Texas and they’re used to paying a lot more for things. So people moving here will find a house online without seeing it and buy it. And the prices are relatively cheap to what they’re paying in wherever they’re from. So Texans are facing what people in Idaho and Oregon and some of these other States where Californians have moved in the past.

We’re starting to face some of those issues and the cost of living is becoming a real issue here.

ST: Totally cutting out people who now can no longer afford to buy them where they’ve been born and grown up. Tony Nash. Joining us from Austin, Texas and you, wherever you are in the world, listening to us today on Business Matters. Thank you very much for your company. This is Business Matters here on the BBC. See World Service. Until next time, thanks for listening. Bye.

Categories
Week Ahead

The Week Ahead – 07 Feb 2022

In this episode, we talked about some really interesting tech earnings like of Facebook and Amazon, crude and natgas prices, and the bond market. How does the NFP data affect the bond market? Also discussed central bank’s reaction to inflation and why you should be keeping your eyes on the CPI?

This is the fifth episode of The Week Ahead in collaboration of Complete Intelligence with Intelligence Quarterly, where experts talk about the week that just happened and what will most likely happen in the coming week.

For those who prefer to listen to this episode, here’s the podcast version for you.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3DmO9AkU7cHG3MP1wEjuej?si=b9cd41abf47f422d

Follow The Week Ahead experts on Twitter:

Tony: https://twitter.com/TonyNashNerd
Tracy: https://twitter.com/chigrl
Nick: https://twitter.com/nglinsman/
Albert: https://twitter.com/amlivemon

Show Notes

TN: Hi, everyone, and welcome to The Week Ahead. I’m Tony Nash. And I’m joined by Tracy Shuchart, Nick Glinsman, and Albert Marko. Before we get started, I’d like to ask you to subscribe to our YouTube channel. It helps us a lot get visibility, and it really helps you get reminded when a new episode is out so you don’t miss anything.

We had a lot this week. We had tech earnings, some really interesting tech earnings and market activity as a result. We had crude really ripping this week. And we had bonds raging at the end of the week. So really a lot happening across sectors, NASA classes.

So let’s start with the bond market, Nick. We seem to have gotten pretty much what you mentioned on last week’s show. So can you go into kind of what’s happened and what’s happening in the bond market right now?

NG: Yeah, we’ve basically been ambushed by inflation. That’s what’s happened. You saw yesterday out of the ECB, which was a hawkish twist, possibly one of the worst press conference performances I’ve ever seen in my life. But the facts of the matter are you’ve got five, six, 7% inflation in various countries of the EU. In Lithuania, you’ve got 12%. Okay. So they are failing at their predominant original mandate, which was inflation per the Bundes back from what I’ve been told, there were several members of the MPC.

TN: Sorry. When you say she, you mean Christine Lagarde?

NG: Christine Lagarde. Several members of the NPC wanted to get moved yesterday. Not going to happen but it’s reasonable to think perhaps two hikes this year, but that will still take us to -20 basis points. It will still be negative. Okay. And then that upset the European bond markets.

You have the Bank of England go first with 25 basis points, four dissenters wanting half a point. That started to rock the bond markets a little bit. Then the press conference out of the ECB, and you basically had, goodness how many Sigma move it was in two-year bubbles, two-year German government bonds. But they basically went up over 20 basis points in a couple of hours, terminating early this morning, and they’ve stayed elevated.

And then you had this non farm payroll data. Everybody got it wrong. And the thing is, if you think this month’s figures are nonsense, well, look at the revision.

TN: Sorry, when you mentioned the NFP data, what’s important about the NFP data? Because I think some people looked at the headline employment numbers, some people looked at the wage rate. So can you tell us what’s important there?

NG: Two things. One is nobody was expecting a non farm payroll at like this. Some people will say, well, it’s always going to be revised. Well, okay, then look at the near $400,000 upward revision for December. It’s. All their data. The way it’s coming out. The BLS isn’t necessarily the best, but everything that they look at is strong labor market.

The thing that really upset the bond market was the average hourly earnings. 5.7%. To Albert’s point last week. Wage inflation is here to stay. So having been inundated with calls this morning, that really affects what the Fed… The Fed actually are fighting for their credibility.

TN: When you say wage inflation is here to stay, but it’s really, is the Fed trying to break the back of wage inflation?

NG: Well, that’s something they could impact. Right. By increasing the demand side of the market. We’ll have another idea on inflation next week. The CPI. And the lowest forecast is 7%. The highest is 7.6%. They’re not getting the favorable comparisons because oil has continued to move up. Energies continue to move up. Right.

So assuming we’ve got a seven big handle and heaven help us if we haven’t hit the 8 handle at all, this Fed has no choice. Because as you can see with the bond market, the bond market is going to do the Fed’s job if they don’t do, it.

So every time we get to what you had over the last couple of days with a bit of pullback before the ECB had a bit of pullback by some of the Fed members, the FMC members, and the yoke of, steepened.

AM: I got a question for you, Nick. Can you buy bonds if oil goes vertical? Because I think we both think that oil is going 120 north.

NG: Yeah. Well, no. I think that’s another reason why you can’t be long bonds at the moment and the bond market will adjust to it.

Everybody said the bond vigilantes are dead. When you look at the percentage moves and the price of the bonds, they’re not these are big moves going on.

TS: Nick, can you address a little bit about what will happen to the credit markets as far as the bond movement?

NG: High yield seem to do okay today, which investment grade, fine. Historically, in rising rates, you should see investment grade is somewhat better. High yield, no. High yield. I mean, if these rates are going to start moving up and some of the stuff I heard today tells me “one and done” is not going to happen. It’s going to be more and they’re not going to have a choice.

And the central banks have been basically what you had in the last seven or eight days is the central banks admitting they made a policy error or two last year. And now they’re fearful of making further policy errors. So they’ve got to be seen to do.

And again, to Albert’s point last week, clearly the Biden administration is, had their backs on the inflation front. And I suspect from what I was being told, we’re going to be quite surprised at potentially how aggressive this Fed could be. Not 50 basis points in March. That will be too quick. Too much, too quick. But May, June could well be in play because these numbers aren’t coming down. They’re just not coming down.

TN: Okay. So regardless Q2 is when things start to happen on the interest rate front, on the rates front, right?

NG: Yeah. In terms of QT, I was told the second half, beginning of the second half. Second half.

