Dearly beloved … NEW
The new doctrine of self-exoneration and supply-side inflation guilt means that central bankers will not raise rates any more and…
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Double Dutch NEW
The victory of Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) in this week’s Netherlands election follows a familiar pattern. Electorates across Europe…
The theology of central bank policy is shifting towards a relatively softer monetary policy stance that targets short-term inflation expectations.…
In the world of the grayzone alliances, international trade will not be an engine of growth. And no longer will…
The US Federal Reserve held its policy rate unchanged. This is bullish for markets as the Fed appears more confident…
Two of our major asset positions remain short JGBs and long yen. It’s a constant humiliation by one or the…
Our forecast has been for a long war of attrition with Ukraine holding its own and wearing down the Russians.…
It is unwise to bet your portfolio on absolutes. The Middle East contagion may be containable as we believe. But…
The election results are a resounding democratic success for the opposition Civic Coalition (KO) with voter participation rates up 13…
Buying EU natural gas is a good asset to provide insurance against a wider escalation in the war between Israel…
War inside Gaza is now inevitable. The spillovers depend on Israel’s actions. The wider the ripples, the greater the global…
Freedom, democracy and prosperity are inextricably linked. In our grayzone world of democratic and autocratic alliances, the victory of the…
The market reaction to this war will be determined by where Israel sets its perimeter security fence. The USD, as…
Nagorno-Karabakh is an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijani territory. It has been airbrushed from history by Azerbaijan in just a week.…
From an internationalist perspective, the US Congress budget deal is bad news. It is not critical to ensure support for…
Grain prices are near three-year lows. This is based on optimism on Ukraine supplies and on future crop yields and…
The new Huawei smart phone (the Mate 60 Pro) has a 7nm chip. The CPU chip is the Kirin 9000s.…
In this report, we summarise our current convictions on the key economic and political trends globally and the investment strategy…
What will Europe and the world look like in a decade? It will be a safer place. Equities will perform…
We don’t think the living standards of emerging markets are going to converge with those of rich countries in the…
China’s property sector implosion is worsening and credit growth is falling. The economy is entering a debt deflation trap. We…
We increased our long positions immediately following the end of the Black Sea shipping agreement between Russia and Ukraine. We…
There are three dark towers in financial markets. They are the BoJ, the Fed and the ECB – dark towers…
Are the developed economies entering a ‘sweet spot’, a Goldilocks economy where ‘normal’ inflation resumes, interest rates fall, economic growth…
Spain’s snap election over the weekend proved inconclusive. While the centre-right Partido Popular came out on top they failed to…
It looks like this time Putin may be serious about pulling out of the grain deal. Together with El Nino/global…
The victory of the Thai opposition parties in the May election looks like being thwarted by the military-backed government. That…
There’s an important change in political trajectory in Europe. So-called extremist parties are gaining power and office in Europe’s governments.…
The Wagner group coup in Russia collapsed overnight. Prigozhin, the head of Wagner, has left the motherland for Lukashenko’s tender…
This is definitely an attempted Prigozhin/Wagner coup against Shoigu and Gerasimov and indirectly Putin. Our view is that this coup…
This week’s round of central bank meetings should achieve one thing: put to bed any concept of early policy interest-rate…
We are about to enter into a period of rejoicing about falling inflation. But this is all about base effects.…
All the jollity and frolicking that met the post-Covid reopening has gone. Of course, Chinese equities are now cheaper (Figure…
This is what has changed in the gray zone map of war recently. The Ukraine peace plan of returning all…
Since the beginning of the current crisis, bank deposits have fallen $390bn, while borrowing from the Fed and other sources…
The world is not at war, but neither is there a new cold war. The world is in a gray…
There were two key elections over the weekend. In Turkey, the result suggests no move forward; in Thailand, however, the…
Bank deposit outflows reversed in May to date. Regional bank stocks remained under pressure.
The Federal Reserve raised its policy rate again last week and indicated that any fall in the rate was unlikely…
The Fed and the ECB both raised their policy rates by 25bp. The Fed has paused. The ECB has not.…
The imminent sell-off of First Republic Bank is another chapter in the banking crisis. There was large outflow of deposits…
With the immediate liquidity crisis over, the Fed has now returned to cutting its balance sheet, mainly through reductions in…
Given the supply-demand fundamentals, the current historically high grain prices are not going to fall back. However, slowing global demand…
The banking crisis in March appears to be over, according to the latest April data from the Federal Reserve. But…
The SVB bankruptcy is a small bank story. But it is a global story for all big banks in big…
Total borrowing by banks from the Fed fell back a little last week and the Fed resumed its tightening mode.…
GPT is a part of the AI jigsaw. It is much hyped at the moment. But when it comes to…
The banking panic subsided a little in the week ending 31 March. But investor confidence in the banks remains low…
US commercial bank borrowing from the Federal Reserve facilities continued to rise last week, while deposits continued to move out…
The Fed did as expected and hiked 25bp. That means trouble later.
