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

    Volvo Cars Rips Up Production Plans, Citing U.S.-China Trade War

    This article by Keith Naughton and Gabrielle Coppola for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers.

    Volvo Cars is shaking up production plans for much of its lineup in an effort to dodge tariffs the U.S. and China have slapped on auto imports.

    The Swedish automaker owned by China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co.has canceled plans to export S60 sedans from its first U.S. plant to China, just months after starting production. Volvo also will stop importing XC60 sport utility vehicles and dramatically reduce shipments of S90 sedans from China to the U.S.

    Volvo will pivot to mostly exporting S60s from its factory near Charleston, South Carolina, to focus mostly on supplying the American market, according to Anders Gustafsson, the president of the carmaker’s U.S. unit.

    “We’ll go at this change not with a smile, but we know what we need to do,” Gustafsson said. “We have a global manufacturing structure that helps us maneuver in these tough waters.”

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    Hermes shakes off China worries with sales rise

    This article by Harriet Agnew for the Financial Times may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    On a call with reporters, Hermès executive chairman Axel Dumas dismissed fears about a slowdown in China, which analysts and investors are concerned may come from a trade war with the US. “We are still strong all across the board in China,” said Mr Dumas. “We don’t see any change of pace at this stage.” Comparing the slightly slower third-quarter performance of Asia-Pacific to the overall figures for the region in the first nine months of the year, he said that “the differences for me are not material.”

    Earlier this month luxury rival LVMH said that Chinese border authorities are stepping up searches on travellers, looking for luxury items brought back from cities like London and Paris. Mr Dumas said he believes that fluctuations in the euro have a greater impact on Chinese tourists shopping in Europe than fears about tighter border controls.

    This month Hermès followed in the footsteps of Louis Vuitton and Gucci by launching its own ecommerce website in China, as the group seeks to increase its exposure to the world’s largest and fastest-growing market for luxury sales.

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    Which individuals may be impacted by the ALP franking credit proposal?

    This article by Dr.Don Hamson for Livewire may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    Mrs H was a fully self-funded retiree, owning a modest home in the outer northern suburbs of a capital city, living off the income from a portfolio of direct shares and some bank deposits. Her assets, other than the home, totalled $650,000, with $50,000 in non-income bearing assets. Of her investments, $500,000 are invested in fully franked dividend paying Australian companies and $100,000 invested in term deposits and cash. Mrs H is ineligible for a part aged pension, since her assets exceed the maximum assets test level (currently $564,000 for a single homeowner).

    Mrs H currently has a taxable income of $30,571. The $100,000 in deposits only earns $2,000 in interest, while the share portfolio yielded an average 4% cash dividend providing $20,000. Importantly the dividends were all fully franked, receiving $8,571 in franking credits (these are included in taxable income). With no tax payable due to the Seniors tax offset, Mrs H received a full refund of her franking credits, considerably boosting her cash income from $22,000 to $30,571.

    Since Mrs H is not eligible for any pension entitlements, she would no longer receive those franking credits under the ALP proposal. The loss of $8,751 would reduce Mrs H’s income by 28%, reducing her weekly income by $165, from $588 per week to just $423 per week.

    This means her income would actually fall below the full aged pension for a single homeowner ($23,889 p.a. or $916.30 per fortnight /$458.15 per week).

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    Email of the day on balancing a portfolio

    Yesterday’s article in The Wall Street Journal raises an interesting issue that may be interesting for discussion (see attached and the link - https://www.wsj.com/articles/octobers-market-rout-leaves-investors-with-no-place-to-hide-1540978259 ).

    “Adding to the stock market’s anxieties has been a rare simultaneous drop in bond prices that has pushed yields near their highest levels in years. The dual breakdown in stock and bond prices has upended investors’ traditional safety tool kit of buying Treasurys during periods of volatility, leaving many with losses.”

    Traditional investment portfolios of 60% equities and 40% bonds lost more than 3% in October and are down 1.2% this year, on pace for a rare annual loss that was last seen in 2008, as well as during volatile periods in 1990, 2001 and 2002, said Luca Paolini, chief strategist at Pictet Asset Management, which manages $191 billion. Even investors who are heavier on fixed income would still be in the red, with allocations of 75% bonds and 25% equities falling more than 2% this month to drag their performance down 1.1% for the year… Declines in bond prices, meanwhile, have exacerbated investors’ pain. Annualized losses among U.S. Treasurys and investment-grade bonds are at 9.7% and 4%, respectively, the third-steepest declines since 1970, according to a recent Bank of America Merrill Lynch report.”

    Portfolio with 60% equities and 40% bonds allocation has been the most traditional advice for individual investors for decades. But I just thought, those were decades of the secular, almost 40-year bull trend in the bond market. If, as you and David often say, we are now witnessing the beginning of the secular bear market in bonds, then this 60-40 allocation represents troubles ahead. Bonds will probably stop being the same safe haven they were in the past. Yes, they will continue to provide some stability to a portfolio in a sense that they won’t fall 10% as equities but instead of rising in times of turmoil, they will also slump.

    If this is the case, how allocation can be changed and where investors will look for safe heavens?

    As always, it would be interesting to know your view.

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    The Opportunity in Criss-Border E-Commerce

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

    Cross-border e-commerce1 has developed into a large, quickly growing ecosystem – and has become a great success story for many e-tailers, meaning retailers and manufacturers selling their products over the Internet directly to end consumers.