TN: So does that mean July or November?

NG: Probably means July. Okay.

AM: I honestly think it’s a possibility we do that beforehand just because fiscal cliff is coming in March.

TN: How do they go from QE to QT? Just like that? They shouldn’t be doing QE right now anyway. That’s true. It’s still doing QE. So they missed a beat there.

AM: How do you taper if you’re doing QE still? Why doesn’t anybody ask that question or answer?

TN: I ask it every week.

AM: Tony, I was on this thing with Andreas and “we’re going to taper.” I’m like, “okay, sure.” On paper. But the reality is you’re not because the QE is continuous.

TN: I don’t know. It seems to me from what Nick is saying, it may not be continuous. It seems like that has to stop because the policy position is going to stop in March. Right?

NG: Exactly. Which is why I think 25 basis points, not 50. However, I think right now, until they’ve caught up somewhat forward guidance is not going to be with clarity.

They want to get back to normal so they can be forward guiding according to what we were used to in the deflationary times. Pre-Covid. Okay.

TN: Okay. So when you say pre-Covid, you mean pre-Covid in terms of interest rate and balance sheet?

NG: Yeah. I think it’s exactly what I’ve been told this morning. They want to get back to the interest rate level that was prevalent then. They want their balance sheet back at that level.

TN: Okay.

NG: And I think that what’s happened is not only have they been shocked by inflation, they shouldn’t be shocked by the false-ty of their forecast, but I think they were shocked by the fact that we’ve got a lot of bubbles going on.

Equity market value, housing market, NFT, crude oil. Crude oil’s not a bubble. Bonds have been a bubble. So I think we’ve got some surprise. And of course, that will then feed it.

Remember I said originally, there’s either a riot in the bond market or riot in equity market.

TN: That’s right.

NG: One or the other. It started with bonds, and then we got a bit of an equity riot yesterday, which was more earnings related. But the thing about it is if you look at interest rates as gravity, zero interest rates with basically zero gravity. So you’re on the moon. Equity starts have been up here. If they’re raising rates, they’re increasing the level of gravity. News and law means that something starts to fall.

I was also told if it’s not a cascade, if it’s orderly, sort of down 20% from here, they’re okay with it.

TN: Okay. That puts us at what, 36?

NG: 35, 36,000, which is still above where we were before Covid. Right?

TN: Right.

NG: Fed will be happy with it. This put, is not, there’s no clarity on the put anymore.

TN: Okay. Is it safe to say that your view by the end of the year is sometime between now and the end of the year will hit 35, $3600?

NG: Look, the Fed. These rate markets will carry on. Any mistake by the Fed, any hesitation, it’s going to be punished by rates. And you’ve seen what’s happening, and it happens. It crosses over. You saw what happened in the European bond market as well this Thursday. Bank of England. You saw Gilts market also adjust, and that flowed through to the US market and it continued today.

TN: So do you think the ten-year crosses 2% next month?

NG: Oh, yeah. My target on the ten-year for this year is 260.

TN: Okay, great. So let’s take that and a central bank’s reaction, inflation. Tracy, we’re seeing crude prices just kind of a rocket ship. So can you talk us through that and let us know how does that contribute to next week’s CPI? And Nick mentioned CPI, but what do you expect for that as well?

TS: Well, I mean, I expect CPI to be high. However, the Fed doesn’t really include energy and housing in there and food in their metrics. So that doesn’t necessarily play into that.

That said, I think what we saw today was a lot of shorts being squeezed out of the market. That said, still expecting higher crude prices later this year into Q3.

The reason being because the global oil inventories just drew another 8 million. We have OPEC that just announced another 400K increase for next month this week. Right. And they haven’t even been able to keep up with their production increases. I mean, their compliance is over 132% right now. They just don’t have the spare capacity to move forward. US products consumed last week hit 21.6 million barrels. That’s over 2019 levels.

So globally, we’re seeing higher demand with lower supplies. So this market is likely to continue higher just because of actual supply and demand issues, which I’ve been talking about week over week.

What’s also interesting today is that nobody’s really talking about is that Saudi Aramco just announced that they’re mulling another 50 billion equity stake sale. Right. And so it would be a good thing to keep kind of oil prices higher and inventory is kind of lower. Right?

TN: Sure.

TS: There’s a lot going on in the market right now.

TN: Okay. And as we see this cold front come through different parts of the US, of course, it’s winter. But do you expect, say, Nat gas to continue to rally or say, for the next couple of weeks or next couple of months, or do you expect that we’re kind of in the zone where we’re going to be through the winter?

TS: I mean, I think we’re kind of in the zone. US nat gas prices are not as subject to the volatility or the constraints that say European nat gas prices are concerned. I mean, we have an overabundance of Nat gas, we tend to flare it.

We’re going to be this year the world’s largest exporter. Right. But that’s not necessarily going to bring I mean, you have to look at our gas prices trading at four or $5 compared to nat gas prices in Europe trading at $40. So I think we’re at a sideways market right now just because of the oversupply that we have.

What we are saying is depending on what area you live in, then natural gas prices tend to vary. So we’re looking at the North East, for example, where we have this cold front. Nat gas prices are at $11. Right. But Henry Hub, which is what everybody’s trading is still at 4 to 5. We’re going to see not gas prices rise in Texas right now because we have a cold front coming through. But again, that’s a regional market.

TN: I was just complaining about gasoline prices being $3 here in Texas earlier today, so I just can’t deal with it. Where is it where you guys are?

AM: $4.25 in Tampa.

TN: $4.25?! Holy cow. What about you, Tracy?

TS: $3.99 in the Northeast.

TN: We’re right at $3, and I can barely stand it.

Okay, let’s move along with the geopolitical stuff. So, of course, Ukraine is on everyone’s mind. And we’ll put a link to this in the show description, the video from the State Department spokesman and the AP diplomacy reporter. Albert, can you talk us through a little bit of that kind of what’s happening there and what is that doing to the situation to find a diplomatic solution?

AM: Well, simplistically, I mean, you have the Biden administration trying to amp up the rhetoric and make it more dramatic, basically to distract from what’s going on domestically in the United States from inflation and social issues, and SCOTUS picks down the list of the problems that are facing the Biden administration. That exchange was unbelievable.

