• Home/
• Global Middle Class

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

China says direct trade talks with U.S. in January, pledges more opening

This article by Yawen Chen and Ryan Woo for Reuters may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

China has also said it will suspend additional tariffs on U.S.-made vehicles and auto parts for three months starting on Jan. 1, adding that it hopes both sides can speed up negotiations to remove all additional tariffs on each other’s goods.

Bloomberg, citing two people familiar with the matter, reported on Wednesday that a U.S. trade team will travel to Beijing the week of Jan. 7 for talks.

A person familiar with the matter told Reuters last week that talks were likely in early January.

In yet another reconciliatory sign, China issued on Tuesday a so-called negative list that specifies industries where investors - domestic or foreign - are either restricted or prohibited.

The unified list is seen as another effort to address concern among Western investors that there is no level-playing field in China. Investment in key Chinese sectors, however, is still prohibited.

Gao said China would “comprehensively” remove all market access restrictions for foreign investors by the end of March, in areas not included in a foreign investment “negative” list published in June.



Read entire article

Indian Stock Market Leapfrogs Germany's as Economy Booms

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

India’s ascent on the global stage has claimed another victory after its stock market overtook Germany to become the seventh largest in the world.

The Asian giant edged past the equity market of Europe’s largest economy for the first time in seven years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That means, after the U.K. leaves the European Union in March, the bloc would have only one country -- France -- among the seven biggest markets.

The move reflects India’s positive returns this year as companies’ reliance on domestic demand enabled them to avoid the meltdown in other emerging markets spurred by Federal Reserve tightening and a trade war between the U.S. and China. It also highlights the challenges facing the EU, including its future relationship with the U.K., a standoff with Italy over budget allocations and separatist clashes in Spain.
 



Read entire article

Here is the text of a bulletin from Bloomberg on today's Fed Meeting.

Here are the Key Takeaways from today's FOMC events:

The FOMC hiked rates a fourth time this year to a decade high, ignoring President Trump’s criticism, and lowered its outlook to two hikes from three next year.

Powell specifically endorsed the dots, citing them in his press conference as a guideline for the committee and a useful tool.

The committee tweaked its guidance to ``some further gradual increases’’ -- a more hawkish development compared with the alternative of dropping the guidance.

Powell said all meetings are live for possible moves next year, but gave no strong hints as to when the Fed would raise next.

There was unanimous support for the hike.

Powell said that Trump's comments had no impact on policy and that the Fed is committed to doing what it thinks is best.

Powell said financial conditions caused a slight downgrade in 2019 forecasts but no real change in the outlook.

Markets took FOMC and Powell as hawkish, with the yield curve flattening and stocks falling.



Read entire article

Low Coffee-Bean Prices Brew Trouble for Farmers

This article by Julie Wernau and Robbie Whelan for the Wall Street journal may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

“When the price is good, we have work, but when it isn’t, we have no money to pay the rent, no money for food, no money for the doctor,” said Ms. Poló, 56, standing on the side of the road in Baja California state, where the bus she was riding had broken down about three hours from the border.

Coffee prices have been stuck below the cost of production for the longest stretch since the global financial crisis, leading some producers to abandon crops and some to migrate for new jobs. The shift is being driven by currency fluctuations that are encouraging sales and production in Brazil, the world’s largest coffee producer, spurring a record crop that is driving down prices for other coffee-growing nations.

“We’re now back in real terms to where we were 20 years ago, when farmers abandoned land because they couldn’t make ends meet,” said Paul Rice, president and chief executive of Fair Trade USA, which works with 1 million coffee producers in 42 countries.

A 2017 study by Cornell University for Fair Trade USA placed the average cost of coffee production at $1.40 a pound. Coffee prices have been below that price for 20 straight months, the longest stretch since 2008, according to FactSet data.



Read entire article

The equity chief at $6.3 trillion BlackRock weighs in on the trade war, a possible recession, and offers her best investing advice for a tricky 2019 landscape

This article by Joe Ciolli and Jack Houston for Business Insider may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Moore: We think we're in the later stage of the cycle. So, let's be clear, our barbell approach doesn't mean just hold an anchor in high quality, which we think you should, and then just swing for the fences and lower quality assets that seem to be de-rated.

That would be great if we didn't have any worries about policy — both the monetary side as well as the trade policy to consider. But what we think people should be focused on are companies that have excellent balance sheets, that have business models, that are sustainable through all parts of the cycle.

That's where we're not expecting to see huge amounts of earnings volatility, even if we continue to have a sequential economic growth slowdown. Although again, still above-trend, so still pretty good.

But also think about what areas of the market, whether it's industries or assets, have really fallen out of favor, like emerging markets this year. Places where the fundamentals haven't deteriorated, and be willing to take a bet on some higher-volatility, slightly riskier assets as well. So, this barbelled approach, don't take risk entirely off. But if you need to sleep at night a little bit better, make sure that there's big quality nut to rest on.

Ciolli: We keep talking about the possibility of an economic recession, but it does not seem like it's in your base case for 2019. However, you do mention that the table may be set for something in 2020. Can you outline your recession view and what, if anything, people can do next year to prepare for that if it does transpire in 2020?

Moore: I think actually it's consensus at this point that 2019 is not the year that we have the US-led recession.

I also just want to note something here. A lot of times when we talk about recession in our outlook, and then also talk about recession in the market, it does tend to be a little US-focused. And that we need to recognize that different regions and countries and markets are at different points in their cycle. I think about this a lot as an equity person. The profit cycle is really different, region from region. And we had seen some profits recessions in non-US markets, even while the US continued to make new highs.

