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David Fuller and Eoin Treacy's Comment of the Day
Category - Global Middle Class

Email of the day on reorienting globalisation

I see a third question more related to the protests, not COVID, and I apologize in advance for the potential false equivalency. When comparing Europe's energy situation and the global supply chain / China sourcing situation how will each unfold in future years? Certainly both are heading directions (reversing) that will not turn. Are Europe's hooks deeper into the Russian supply habit or is the global supply chain China habit even deeper?

I am most interested in the impact similarities these two withdrawal themes may have on the West, and the length of time change will take. I have long thought North America "has it all" when you look at materials, labor, and markets.



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Chiang Kai-shek's Great-Grandson Claims Key Taiwan Poll Win

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

According to Central Election Commission, KMT won 13 out of 21 cities and counties, while DPP only managed to secure five cities in the southern part of Taiwan, the least since its founding in 1986. KMT candidates took 50% of votes in the contests, versus 41.6% for the DPP, 11.39 million votes counted as of 11:53 pm in Taipei, according to the official election website.

That prompted President Tsai Ing-wen to step down as party leader, saying in televised remarks: “In the face of these results, there are many areas where we need to engage in self-reflection.”

The elections represented the last major test of Tsai’s DPP before her second and final term draws to a close and Taiwan picks a successor in early 2024. The KMT, or Nationalist Party, hopes the gains in local races will help it mount a comeback after defeats in presidential elections in 2016 and 2020.

The results will be closely watched in Washington and Beijing, since the DPP’s rise to power has prompted China to cut off communications with Taiwan and ramp up diplomatic and military pressure on the island. The KMT, which favors eventual unification with China, had previously overseen a historic expansion of ties with Beijing, easing travel, trade and investment across the Taiwan Strait. 



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Feedback on Our Tactical Views and 2023 Outlook

Thanks to a subscriber for this report from Morgan Stanley which may be of interest. Here is a section:

Technicals over Fundamentals for now…our tactically bullish call was always more about the technicals than the fundamentals. Today, we provide an update to those factors, some of which no longer justify higher prices although they provide support at current levels. The deciding factor is market breadth, which has improved greatly over the past month and argues for us to remain bullish into year end before the fundamentals take us to lower lows next year. Feedback on our call for the S&P 500 to reach a price trough of 3,000-3,300 in Q1 '23…we've gotten a fair amount of pushback on that our forecast on this front is too aggressive both from a magnitude and timing standpoint. While directionally bearish, many investors struggle to see even a retest of 3,500. In our view, what was priced at the October lows was peak Fed hawkishness, not material earnings downside. If we were forecasting a modest 5% forward EPS decline and a reacceleration off of those levels, we'd concede that the earnings risk is probably priced, but we're modeling a much more significant 15-20% forward earnings downdraft, which should demand a more recessionary type 13.5-15x multiple on materially lower EPS.



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Autumn Statement: What the UK's New Budget Means for Your Money

This article from John Stepek may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

On the income side, if you earn more than £100,000, you really should be looking at how to put as much of your salary as you can above that amount into a pension via salary sacrifice. Why’s that? Because contrary to what you might think, you’re not paying a 40% marginal tax rate. As the team at tax advisors Blick Rothenberg point out, your marginal tax rate is in fact closer to 60%, because £100,000 is the point at which your personal allowance starts to get whittled away. (This is also why the 45% rate was cut to £125,140 rather than £125,000 — so that it aligns with the point at which your personal allowance is all gone.)

As a result, any money you can shield from this rate is doing a great deal more work than any other pound you save. That said, given that your mortgage is probably going up, and your heating bill is through the roof, it’s quite possible that you are already doing as much as you can on that front without causing a major liquidity crisis in your household.

On the investment side, falling squarely into the “be thankful for small mercies” category, at least the chancellor didn’t mess around with the annual allowances for tax-efficient “wrappers” — you can still put up to £20,000 a year into an individual savings account, and up to £40,000 a year into a pension (assuming you earn that much each year). The latter of course is still subject to the (frozen) lifetime allowance, so do be careful if you’re in danger of breaching that £1.073 million lifetime cap.  

So if you have grown a bit sloppy with your admin, and you are holding any shares outside a tax wrapper (i.e. an Individual Savings Account or a pension), then now is the time to get a handle on that and move them. At least then you’ll be shielded from dividend or capital gains taxes. If you have already exhausted these allowances, you might want to start looking at venture capital trusts or enterprise investment schemes, though those are a topic for another day. 



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Vietnam strengthens local stock market following strong fluctuations

This article from Xinhua may be of interest to subscribers. Here it is in full:

Vietnam's State Securities Commission (SSC) has carried out measures to strengthen the local stock market following strong fluctuations triggered by investors' cautious sentiment and global stock market, local media reported on Wednesday.

The recent market corrections were caused by investors' cautious sentiment while facing uncertainties and less positive prospects in the world economy and politics, local newspaper Vietnam News reported.