You had an AP reporter just taking him to task and saying “where’s the declassified information? And his response was, “I’m telling you verbally right now, and that’s the declassified information.” That’s unbelievable. You’re not going to get away with that.

This is just more of a symptom of the ineptitude of Anthony Blinken as Secretary of State. He shouldn’t even be called “Secretary of State” anymore. It should be “Secretary of statements,” because that’s all he does. He doesn’t do anything else. And when it’s concerning with Ukraine and his method for, “diplomacy”, he’s a non factor. The United States is a non factor, right now.

They’re behind the eight ball where they keep talking up this rhetoric and putting their allies in Europe behind the black ball here. What do we do here? We need support from the United States to show strength, but realistically, we can’t stop them going into Ukraine.

TN: Okay. Yeah. So let’s just go onto a viewer question here from @SachinKunger. He says, what will happen if there is an actual escalation between Russia and Ukraine? What’s the likelihood of actual escalation and what do you think would happen? Both you and Tracy? Part of it is commodity prices. Is there an impact on commodity supply chains, meaning wheat and gas and other stuff to Europe or other places, or is that not necessarily a huge issue?

AM: Well, I believe we’re about 75% that they’re going to have some sort of incursion into Ukraine. I mean, you don’t mobilize that many people and create supply chain logistics to not do anything. That question really depends on the level of incursion. Right. Because if it’s just ten, 20,000.

TN: It goes back to Biden’s minor incursion.

AM: That’s the Pentagon’s working model. And that’s my working model. 10, 20 thousand, you go in the same place as you were before, you loot the countryside, cause a little disturbance. The west looks weak. You leave after a month or so. Right. That’s the likelihood situation.

Of course, the markets are going to freak out in day one.

TS: That’s exactly what I was going to say. I mean, obviously you’re going to see a reaction in the commodities markets just because we’ve had four years of really not much geopolitical risk factored into a lot of these markets, the agricultural markets, the energy market. Right. Pretty much after Libya had a ceasefire in 2020, all that risk premium kind of came out of at least the energy markets and the agricultural markets, we haven’t really seen a lot of geopolitical risks.

So of course, the markets will freak out. I totally agree with Albert on this point. Whether that’s going to last or not, that’s a totally different story.

TN: Yeah. I also think that we’ve had so much money supply that that cushions geopolitical risk on some level. And interest rates have been so low that that cushions geopolitical risk as well. So as we’re in this interest rate cycle and this balance sheet cycle, geopolitical risk counts for more. It’s more costly for companies, it’s more costly for countries and investors.

NG: I would add one other thing. These markets are not trading liquidly. So these moves on geopolitical risk could be exaggerated. Right?

TS: Exactly. My point is that geopolitical risk will be exaggerated at this point.

NG: You can see there’s no liquidity, right?

AM: Yeah. To be fair, any kind of event right now just makes the markets look like it’s a crypto exchange. 30% up, 30% down 300 points on the ES. That’s insane.

TN: On that, Albert, let’s move to some tech earnings and let’s talk about Facebook and Amazon. So if we want to talk about big moves, everyone kind of knows this, but can you talk us through a little bit of that? But I’m more interested in why it’s happening. Why is everyone negative on Meta and why are they positive on Amazon?

AM: Well, from my perspective, the Fed and their cohorts use maybe a dozen companies to pump the markets. Right. They’re mainly tech. Right. They’ve expanded out into a few other things, but it’s mainly tech, Facebook being one of them, Amazon being another. AMD and Google and all these guys. Right. All these big tech names.

Now when you see Facebook miss and a couple of other miss, and the markets start to get weak, there’s a point to where… This goes back to what Nick says about different levels in the markets and whatnot. He always stresses that with me. There’s a point to where if they break this level, we’re going down to 4100 or 4000 or God forbid, 3900. Right. So that lined up right when Amazon’s earnings were coming up. And I’m looking at the market and I’m looking at these levels and I’m like, there is absolutely no way they’re going to allow Amazon to miss. Whether they let them look the books or say something in guidance or whatnot. And lo and behold, what happened? Amazon beat. Did they really beat? Probably not. You know what I mean? Yeah. And then Pinterest that nobody cares about beats and then Snapchat. I don’t even know what the hell why they’re a company. They beat unbelievably. I think they were up like 50, 60% and after hours. Right.

So now they have their juice to pump the markets back up to 45, 30 or even maybe 4600 next week before the fiscal cliff becomes a problem.

TN: Okay.

TS: You also have to look at the bond market. Right? I mean, the more the ten-year tanks, the more that’s going to drag on tech.

TN: Right. So what does that tell us about the next couple of weeks, specifically next week? But the next couple of weeks? As we’ve seen, say Meta come down, Facebook come down. But we’ve seen these other things really rally. Where is tech as a sector?

AM: It’s a pump sector. That’s all it is right now. There’s nothing really behind it. It’s built on zero rates. Well, we know we’re going to get rate heights. So what are you betting on at the moment?

TN: Right. And that’s the basis of my question. If tech is a deflation play and we’re in inflationary environment and we’re going to have rate rises, what does that mean for tech in the near term? So are we at the kind of tail end of tech? That’s my real question.

NG: We’re at the tail end whilst we have to see these interest rate rises come through. And actually, you don’t necessarily have to see the central banks officially raise because if they don’t, the bond markets are… And then there’ll be a catch up. This is the problem. If they Underperform in their credibility catch up because they’ve already implicitly admitted their errors of policy, bond market will adjust and they have to catch up again.

Now, if they do something surprising on the rate side. So yesterday was an ECB shock, right? Today, there was nothing to do with the Fed. It was the data. Well, we’ve got that CPI date next week. Right. That’s going to be very interesting because I agree with Tracy. Core is at a certain level which is still too high. But it’s the full Monty, the full CPI that labor uses when they’re discussing their wage claims. Practically, that’s the behavior of economy.

TN: CPI is the single biggest event next week. Is that fair to say?

TS, AM, NG: Yes.

TN: Okay, so let’s look at that. What if it is, say seven, which is kind of the expectation, I guess the lower bound of expectation kind of. Right? So let’s say it’s seven or let’s say it’s even five. What does that mean for us? Does that mean continued, easy Fed? Or does that mean you have the same assumptions and that’s just kind of a milestone or something that we’re passing along the way to higher rates anyway?

NG: We’re on the way to higher rates anyway.

TN: Okay.

