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BBC: How are sanctions affecting Russia?

This podcast is owned and originally published by BBC here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172ydqbbld0z8y

The BBC’s Business Matters podcast covers a range of topics, including the positive economic signs in the US, the Russian tech brain drain, and the potential for a new plug to be the secret to a green transition.

Guests Emily Eng, NPR’s Beijing correspondent, and Tony Nash, founder and CEO of the financial forecasting platform Complete Intelligence in Houston, provide their insights on these topics.

They discuss the impact of economic sanctions on Russia and how the country is responding to them, including increasing exports to China and reducing its crude oil supplies by 500,000 barrels per day to push up prices.

The conversation also touches on a controversial proposal by the European Commission to seize Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine.

Additionally, the podcast covers the announcement by the US federal government that all new garages and four courts built in the country will have to include charging points for electric vehicles and its potential impact on accelerating EV adoption.

Transcript

BBC

Hi there. Welcome to Business Matters. My name is Ed Butler, and today, despite all the political rows we’ve been hearing about a potential debt default, there are more positive economic signs from the United States. This week, we read the tea leaves with a former presidential economic adviser and hear about the new incumbent in that job. Also, we consider the Russian tech brain drain, and why a new plug could be the secret to a green transition.

Emily

This will definitely help accelerate EV adoption. Charging is one of the things that really does stand in the way of someone’s decision about going electric.

BBC

All the latest on electric vehicles in the States coming up in the show, and I’m going to be joined throughout the program by two guests on opposite sides of the world. Emily eng is NPR’s Beijing correspondent, although she is based in Taiwan at the moment. Hi, Emily, can you hear us?

Emily

Yes, I can. Good morning.

BBC

Great to have you on the show. Tony Nash. He’s the founder and CEO of the financial forecasting platform Complete Intelligence in Houston, Texas. Hi, Tony.

Tony

Hi, Ed. Thank you.

BBC

Great to have you both with us. Tony Nash this is obviously a function of, to some extent of the economic sanctions that we’ve been talking about, those applied against Russia. I mean, the funny thing about this is to some extent Russia hasn’t done that badly in the last twelve months, at least initially. I mean, that’s what the headline data is telling us. You look further into the future, I mean, are you seeing a kind of more serious decline potentially with Russia now because of what’s been applied against it?

Tony

Sure, there are a couple of things to look at. First, in the four weeks in January, Russia exported more crude oil than during any four-week period in 2021. So they are recovering their export capacity to places like India, China, parts of Africa, and other places. So, you know, it really hasn’t necessarily hurt their crude exports. When you look at imports, they’ve really substituted, say, the west for China. Their imports from China have grown by, I think, $8 billion a month. It’s got to be more than that, but I saw some numbers recently, but they’ve substituted imports from China. So in terms of trade, they’ve really turned eastward and southward instead of westward, which is just a natural response to sanctions. So where they’ve hurt is domestically in terms of things like industrial production of, say, machinery and domestic goods outside of, say, coal and oil and gas.

BBC

What the west, of course, has tried to do most recently is apply these caps on Russian crude exports. Now you’re saying that they’re getting around those or are they simply selling a larger amount of crude but at a lower price?

Tony

They’re getting around them. They haven’t hit the price cap yet. The crude is trading, or what has been trading at, I think, a $20 discount to the price cap. So they’re not even hitting the price cap. There’s a $20 discount to Euros crude. What Russia on its own, announced last week is that they’ll reduce their supplies by 500,000 barrels per day. So Russia is, on its own, taking barrels off the market as a way to push up crude prices. So the volume and the price caps really aren’t having an impact necessarily on crude itself. Of course, the Russian economy is being hit. Of course the isolation, of course other things are impacting Russia. I’m not trying to say that there are no impacts at all, but in terms of that natural resources, trade, and some of the import substitution, they’re actually doing okay.

BBC

Yeah, import substitution. This is the thing, and it’s a fascinating subject, actually. I was suddenly trying to dig into this, and it’s really complicated. But Tony, one last tantalizing thought on this. An element we understand, what Bloomberg is reporting that may be part of these new sanctions from the EU is to force banks to report more information on what Russian central bank assets they are actually holding. Because of course, the EU and other countries want to know how much has been frozen in Western bank accounts that used to belong to the Russian state budget. Now, this is seen possibly as a first step towards a controversial move touted by the European Commission, not just to freeze Russian assets, but to actually seize them, to use them to start rebuilding Ukraine or to at least pay Ukraine back for the damage that’s been caused. I mean, gosh. Do you think that that could be something we’ll be looking at in the next few weeks?