As part of an effort to ensure a stable, sustainable and transparent development of the Vietnamese stock market, the SSC has strengthened inspection and supervision to address violations on the stock market, the newspaper said.

It has also proposed amending regulations regarding private offering and trading of corporate bonds in the domestic and international markets to improve the management mechanism for the private placement of corporate bonds.

In the short term, domestic investor sentiment is still strongly influenced by information, wrong handling of enterprises, and fluctuation in the corporate bonds market.

However, given Vietnam's long-term macroeconomic growth and the profit gains of listed companies, long-term investment opportunities will appear quite clearly, investment strategist Thai Huu Cong told local newspaper Saigon Investment.



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Investor-Darling Brazil Faces Key Test as Lula Optimism Dims

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Lula said that he won’t give any details on his cabinet before returning from an international trip to attend COP27 in Egypt.

“The stakes are high in terms of fiscal uncertainty, in terms of cabinet composition, in terms of key appointments in the economic team,” said Joel Virgen Rojano, director for Latin America strategy at TD Securities. “All of that for now has a really big question mark and the markets are becoming impatient.” 

Emerging-market investors from Neuberger Berman LLC to Franklin Templeton had bet on the South American nation ahead of the election as they saw little distinction between Lula and President Jair Bolsonaro’s fiscal agenda. Neuberger wasn’t immediately available to comment on its current recommendations in Brazil.

“Markets tend to hate uncertainty,” Dina Ting, head of global index portfolio management for Franklin Templeton exchange-traded funds, wrote in an emailed response to questions. “From a long-term perspective, the fundamentals and macro factors have not changed. Brazil is still trading at a discount to historical averages and helped by both elevated commodity prices and favorable demographics, including its young workforce.”



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Euphoria Sweeps China Stocks as Signs of Covid Zero Pivot Emerge

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Traders who have for long been seeking clear signals of a pivot away from the staunch Covid Zero policy cheered the slew of changes announced on Friday, which included a cut in the amount of time travelers and close contacts must spend in quarantine, and a pullback on testing. The decisions by the National Health Commission followed a meeting by the nation’s top leaders on Thursday, where a more targeted approach was encouraged to tackle outbreaks.

“This is a huge positive for the market,” said Wang Yugang, a fund manager at Beijing Axe Asset Management Co. “Of course how much efficacy these measures have for the economy we will need to observe.”

In a display of broad market optimism, every stock on the 50-member Hang Sang China gauge was up on Friday. On the mainland, the CSI 300 Index ended 2.8% higher.



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Yen Weakens as BOJ Sticks With Ultra-Low Rates Policy Path

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

In September, a sharp slide in the yen following the policy statement and dovish comments by Kuroda prompted Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki to order Japan’s first entry into markets to prop up the currency in 24 years. While the governor moved the market again during Friday’s briefing, his tone was more cautious and his remarks weren’t preceded by falls in the currency like the previous month. 

Kuroda continues to hold firm as the last anchor of low global rates just a day after the European Central Bank went ahead with another jumbo rate hike. But the governor is walking on a tightrope as his stance risks putting further downward pressure on the yen despite billions of dollars spent by the government to support the currency.  

“The likelihood of the BOJ pivoting toward tightening is still small as Japan’s inflation is not broad based at all and is only rising about a third of the pace seen in Europe and US,” said Kyohei Morita, chief Japan economist at Nomura Securities.



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How We Think About Recession Risk

Thanks to a subscriber for this report from Goldman Sachs which may be of interest. Here is a section:

The US economy does not appear to be on the brink of recession at the moment. In thinking about the odds of a recession next year, we break the risks into three categories: (1) the risk that a recession will prove necessary to bring inflation down, (2) the risk that the Fed will cause a recession that is not necessary, and (3) the risk that something else will cause a recession.

The odds that a recession will prove necessary have fallen a little because the first two steps of the required adjustment—slowing GDP growth to a below-potential pace and rebalancing supply and demand in the labor market— have gone remarkably well so far. But it would be premature to say that this risk has fallen too much until we see consistent evidence that labor market rebalancing is slowing wage growth and breaking the wage-price feedback loop.

The odds that the Fed will cause a recession that is not necessary have likely risen somewhat. It is increasingly clear that shelter and health care inflation— and by extension commonly used measures of the underlying inflation trend such as trimmed-mean inflation—are likely to remain uncomfortably high throughout 2023 and would even if the labor market rebalanced tomorrow. While it is not our base case, we see some risk that too great a focus on lagging indicators, too little patience, or tightening too quickly to gauge the impact on the economy could result in a recession that is not necessary.



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Mexico's Economy Surprises With Fastest Expansion in Over a Year

This article for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The result was “solid” and leaves Mexico’s economic growth at a pace of 2.2% for the year, according to Alberto Ramos, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s chief Latin America economist. 

“The economy still has room to grow, and we expect it to expand in coming quarters supported by firm terms of trade and further normalization of activity among a number of still lagging sectors, particularly services,” he wrote in a research note Friday. 



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