TS: I mean, if it’s five, the market, temporarily if it’s five, the market temporarily will probably rally because that lessens the effect that Fed is going to raise. Right. That percentage will probably go down. But that’s a temporary. If we’re just talking about market reaction on the data release, I don’t really see that happening. I don’t see 5% coming in. I don’t see that a possibility.

TN: But then let’s look at the other side. What if it’s eight and a half? What happens then?

NG: Well, then in the old days, it would have been an inter meeting rate hike.

TN: Okay. Right.

NG: And the bond market will just, it’ll be another riot. Even if the core is steady. Big figure eight on the full CPI? that would shock a few people. Like people were shocked today with the non- farm payroll data.

Literally, if you could watch Bloomberg TV, it was like. They couldn’t believe what was going on.

TN: So we’re in that place in the market where the porridge has to be just right. Is that fair to say?

TS: I think we’re in for volatility. Right? I mean, we’ve been experiencing volatility for the last month or so. I think this will continue until March, until we have some resolution of whether the Fed is going to raise rates or not.

In between, it’s going to be volatile because everybody’s looking at intermittent data saying, does this mean the Fed is going to raise rates? Does this mean the Fed is going to look do you know what I mean? So I think we’re in that pushbull thing, and I think that volatility will continue into next week. I think that volatility will continue until actually the March meeting, until we get some resolution on whether the Fed is going to raise rates and by how much.

TN: Okay. So if I just a couple of things for you to agree or disagree with, just short yes, no. Next week volatility in equities with downside bias, you agree or disagree?

AM: Disagree.

TN: Disagree. Nick, you agree or disagree? Downside bias, you agree. Tracy, equities, agree or disagree?

TS: I think it depends on the sector. Okay. Give me one or two. I think we’ll see, my downside bias is in tech and then obviously, yes, because it’s heavy tech. Right. And so I think we see sideways markets in the Dow and the Russell.

TN: Okay, then let’s do the same exercise for commodities. I know there’s a lot of companies out there, but generally commodities. Choppy with an upside bias. Agree or disagree?

TS, AM: Agreed.

NG: That’s a dollar call.

TN: Okay. Explain that.

NG: Yesterday because of the dollar’s weakness against the Euro and the Dixie, I tend to agree with you. I think it’s going to be choppy until we see the color of the CPI number.

TN: Okay. Very good. Anything else to add for the week ahead?

NG: Just keep your eyes on the bond market. My mantra.

TN: Very good. Okay.

TS: Keep your eyes on B come.

TN: Thanks guys. Thanks very much. Have a great weekend. And have a great week ahead.

TS: Thank you.

TN: I don’t know the left side of my screen is the pineapple people.

AM: We’re going to call Nick Luke for the episode today.

NG: The professional version of Luke.

AM: Okay. Anyways, I’m done joking. Let’s get this thing on the road. Okay.

TN: Good. Alright.

Categories
Podcasts

Be Warned: High Prices Are Here To Stay

Our CEO, Tony Nash, talks about inflation’s and Omicron’s role in US shares sinking, as fears spread over their non-transitory nature. And how will Asia react to the ‘non-transitory’ nature of inflation and the new Covid variant? Is Gold a good asset to use to hedge against inflation?

This podcast first appeared and originally published at https://www.bfm.my/podcast/morning-run/market-watch/be-warned-high-prices-are-here-to-stay on December 02, 2021.

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Show Notes

PS: Markets in the US were down across the board. The Dow is down 1.3%. S&P 500 down 1.2% Nasdaq down 1.8%. Now over across in Asia, everyone was up. Nikkei was up .4% Hang Seng up .8% Shanghai Composite also up .4% and STI Singapore up 1.9%. And as I was saying early on, FBM KLCI was down 1.1%.

TN: Yeah. Thanks for having me, guys. I think the biggest consideration really is Powell’s comments on inflation, saying it’s kind of no longer transitory. So people should expect inflation to stay. What that means generally is we’ve hit a new pricing level is his expectation. So meaning prices are not in his mind, in many cases, going to go back to the levels that we saw before this inflationary stairstep. And what we’ve seen, particularly in the US, is consumers have accepted this and consumers accepted it, thinking that it was a temporary rise in prices.


But what he delivered today is some bad news that it’s likely a permanent prize in the level of prices. And the kind of short term cost rises that people thought they were going to endure are more permanent.

KSC: Yeah. So, Tony, try and give us a bit of a perspective here, because obviously the last twelve years and the last accelerated two years of monetary easing have induced this inflation. How does it all end? And does it stop the weak economic growth we’ve been seeing in the US the last few months.

TN: Yeah. So US economic growth, we don’t see a rapid acceleration of US economic growth. And so we have the US, China, Japan, and the EU, all at very subdued growth rates. And that’s bad. Those are the four largest economies with elevated price rises. Earnings are growing in some areas. I’m sorry, wages are growing in some areas, but they’re not necessarily growing across the economy. And part of that, particularly in the US, is a shortage of staff. So people have opted out of the workforce. We’ve lost, like 6 million workers in the US since Covid.


And so there are fewer workers. And so we have wages rising in certain areas. But it’s not necessarily across the board. So people are really going to have to start taking a look at their disposable income to understand what of these ongoing price rises that they can continue to accept. And I think we’re at a point where, since it’s no longer viewed as temporary, people and companies are going to have to start making trade offs. This is really the bad news is when people have to, when it’s no longer temporary, companies and people have to start making trade offs of what to do with their resources.


And that’s where the real problem is. So it’s not ongoing expansionary spending. And even I think it was Biden who said today we don’t expect a stimulus package for the current variant. Again, people are having to look at trade offs, and this is the real problem. When companies have to look at trade offs, they’re looking at their operating costs, they’re looking at their capital expenditure, they’re looking at their investments, they’re looking at other things. So down to Earth type of environment where we’re starting to enter Realville, we’re starting to exit the kind of fantasy environment we’ve been in the monetary induced sugar coma that we’ve been in for the past year and a half.

PS: So that’s a very interesting point, because I’ve always felt like in 2021, we saw this huge divergence in recovery right between the developed world led by the US and emerging markets, which are still really struggling to contain the virus and such. So when we talk about Asia, how do you think markets will react to this tightening of monetary policy by the Fed?