Tony

I think as a threat, I guess useful as a threat, but as an actual policy, I think it would be very difficult to execute and justify. Usually, these things are seized for years or decades. Sorry, frozen for years or decades, not necessarily seized. So I think that could be a very problematic policy to carry out.

BBC

Because it would set precedents.

Tony

Yes, that’s right.

BBC

For western countries, I suppose. Okay.

Tony

And the banking system that supports Russian assets or sovereign assets, would be dangerous for people like Russia going forward.

BBC

Tony Nash, thank you for now but stay tuned to this because this is big news. If you’re a car owner who wants to buy an electric vehicle, maybe you’ve got an electric vehicle already, especially if you’re in the US. The Us federal government has said that from now on, all charges that are used in the garages and the four courts around the states must be American made and have to be usable for all-electric vehicles. That means that Tesla, which has had most of the existing charging points, they have to carry, adapters, allowing other cars to use them. I spoke earlier about this with Alexis and John of Business Insider in Detroit. Well, Tony Nash, there you are in the big oil state, famously, there Texas. How is EV adoption going in the States?

Tony

It’s great. I’m sorry. It’s great. A lot of my neighbors have EVs, and I think it’s probably not as dense as, say, San Francisco or something. But we do have a lot of EVs here in Texas.

BBC

You’ve got a lot of territories to cover, though, don’t you? I mean, if you’re a driver. We do, and I have an electric vehicle. Every time I’ve gone 100 miles down the road, of course, I’m starting to sweat at the thought that, you know, at some point I’m going to have to refuel, otherwise I’m going to stop on the highway. Tony Nash are you confident that the move to electric vehicles is going to move as fast as some politicians, I suppose particularly politicians in Europe, are saying that we can sort of phase out the internal combustion engine in the next few years and rely entirely on electric vehicles? It’s going to require an awful lot of infrastructure. An awful lot of rare earth. Exactly, that’s right.

Tony

A lot of infrastructure. I mean, I understand the aggressive plans, but I just don’t think it can happen on that time scale. So it seems to me that maybe add ten years to it and sure, that makes sense. And to be honest, ten years in terms of adoption, in terms of building this stuff is really just the blink of an eye. So sure, I think it’ll happen, but I think it’s going to take a bit longer than people right now believe.

BBC

Right, it’s going to take longer, but that’s going to leave, I guess, a lot of politicians with egg on their faces, isn’t it?

Tony

That won’t be the first time. Quite true. Especially American politicians. Won’t be the first time.

BBC

Quite true. evelyn professor Jason Furman. Tony Nash, obviously he’s speaking in an upbeat way. He’s a supporter of the Democratic cause. Are you sensing a slightly kind of warmer, more positive mood in the US right now over its economic performance?

Tony

I think the mood is tentative because inflation is affecting everything. So if we look at that retail sales number, if you look at it in inflation-adjusted terms, we actually saw a decline of retail sales by 2.3%, and it was the fifth consecutive year-on-year decline. So five months in a row we’ve seen negative retail sales if we adjust for inflation. So I think inflation really covers everything. One of the things that the professor said that I’m not really sure is right is he says the White House can’t do anything about inflation. So we have Janet Yellen, who is a Treasury Secretary reporting to the White House, who is spending $140,000,000,000 a month from the treasury general account, and it’s offsetting all of the work that the Fed is doing. So the treasury is actually putting $140,000,000,000 into markets every month to keep markets booming. When the Fed is raising interest rates and selling off its balance sheet. So the US Treasury is actually and literally offsetting all of the good that the Fed is trying to do.

BBC

It’s interesting because we got Lyle Brainer coming from the Fed right this week to the White House as an economic advisor. You’re seeing that the political executive and the Fed are basically in conflict.

Tony

Absolutely. And Lail Brainerd is very smart. She’s fantastic. But she is very much a dove. She’s very much a loose monetary policy believer. And so what Janet Yellen is doing at the Fed in terms of pumping money in through the treasury general account, Lail Brainerd would be an absolute supporter of. And so we have to be very, very careful of inflation. All of these stimulatory activities really hurt your average worker. So there’s a concept called core inflation which really takes out everything energy, food, and so on and so forth. And really all it’s reflective of is service industry wages. Okay? So what we like to see is a headline number which will say 6% or something and what we’ll talk about is a core number which may be 1.2%. All that really means is that your hourly workers are being squeezed by inflation. So when the headline exceeds the super core inflation rate it just means that your hourly workers are being squeezed. And so it’s a really tough environment for wage workers.