So, that aside, in 2020 and onwards, we think that recession probability increases for the US. Part of that is because we are just at the later stage of the cycle. We also know that it takes some time for tighter monetary policy to really play out in the economy and have an impact. It's possible that we'll see a slowdown in activity at that point, or greater inflationary pressure, frankly, from higher wages feeding through. It's not our base case at this moment, but it's a non-zero probability.

We recognize that investors need to be positioned for that eventual slowdown, well in advance. As you know, equity markets tend to price in these changes in economic growth far before we would actually get the data. We just want to have quality portfolio construction and make that a significant thing that we're focused on in 2019. So that we don't get to 2020, when the economic data starts to soften a little bit, and find ourselves flat-footed.



Read entire article

Europe's Retail Apocalypse Spreads to Online From Stores

This article by William Mathis and Katie Linsell for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Europe’s retail crisis is spreading from bricks-and-mortar stores to e-commerce as Asos Plc plunged the
most in 4 1/2 years after warning that Christmas shopping got off to a disastrous start.

The gloomy update from a U.K. online retailer that competes with Amazon.com Inc. and has furnished fashions to the likes of Meghan Markle shows that retail weakness is widespread in the runup to the holidays.

Asos fell as much as 43 percent Monday in London, wiping more than 1.4 billion pounds ($1.8 billion) off the market value. The news dragged down other online retailers like Boohoo Group Plc and Zalando SE, as well as store operators like Marks & Spencer Group Plc and Next Plc.

“This goes against the script,” said Stephen Lienert, a credit analyst at Jefferies. “It was supposed to be bricks and mortar that’s dying and online is the future, but that headline gets ripped up today.”



Read entire article

Will UK economy be turbocharged by sterling fall?

Thanks to a subscriber for this article by Chris Giles for the FT may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The impact of sterling’s depreciation has been underwhelming for a few reasons. For one thing, firms are locked into global supply chains and rely heavily on foreign inputs. Half the components in a “British-made” car come from abroad. If exports rise, so do imports.

The economy is also highly geared towards high-value-added stuff like pharmaceuticals. Buyers of these goods and services are insensitive to price changes. Not all industries fit this mould, notably tourism. Dollars buy more rides on the London Eye than before. In June visits by foreigners (including businesspeople) were up by 7% year on year. Yet visitors seem to be economising: their overall spending in real terms is no higher than before.

Optimists maintain that the benefits of a depreciation take a long time to filter through. Firms need to get finance together and seek out new markets to exploit their new competitive advantage.

The case of Dr Fox’s ice-cream industry, however, suggests that exporters are in no rush. Though export revenues have risen, this largely reflects the fact that with a weaker pound a given quantity of foreign-currency sales leads to higher sterling revenues. In the first half of 2017 firms exported about the same quantity of ice cream (600m scoops, by our reckoning) as in the same period the year before. Firms seem to be using sterling’s weakness simply to bank bigger profits, rather than to move into new markets.

It is a similar story across the private sector. Profitability is near record highs yet investment is stalling. Last year non-financial firms stuck an extra £74bn ($96bn) in their bank accounts, by far the largest figure on record. Firms’ tentative behaviour should be a wake-up call for ministers, who expect them to lead the charge of a reorientation of British trade away from the EU after Brexit.



Read entire article

The IPO Race for Uber and Lyft Isn't Against Each Other

This article by Shira Ovide for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section

After a relative tech IPO dry spell of 2015 and 2016, there’s less of a stock feeding frenzy around each new tech listing now. Snapchat’s valuation has moved from outlandish at its IPO to tame.(1) Most other tech companies that went public in the last couple of years also trade relatively in line with their older peers. That shows investors have grown more discriminating about when to pay a rich price for fast-growing companies. I think that temperance will carry over to IPOs for Lyft and Uber. 

Ultimately, though, Uber and Lyft have more to worry about than IPO order. Uber in particular has yet to prove its basic business model makes sense after 10 years of history. Economic and market conditions are deteriorating. In the U.S., people are openly talking about the “R-Word” — recession. Those are all good reasons to hurry and go public. But Uber and Lyft shouldn’t overthink the advantages of hitting the stock market first.  



Read entire article

France Tops OECD Table as Most Taxed Country

This article by Paul Hannon for the Wall Street Journal may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Economists say such consumption taxes that reduce pollution and other harmful effects are an efficient way for the government to raise revenue. But the planned move sparked the worst riots to hit Paris in decades on Saturday, leaving the city’s shopping and tourist center dotted with burning cars and damaged storefronts. Protesters vandalized the Arc de Triomphe, rattling Mr. Macron’s administration and the country.

The rise in French tax revenues was in line with a longstanding trend across wealthy countries. The average tax take across the organization’s members edged up to 34.2% of GDP in 2017 from 34% in 2016 and 33.8% in 2000 as governments continued efforts to narrow their budget gaps and limit the rise in their debts that followed the global financial crisis.

Of the 34 countries for which 2017 figures are available, 19 saw a rise in tax revenues relative to the size of their economy, with Israel reporting the largest increase. Mexico continued to record the lowest tax take at 16.2% of GDP, down from 16.6% in 2016.



Read entire article

Email of the day on my central bank total assets chart:

You have mentioned that the graph showing central bank assets is one of the most important. Consequently, I wondered how the fact that they are reducing this tied in with your moderately optimistic views on the stock market. Do you think the US Fed Reserve will continue to reduce its balance sheet given recent market turmoil?



Read entire article