TN: Yeah. We think that Southeast Asia generally will stay pretty muted. We don’t expect early breakout at least over the next quarter or two. We don’t expect really breakout moves in Southeast Asia. We expect China to have a fair bit of volatility, but we do expect China to be generally positive over the next quarter to quarter horizon. We do expect Japan to continue to rise pretty well in India as well. Japan largely on the back of monetary policy automation, other things. So Asia is not one market, of course.


So we do expect different parts of Asia to react differently. Korea will be a mix between China and Japan like it always is. So we’ll see some volatility there reflecting China, but we’ll see some, I guess, acceleration and equities like we would see in Japan to make some both.

KSC: Well, Tony, in truth, inflation has been with us for some weeks now. But what hasn’t been with us for some weeks has been on the Omicron that’s the other big roadblock posing an obstacle to markets. How does Asia behave? How does Asia react, especially since we’re going to be opening in a few hours time?

TN: Yeah, I think Asia generally. You guys know I lived in Asia for most of my life, and Asia generally takes these things in stride with more vaccines available with the typical kind of weathering, the storm kind of approach that people have, particularly in Southeast Asia. I think people will generally take it in stride. This is really the first pandemic. Let’s say in the west that people have had for probably 50 years where they’ve really been kind of freaked out and worried in Asia, we’ve seen these types of pandemics for 2030 years.


It’s a bit different. People are more conservative, people are more used to these types of volatile, say, public health and market and other type of environments in Asia. So of course, we’ll see things shake up, but we won’t necessarily see the dire kind of messages that we’ve seen, say in the west. I don’t think we will. We’ve seen dire messages come out of, say, Germany and Italy and Austria, particularly over the past week with full lockdowns with 100% vaccine mandates, with really dire messaging. I don’t necessarily think we’re going to see super negative messaging in Asia like we’ve seen there.

PS: We won’t freak out as much as what you’re saying then essentially.

TN: No. Come on, man. It’s Asia, right? People are used to volatility in Asia and the developed markets. Developed markets are highly calibrated. Right? 0.2% change. Either way is people see as dramatic in Asia a small they’re not as calibrated. So people are accustomed to more ups and downs, and people just generally take it in stride.

PS: And I said that generally it’s quite calming. Is gold with inflation basically consigned away from this trend trade term? What’s your view in terms of gold? That’s a hit against inflation then? Because if I look at the data, the method is down 6% year to date.

TN: Right. And a lot of the inflationary rise has already happened. A lot of the stuff happens in stairstep fashion, and a lot of the mitigation efforts are already under way. So while we’ll continue to see inflation and we’ll continue to stay at an inflated level, I don’t necessarily. Or we’re not seeing dramatic price rises going forward. Okay. You’ll see it in pockets where there are, say, supply issues or something like that. But gold is more effective when everything is well, gold is a barometer for finding value.

I’ll say that much. It’s a tangible metal and people see it as worth something. And so what used to happen is gold and say the dollar as the dollar do value the gold would appreciate. But now we have crypto and people treat crypto kind of in the same way they used to treat gold. The gold market is really trying to find itself. So I think we’re going to have to see some fallout in crypto if it is to happen. We’ll have to see some fallout in crypto before we start to see gold being the safe haven again or being the preeminent safe haven.


So until Bitcoin and the other crypto assets really deteriorate in value and people go flocking back to gold, which I think will happen eventually. I don’t think it’ll happen overnight, but until we see a lack of faith in crypto, I don’t think we’ll necessarily see dramatic price pressure on gold.

KSC: Tony, you talked about Asia, right? And now China is moving to banners via structure, which is the loophole that allows its companies to list in New York and other foreign exchanges. What does this mean in terms of China’s overall strategy to go its own way to quote Fleetwood Mac?

TN: Sure. Yeah. So I think, of course, it hurts Western banks, and it hurts the Western banks that are in Asia because they don’t necessarily have those fees to take things public in the west. But I think the bigger problem is this those companies going public don’t have US dollar denominated resources to access, and so they have to get CNY or Hong Kong dollar or Japanese yen or other Sing dollar other denominated assets. Okay. But the US dollar is 87% of global transactions. So it helps those companies to have US dollar reserves, especially as they’re newly public.


Because why do you go public? Because you want to buy another company, you want to use that cash for a big investment or something, you want to expand in a big way. So if you don’t have the US dollar assets that come from going public, say, in New York or somewhere in the US or whatever, it’s really hard to have a big source of cash to do a massive international expansion or undertake a big international project or do a big international buy that’s I guess the biggest downside I would see from the decline of that type of structure in China.

KSC: All right, Tony, thank you so much for your time, Tony Nash there chief executive of Complete Intelligence. And just to hang on this last point, Phil, if you don’t list in the US, you don’t get US dollars necessarily. But that doesn’t matter if you are China, and you believe that the real market is domestically or within ASEAN, where you’ve got to combine, I don’t know, 2.1 trillion people or 2.1 billion people. That’s quite a fair few heads. Yes.

PS: Correct. I think it’s a question of whether you see a convergence between where you list versus where you operate.

KSC: Absolutely.

PS: And I think in the past we thought, okay, you could tap financial markets globally to serve your local markets. But I think China is kind of proving the point. No. I think it’ll be closer together.

KSC: Yeah. And what he was talking about in response to your question on gold, Phil, how gold hasn’t responded to all this uncertainty, which has been traditionally the case. And Bitcoin is somewhere hovering around in the mid 50s, which is a bit weird because you would expect some kind of flight to what was seen as safe havens, right.

PS: Ironic is considered Bitcoin a flight to safe havens.

KSC: Well, because it’s finite in nature. So it’s a bit like gold, right. It seems interesting, because in the last few weeks, we’ve seen a move among corporates like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and now Jack Dorsey, formerly of Twitter, who has left his job at Twitter. Still, at the same time was CEO of Square fintech platform financial platform. He’s moving to turn Square into a company called Block, and it’s a bit like it would make Mr. Miyagi proud because martial arts moves from square to block, but he’s going all in.

PS: But this is a very interesting thing because he’s going all in on crypto. And I think you’re referring to Blockchain blockchain reference to Blockchain, which is the distributed platform for data used by Crypto.


But it’s interesting, right? This whole name shift.


I think Jack Dorsey, I think, is trying to evolve away from just being a pure payments provider to offering solutions that are anchored on blockchain as a solution.