BBC

Okay? It’s a tough environment. The bigger issue perhaps. Meanwhile, Tony, we still have this debt default issue, don’t we? We’ve been hearing about it in the headlines. Yet another cliff edge approaching in the United States. The wearyingly inevitable to some people kind of confrontation between Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

Tony

Yeah, I think what’s happened is the US has not actually had a budget for years and my understanding is what is trying to be negotiated is for the US to actually start doing an annual budget again that gets approved by Congress which is their constitutional role. One of the other items that I know are under discussion is this Treasury general account issue. Kind of profligate spending from the treasury to support markets. So there are some issues. It’s not just about the full faith and credit of the US. Of course, nobody wants the US to default but we’ve had some pretty ugly spending patterns for the past well as far as I can remember and I think some of that is just being discussed to come under control. So the US won’t default but it’s going to take some time to come to an agreement.

BBC

Yeah, indeed it will. We’re probably just going to be talking about it for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Tony

Well, I don’t think people realize there are thousands of protests in China every year. It’s not rare to have protests in China. Some of them are local workplace protests. Some of them are bigger. There was a protest east of Wuhan a few years ago about the location of I think a plastics factory or something like that. And there was one in Guangdong about, I think, an incineration plant or something, probably four or five years ago. But there are thousands of protests in China. It’s good that this is happening, and it’s a good discussion to have, and it’s good that Western media are able to view it. So every society has protested and every society has disagreements, and China is no different. Yeah, but there are older people, and even during the COVID lockdowns, the aunties in the buildings were yelling at the people, bringing food to them, and yelling at the police. So there is a difference in the age population in China. So I just don’t find any of this surprising, whether it’s a protest or a deference to old people.

BBC

What are they yelling down at the government? I mean, is this an escalation in the sense of the language, perhaps the boldness of some of the protesting and the way it’s being put?

Tony

They’re not saying, down with the CCP. Right? So if Beijing will let local governments take the flak for local issues, that’s not all that abnormal. It’s not a daily occurrence, but it’s not all that abnormal. If they were shouting down at the CCP, of course, that protest would have been squashed, but local governments and local government officials always take the hit for these types of issues. That’s normal in China.

BBC

Okay, Tony and Emily and Tony Nash, I suppose workers, you know, if they did kick up a fuss, for example, at a handful of Starbucks stores, they are still, particularly they’re still potentially vulnerable to just being fired, aren’t they? I mean, how protected are they from that kind of retaliatory action if they were to try and organize just on a shop-by-shop basis?

Tony

Yeah, I honestly don’t know. I think that would have to do with the contracts they negotiate. As your guest said, unionizing is one thing, but getting a contract is a whole different level. So I think her interview is very interesting. And what’s really interesting to me is what is leading to this desire to unionize. People obviously don’t feel like they’re getting fair pay and fair benefits, and that’s something that really needs to be looked at across companies.

BBC

Yes. And that is what seems to be a legacy of the pandemic, partly, wasn’t it? People went home, they were kind of laid off or furloughed for often long periods, they reflected, and there is a kind of militancy that seems to have left as a legacy.

Tony

What’s interesting to me is Starbucks is supportive of this, but they’re also the company that people want to unionize under. Right? And so they have the orientation toward doing that, but they’re not providing on their own the benefits and the pay that would keep people from unionizing. So I just think it’s an interesting circular discussion. Tesla is a different story. They’re an auto company in different parts of the country, automakers are highly unionized. So I don’t think it should be any surprise to Musk that that’s happening in Taiwan.

BBC

Thank you so much for all your thoughts, your words, and your wisdom. And to Tony nash there at Complete Intelligence in Houston, Texas. My name is Ed Butler.

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Podcasts

Slower US rate hikes could help ‘buy time’, allow businesses to plan better

This video interview is owned by Channel News Asia, and the original source can be found at https://youtu.be/U_Im05ClsN0

The United States Federal Reserve’s plan to ease its pace of interest rate hikes as soon as December would bring some relief for markets concerned about the central bank overtightening too quickly, Mr. Tony Nash, founder and chief executive of data analytics firm Complete Intelligence, told CNA’s Asia First.

Transcript

CNA: Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell has signaled policymakers could slow interest rate increases starting this month. That sets the stage for a possible to downshift to a 50bps rate hike when Fed officials gather again in two weeks.

Powell: Monetary policy affects the economy and inflation with uncertain lags. And the full effects of our rapid tightening so far are yet to be felt.

Thus it makes sense to moderate the pace of our rate increases as we approach the level of restraint that will be sufficient to bring inflation down. The time for moderating the pace of rate increases may come as soon as the December meeting.

CNA: But it isn’t quite a dovish turn. The U.S Central Bank Chief also stressed that they have a long way to go in restoring price stability despite some promising developments.

Mr. Powell warns against reading too much into one month of inflation data saying that the FED has yet to see clear progress on that front. In order to gain control of inflation, the Fed chair says the American labor market also has to loosen up to reduce upward pressure on wages. Job gains in the country remain high at nearly 300,000 positions per month and borrowing costs are likely to remain restrictive for some time to tamp down rapid price surges.