Categories
QuickHit

OPEC+, JCPOA & Delta Variant: Strength or weakness for oil & gas prices?

Energy commodities experts Tracy Shuchart and Sam Madani joined forces in this special #QuickHit episode to talk about crude, OPEC+, JCPOA, and how lockdowns will affect the market this year. Most importantly, how investors should plan?

 

Tracy writes for a Hedge Fund Telemetry, where she is the energy and material strategist. She also manages an energy and materials portfolio for a family office. Meanwhile, Samir Madani is the co-founder of TankerTrackers.com. They’re an online service that keeps track of oil that’s being shipped around the world. His specialty is the tricky tankers, the ones that like to play according to the rules.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This QuickHit episode was recorded on July 17, 2021.

 

The views and opinions expressed in this OPEC+, JCPOA & Delta Variant: Strength or weakness for oil & gas prices? QuickHit episode are those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Complete Intelligence. Any contents provided by our guest are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any political party, religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.

 

Show Notes

 

TN: We’ve seen kind of an uplifting crude prices. We’ve seen things like copper prices come down, natural gas prices really start to see some upward pressure recently. At the same time, we’re seeing talk about the JCPOA and some other Middle East type of changes with OPEC+ and UAE and Saudi. What’s your thoughts on the crude and natural gas markets? We can talk about commodities generally.I know that’s a big, wide open question. Tracy, do you want to give us generally your view and some of your positioning at the moment?

 

TS: Well, I’m very bullish on commodities, particularly industrial metals, base metals and minerals needed for this energy transition. So copper and things of that nature.

 

COMEX Copper forecasts for 2021

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We have seen a little bit of a pullback in a lot of commodities, which is not surprising. We had such a large move up. However, everybody’s looking at this as a group like the CRB index rate has pulled back. But if you look at individual commodities, you’re still seeing iron ore still at highs. So it’s not like a whole commodity collapse. You’re still seeing strength in a lot of different areas.

 

So my positioning is instead of index, I’m positioned in individual stocks and particularly on the minor side, because minors are going to have the same capex problem that oil is having.

 

TN: OK, that’s a great point. Sam, what’s your view like generally with with energy?

 

SM: I remain bullish when it comes to oil in particular, and I pat myself on the back for having gone long in at the end of March last year, when the the mutual funds were at the all time lowest in regards to oil. And that’s come up quite a lot since then.

 

I do believe that we will probably find a good footholding now in the 70s. And in order for that to remain, I think something drastic is going to have to happen on the upward probably scathe $100 and come back down so that the OPEC can look like the good guys in the mid 70s. So I think also because of the fact that there’s a capex shortage in the oil sector, they need this revenue to come in order to sustain production as well.

 

My original intended investment horizon was around three to four years. I’m going to be cutting that short until September of next year because the issue that we have now is that the lockdowns are still in effect in many areas, but also when it comes to Europe where I’m situated, most of the inoculations have only gone through the first phase. So we’re still waiting for the second shot and therefore this summer will be delayed. We’re not going to be traveling everywhere like we were in 2019. Instead, that will happen most likely next summer.

 

There’s still one big run up towards the three-digit oil price and that would be most likely to happen next year rather than now.

 

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TN: So you brought up OPEC. There’s been news this week around OPEC+ and a deal with Saudi and UAE and some other Middle East dynamics. What’s your view on that? How much downward pressure will that put on crude markets?

 

TS: Because of those factors in the Middle East, because I am of a belief we will see a deal and we will get some more barrels on the market, the market is actually very tight right now. But we’re also having lockdowns in some places in Asia. So right now, we already are seeing a pullback in crude. Until we get a little bit more certain that 65-75 range will probably hold us for a while, I see some consolidation there and after $115 move from the lows last year, it makes sense for oil to chill out, consolidate here a little bit.

 

TN: Sam, what’s your view on the kind of OPEC+, Saudi, UAE and other kind of OPEC countries wanting to tag along on the UAE?

 

SM: I think one issue that they themselves want to know is status of the JCPOA. They really want to know how much of an issue Iran would be if their balance come back to market. Now, that’s a big if.

 

But if we look at what happened during the Trump administration, the United States pulled out of the deal and that was not good optics for the U.S. side. But now what’s happened is that Iran is not complying with the deal. So the ball is now in their court instead. So the Biden administration is saying, yes, the United States wants to be part of the deal, even though it’s not a very popular deal in the US. I don’t see any popular support for it. It’s more of a let’s just get back in there so Iran can improve its compliance. But they’re not improving their compliance. Instead, what they’re doing is going the other direction and they’re increasing their enrichment. They’re becoming more brazen about how they move around the world with Navy vessels and so on.

 

And now, of course, there’s an Iranian president that’s going to take office in August. So I think the deal will play fall apart instead because of the fact that Iran is not complying.

 

TN: If the deal falls apart, does that chaos help oil prices, meaning rise or does it create the perception that there will be a dramatically larger supply in the market?

 

SM: I think the initial reaction will be that, “Oh, these barrels are not going to be reentering the market, therefore the price will go higher.” So that’s the first automated response. But then, you know, the dust will begin to settle after a while when there’s an understanding of what kind of barrels are not entering the market.

 

So in Iran’s case, they are shipping sour crude. Whether it’s light or heavy, it’s sour. In order for that oil to become sweet, which is more attractive, you have to de-sulfur the oil. And so Iran, what they do is they give you a discount if you want to buy light sweet oil, but then they’re buying like sour oil. Iran gives $10 discount, for instance, and then they just remove the sulfur at the refinery at their own expense. And that’s what’s causing, for instance, West Africa to lower their exports. So moving out a lot less oil now out of Africa than before on account of China buying more Iranian oil instead.

 

TS: I think what people forget, there’s already a lot of Iranian oil on the market. So even if they came back at production of 4 to 4.5 million, it’s not really a lot of extra added barrels that are not already on the market.

 

SM: Exactly. And it will be absorbed by the demand that’s coming of course.

 

TN: But it seems to me the kind of perception of legitimacy that would come through JCPOA may calm prices down a bit through the kind of perception of legitimacy of that supply?

 

TS: Yeah. I mean, if it came to fruition, which I don’t foresee it, I have to agree with Sam on this point. But yeah, the market would think, oh, OK, we have all these barrels coming on even though there isn’t, and that it would be a numbers game from there, then you’d have to see supply and demand numbers from the various agencies monthly reports.

 

SM: And the thing also does not happen overnight. So even if the process of JCPOA happens and Biden finally signs, for instance, initially a waiver, the whole process takes forever to reboot again. We saw it last time. Remember Tracy back in years ago, it took many months.

 

And also in the case of Iran, most of their domestic national fleet is tied up containing gas condensate. So they have around 70 million barrels of gas condensates floating. And that used up nearly all of the VLCC supertankers, the ones that can carry two million barrels. So what Iran has done is they put additional vessels, vintage VLCC. So now they have 200 vessels as opposed to 70. And those are the ones, the foreign flagged vessels that are moving the oil mostly to China.

 

TN: You both mentioned lockdowns earlier in the conversation. And I think the tone here is that we have a pretty strong basis for rising crude prices. But we’ve seen some moves over the last week in the Netherlands and California and other places for maybe not full lockdowns, but more severe compliance with masks and other things and that seems to be leading toward potentially some lockdowns. First of all, if there are lockdowns coming, what would be driving that? And we all know about the Delta variant and stuff. But are there political factors that would be driving that? Second of all, if there were, how would that impact the six to nine month view of crude markets for you guys?

 

TS: The United States is so big, I don’t believe that they’re going to lock down the whole country again. It just won’t happen. You would literally have riots on the streets in some places. So I don’t foresee that happening. I could see some of the states like California just reinstated their mask mandates. I’ve been watching those states that kind of had more severe lockdowns to begin with like Michigan. If they’d lockdown again in the fall, that would probably be more politically motivated, but we’ll have to see what the numbers are and whatnot.

 

As far as my crude view, I’m very bullish on crude. But that doesn’t mean like I’m expecting a $100 tomorrow. How I’m invested is longer term. So I’m invested for at least the next five years or so.

 

And I do believe that if we get through the fall and we don’t have lockdowns in the United States, Europe and Asia, then I definitely think six to nine months, we’re back in the swing of things, because that’ll put us right to basically next spring when oil demand really starts.

 

TN: Sam, what’s your view in Europe on lockdowns? Do you see that stuff coming back and how do you see that impacting consumption?

 

SM: I would think that it would be mostly in the countries with the high population density. Germany is obviously one of those countries and the UK is another. In other countries, not so much the case. I live here in Sweden. We never had lockdowns. So we had seniors living in retirement homes and so on. But then, we pretty much met the same statistic level as every other country — 10% population suffer through it, 1% or so perished as a result. But I don’t think that we’ll be seeing any big efforts on locking down countries again.

 

And what’s more interesting now is schools are coming up in a couple of months or at least a month and a half. Here in Sweden, life will pretty much continue as is. I have four kids and none of them missed more than a week of school, throughout the entire ordeal since 2020.

 

TN: So it sounds to me like you both see there may be some lockdowns at the edges, but it doesn’t sound like it’s something you expect to affect the mainstream. Maybe we see a slight dip in the rate of rise of demand. But it doesn’t sound like it’ll have a huge impact to the downside on energy prices generally, whether it’s crude or natgas or something like that. Is that fair to say?

 

SM: Yep.

 

TS: Absolutely.

 

TN: When it comes to natural gas, Tracy, I know you’ve been talking about that a lot lately. Can you tell us a little bit about your observations and your thesis and and what you’re seeing there?

 

TS: For natural gas, the reason I like it is it’s the great transition fuel especially for emerging markets, because it’s very inexpensive than to go straight into something like solar or wind just because the cost of those minerals and metals can make those are skyrocketing right now. So natural gas is abundant. It’s a great transition fuel. It’s cleaner burning than oil.

 

We just saw the EU green deal, they just stepped back and now are including that gas, whereas before there was no oil or gas, because I think they’re also realizing that it’s inexpensive, it’s a good transition fuel. If you look at Germany, there’s still a lot of coal going on in Germany. So for Europe, it’s not like fossil fuels are gone.

 

I think they realize also it’s an inexpensive transition fuel. In particular for the United States, what I like right now is we’re seeing European natgas ETF and JKM, which is the Asian natgas, are trading at significantly higher than the United States is right now. And so I think there is opportunity there because the US can export and still come in at a lower cost, even with the cost of transportation to Europe or to Asia.

 

TN: Interesting. Living in Texas, I have to say that I love that message. Sam, what about the tanker fleet? Is the global tanker fleet ready to to provide the capacity needed to power EMs with, say, American natgas or Middle Eastern natgas?

 

SM: So natgas, I haven’t checked too much. But tankers in general, the demand is not that great right now. When I say that, I mean that usually, they really step up to the plate whenever there’s a floating storage opportunity to talk about. So you had that case in Q2 of last year, and that really drove up the prices from the growing normal rate of 20,000 barrels a day to 500,000. That spike.

 

And it’s come down so much. Complete occupancy is far lower than what I normally see if I talk about the tonnage and it’s around under 40%, which is very little. We were looking at April of last year, it was around north of 55, close to 60%. So that’s a big swing. And that really crushed the prices for tanker rates. They’re even negative. Below zero. But when I look at the transfers of illicit oil, it’s around $38,000 a day. So there’s a lot lot of money to be made in those transfers, unfortunately. But for nat-G, I’m not entirely sure. So I can’t say for sure.

 

TN: OK, very good. Guys, thank you so much for your time. This has been really helpful. I’m really intrigued by kind of the long bull thesis for energy because we hope that we’re going to start recovering much quicker than we had been, which is fantastic. So thanks for your time. I really appreciate. Always, I really appreciate talking with you guys. Thanks very much.

Categories
Podcasts

Could COVID-19 Finally Kill the EU?

The fallout from COVID-19 might result in the disintegration of the European Union while the flight to safe havens like the USD is yet another headache for the financial markets to stomach, according to Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence.

Produced by: Michael Gong

Presented by: Roshan Kanesan, Noelle Lim, Khoo Hsu Chuang

 

Listen to the podcast in BFM: The Business Station

 

Show Notes:

 

BFM: So for more on global markets right now, we speak to Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence. Welcome to the show, Tony. Now U.S. markets closed down sharply again last night, erasing all gains from the time President Trump was elected. So what’s your outlook for markets? Is it still too early to buy?