This is where U.S interest rates stand after an unprecedented series of four 75 bps rate hikes. Policymakers projected earlier that this could go as high as 4.6 percent but Powell says they will likely need to keep lifting rates more and go beyond that level until the inflation fight is done.

The less hawkish tone from Powell Boyd U.S market stow and the S&P500 erased losses it searched three percent. The Dow gained two percent while the NASDAQ jumped more than 4.4 percent. the 10-year treasury yield also dipped as Bond Traders dialed back their expectations on how high the Fed may push interest rates while the U.S dollar retreated.

Tony Nash is founder and CEO of Complete Intelligence joining us from Houston, Texas for some analysis. Now Tony, just looking at Powell’s comments, the first differs in some way with what the Fed and its officials have been telling us earlier in the year and how we’ll get there fast to try to reach the terminal rate. But now it’s signaling that it will get there slower. What is this going to mean for businesses and consumers in the US?

Tony: I think what it means is we’re going to get to the same destination. It’s just going to take a little bit more time to get there. So the Fed has seen jobs turn around they’ve seen jobs aren’t necessarily slowing but the rate of rise in open jobs is slowing. We’ve seen mortgage rates go up. We’ve seen the rate of inflation rise slowly.

So the Fed is seeing some things that they want and they’re worried about over-tightening too quickly. Because what we’ve seen so far is really just interest rate rises. They really haven’t even started quantitative tightening yet. I mean they’ve done a little bit maybe a couple hundred billion dollars. But they have nine trillion dollars on their books give or take.

They haven’t even started QT yet. And they’re starting to see inflation and some of these pressures on markets at least slowed down a little bit. So I think they’re saying “hey guys we’re still going to get to a terminal rate of five percent or five and a half percent but we’re going gonna slow it down from here unless we see things accelerate again.”

CNA: When do you think we will actually see that five to five and a half percent?

Tony: You’ll see it in the first quarter. You know if we do say 50bps in December and maybe another 50 in January, we’ll see some 25bps hikes after that but I think what markets the cyber leaf that markets are giving right now is just saying. Okay, we’re not at 100 or 75 in December.

I think that’s a big size that you saw today and you know. It raising at 75bps per meeting just put some real planning challenges in front of operators people, who run companies. So if they slow down that pace and people know we’re still going to get to that 5 to 5.5%, it allows people to plan a little bit more thoughtfully, and a little bit more intelligently.

I think this does relieve some people of the worries of the Fed over-tightening too quickly and it also relieves worries that the Fed is only relying on monetary policy. They’re not relying on interest rates I’m sorry and they’re not relying on quantitative tightening. so the Federal balanced approach sometime in Q1.

CNA: Okay, you also mentioned before in our past conversations, the concern that the market has been having for this week especially since it’s China’s lockdowns and you see these restrictions ending gradually. What is that going to mean for Energy prices and inflation?

We see Energy prices say now they’re what high 70s low 80s somewhere in that range. We do see a rise of say crude oil prices by about 30 percent once China fully opens. We could easily be 110-120 a barrel once China fully opens. And so there will be pressure on global energy markets once China opens. Other commodity prices will see the same because we’re just not seeing the level of consumption in China that we expect.

What we also expect is for Equity markets to turn away from the U.S. and more toward Asia. So the US has attracted a lot of investment over the past year partly because of the strong dollar partly because of kind of a risk-off mentality consolidating in U.S markets. As China opens and there becomes more activity in Asia than we would expect, some of that money to draw down out of the US and go back to Asia.

CNA: Can you look at the jobs market in the US even as we expect this potential pivot towards Asia for stock market investors? The jobs market and the picture on wages there because the ADP data shows that there seems to be a cooling in demand for labor how soon do you think we can see a broadening out to the broader jobs market?

Tony: You would have broader cooling of demand in the jobs market I think, that’s definitely hidden tech. You’ve seen a lot of layoffs in technology over the past say three weeks. And that will cascade out. I don’t necessarily see think that you’ll see that in places like energy, but you will see that in maybe finance, some aspects of financial services. You’ve seen some of that and say mortgage brokers and this sort of thing so you’ll see that in some aspects of financial services. Some aspects of say manufacturing at the edges. but I do think there’s a lot of growth in U.S manufacturing as this reassuring narrative really takes uh gets momentum in North America. And so even though we may shed some manufacturing jobs in one area I think we’ll see growth in manufacturing jobs in other areas.

CNA: Okay, Tony. We’ll leave it there for today. Thanks for sharing your analysis with us. Tony Nash is founder and CEO of Complete Intelligence.