 

TN: Gosh I don’t know. Actually, we don’t really know if it’s a really good time to buy. At this point, it’s really hard to catch that kind of falling knife. But what we don’t see is a V-shaped recovery. We think we’re in the zone where the fall may start slowing down. But we believe the equity markets will trade in a pretty low range for the next couple of months. And that’s because we’re not really sure of the economic impact of the slowdown in the West.

 

This COVID-19 is a government-driven recession that countries have lawfully gone into. So a lot of the recovery has been how quickly the fiscal stimulus is put into the hands of consumers and companies, and how quickly those individuals will get back to work.

 

 

BFM: Well, oil continues to fall last night to record lows with the Brent at $26 per barrel. What’s your view on oil? I know you are seeing the stock market. We do not know where the bottom is. But for oil, are we hitting the bottom yet?

 

TN: We may not be, but we’re pretty close. Our view is that crude will bounce once the Saudi-Russia price standoff is resolved. So we actually see crude moving back into the 40s in April.

 

But after that, we expect a gradual fall back into the low 40s to the high 30s in May. So, you know, we’ll see the next several months’ prices will be depressed. And we think it’s going to be quite a while before we see oil at 50 bucks again.

 

 

BFM: Yeah, Tony, you would have seen the stock futures point in green, obviously quite buoyed by the ECB’s whatever-it-takes policy. In Asia this week, four central banks are meeting. I’d like to go off a piece of possible talk about Australia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia. Our central banks are expected to meet this week. What do you expect them to do in terms of responding to the market turmoil?

 

TN: So it can’t just be central banks. I think central banks will do whatever it takes. But you really have to get finance ministries involved because, again, this is a government-induced recession.

 

Governments have demanded that people stay at home due to COVID-19. They’ve demanded that places of business close. And so until finance ministries and treasury departments get involved to get money in the hands of consumers and companies, we’re in a pretty rough place and there’s a lot of uncertainty.

 

So I think the central bank activity is fine. But I think getting a fiscal stimulus out there right now and not waiting is what they need to do. The US is talking about doing something in mid-April, that is just not good enough.

 

We have to get fiscal stimulus out right now because the governments have brought this on. The markets did not bring this on. The governments brought this recession on.

 

 

BFM: Yeah, Tony, obviously the helicopter money is going beyond the conceptual stage right now. But from a fiscal standpoint, how many central banks in Asia can afford, you know, the financial headroom to pay these helicopter money solutions?

 

TN: Well, whether they can afford it and whether they need to afford it are two different questions. And so I think we have real issues with a very expensive U.S. dollar right now.

 

Dollar strength continues to pound emerging market currencies. And emerging markets and middle-income markets may have to print money in order to get funds in the hands of consumers and companies.

 

So I think you have a dollar where appreciation continues to force the dollar strength. And you also have middle income and emerging market countries who may have to turn on printing presses to get money into the hands of consumers. So I think for middle income and emerging markets, it’s a really tough situation right now. The dollar, I think, is both a blessing and a curse for the U.S. But the U.S. Treasury and the Fed have to work very hard to produce the strength of the dollar.

 

There is a global shortage of dollars, partly because it’s a safety currency, partly because of the debt that’s been accumulated in U.S. dollars outside of the U.S.. And if those two things could be alleviated, it would weaken the dollar a bit. But the Treasury and the Fed are going to have to take some drastic measures to weaken the dollar.

 

 

BFM: Well, how much higher do you think the green buck can go?

 

TN: It can be pretty high. I mean, look, it depends on how panicked people get. And it depends on how drastic, I’d say, money supply creation is in other markets.

 

I think there are real questions in my mind about an environment like this and around the viability of the euro. The EU is in a very difficult place. I’m not convinced that they can control the outbreak. I think they have a very difficult demographic position. And I don’t think Europe within the EU, have the fiscal ability to stimulate like it is needed. The ECB cannot with monetary policy, wave a magic wand and stimulate Europe.

 

There has to be fiscal policy, and the individual finance ministries in every single EU country cannot coordinate to the point needed to get money into the hands of companies and individuals. So I think Europe and Japan, actually, have the most difficult times, but Europe has, the toughest hole to get out of economically.

 

 

BFM: It really sounds like Europe has its work cut out for it at this point. What do you think? What could we see coming out of Europe in terms of any fiscal policy? Or will this pressure the EU, put more pressure on the EU?

 

TN: ECB doesn’t really have the mandate for fiscal policy, so they would have to be granted special powers to develop fiscal policy solutions. It has to be national finance ministries in Europe that develops that.

 

So the ECB can backup as many dump trucks as it wants, but it just doesn’t have the power for fiscal policy. So, again, our view is that there is a possibility that the Euro and the EU actually break up in the wake of COVID-19.

 

This is not getting enough attention. But the institutional weakness in Europe and the weakness of the banking sector in Europe is a massive problem and nobody is really paying attention to it.

 

 

BFM: Do you think this has been a long time coming?

 

TN: Oh, yeah. I mean, look, we’re paying for the sins of the last 20 years right now. And for Asia, you know, Asian countries and Asian consumers and companies have taken on a huge amount of debt over the past 20 years to fund the quote unquote, “Asian Century.” And I think a lot of Asian governments and countries will be paying the price over the next six months. The same is true in Europe. But the institutions there are very, very weak.

 

The U.S., of course, has similar problems, not because the U.S. dollar is so dominant, the U.S. can paper over some of those sins, although those problems are coming from the U.S. as well.

 

So, again, what we need to think about is this: The people who are the most affected by COVID-19 are older people. Those people are no longer in the workforce generally, and they’re no longer large consumers, generally.

 

OK. So all of the workforce is being sidelined or has been sidelined in Asia, is being sidelined in the West now, and consumption is being delayed for a portion of the population that is no longer consuming and is no longer working.

 

And so getting the fiscal stimulus out is important because those people who are contributing to the economy can’t do anything, right?

 

So and this isn’t to say we’re not caring about the older populations. Of course, we all are. But it’s a little bit awkward that the beneficiaries of this economic displacement are largely people who are not contributing to economies anymore.

 

 

BFM: All right. Tony, thank you so much for joining us on the line this morning. That was Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence.

 

Listen to the podcast on COVID-19 in BFM: The Business Station

 

Categories
Podcasts

Business and Market Discussion Podcast: Coronavirus and its impact to economy

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

 

Some notes below:

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Do you think this could derail the Phase 1 deal?

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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