    This success can be shown in real numbers: in 2015, the cross-border e-commerce market accounted for USD 300 billion GMV2, about 15% of e-commerce overall. This rapid growth, however, has just begun and will continue: the cross-border market is expected to grow by about 25% annually until 2020 – nearly twice the rate of domestic e-commerce and a growth rate that most traditional retail markets would dream of achieving. In 2020, it is expected to account for about USD 900 billion GMV, translating into a roughly 22% share of the global e-commerce market. This growth momentum yields unrivaled opportunity for retailers and manufacturers. As this report will show, crossborder e-commerce is not an e-commerce giant story – all types of manufacturers and retailers will be able to successfully go global.

    Even beyond 2020, all evidence shows that demand for products from abroad is not going to recede. That said, considering the patterns according to which e-commerce companies expand their regional footprint today, one could assume that every e-commerce purchase will eventually become a local purchase. This is mainly due to the higher cost efficiencies that localized fulfilment and the quicker shipments that shorter distances naturally promise at first glance. However, even e-commerce giants such as Amazon, Alibaba, and Zalando, which already operate local distribution centers in several countries, ship a significant part of their sales cross-border. This is driven by, for instance, the enormous number of stock-keeping units (SKUs) offered by some of these players. But having slow-turning SKUs sitting in inventory everywhere – a prerequisite for pure local fulfilment – is much more costly than shipping a certain share of orders cross-border. And in order to fulfill consumers’ wishes for faster delivery, many e-tailers offer premium international shipping options to their customers, e.g., for a surcharge. This is testimony that cross-border is not a passing phase or trend, but rather a significant staple in the e-commerce market that requires premium shipping.

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    Brazil Super Minister Shoulders Weight of Bolsonaro Economy

    This article by David Biller, Cristiane Lucchesi and Rachel Gamarski for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    More long nights lie ahead. Brazil’s nascent recovery from the worst recession in history hinges on his success, and the nation’s benchmark index has climbed 13 percent since mid-September -- close to its all-time high -- on optimism Bolsonaro would win, giving Guedes a chance to implement business-friendly policies. They include dozens of privatizations, a massive reform of the pension system and a revamp for the nation’s byzantine tax code.

    Bolsonaro, who’s admitted he has only a “superficial understanding” of economics, has said he’s placing full control over the nation’s finances in the hands of Guedes, who was trained at the University of Chicago and founded both a private equity firm and a think tank for liberal economic theories. Yet for all that success, he’s had zero experience in implementing public policy.

    “One thing’s for certain: Guedes is the guarantor of Bolsonaro’s alleged conversion to liberalism, and if for any reason he leaves the government, there will be an earthquake in markets,” said Ricardo Lacerda, chief executive officer of Sao Paulo-based boutique investment bank BR Partners.

    How big an earthquake? One top market analyst said Brazil’s benchmark stock index could tank as much as 40 percent, reaching levels not seen since the 2016 impeachment of Brazil’s former president, Dilma Rousseff. While that’s probably overstating things, it’s the kind of hyperbole that’s characterized Brazil’s election rhetoric ever since polls made it clear in recent months that Bolsonaro was heading to victory.

     

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    Kyle Bass Speaks with CNBC's David Faber

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

    BASS: You know, the Chinese are in the worst financial situation they’ve been in, in the last 17 years because they operated domestic economy where they control the printing press, they control the press narrative, they control the price level and they control their people as we’ve seen them detain over a million of them in Jingjang for their religious preference. So they can change a lot of things domestically, but their -- the arbiter of the Chinese plan is their cross rate or their exchange rate with the rest of the world. China Inc.’s working capital account is now going South because they’re running what we believe to be a structural and more permanent deficit on the current account. And so, i.e., their working capital, their dollar balance whether it’s dollars, euros, yen or pounds, it’s mostly dollars. And their dollar balances is headed south. And so, the U.S. is in a very particularly interesting negotiating position today. We are in the strongest negotiating position we’ve ever had against China. They’ve kind of leveled the playing field a little bit more with their, let’s say, subversion of WTO rules, their intellectual property theft and basically everything they’ve done to take advantage of the U.S. over the past 15, 17 years.

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    Argentina Economic Outlook 4Q18

    Thanks to a subscriber for this report from BBVA. Here is a section:

    The global environment remains positive, although growth is moderating due to the poorer performance of emerging economies. The impact of protectionism is so far limited

    In Argentina, a new round of capital flight and currency depreciation in August led to a further fiscal adjustment, the revision of the agreement with the IMF and the abandonment of the inflation target regime, which means an end to the economic program of President Macri’s first two years

    The new monetary-exchange rate scheme seeks to control FX volatility by absorbing all surplus liquidity in pesos and targets holding the nominal monetary base constant until June 2019 setting up broad bands within which the FX can float, with limited intervention by the Central Bank outside this band

    In 2019 the government will attain primary fiscal equilibrium with spending cuts and a new tax on exports, and the programme with the IMF ensures that the financial programme can be met with limited roll-over

    The currency crisis and the new monetary and fiscal tightening lead us to revise our forecast for GDP growth in 2018 and 2019 downwards and our estimates of inflation upwards. The sharp real depreciation of the peso and the recession will result in rapid correction of the current account deficit

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    U.K. Is Said to Drop Brexit Demand on Irish Border to Ease Deal

    This article by Tim Ross, Ian Wishart and Dara Doyle for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    The problem for pro-Brexit camp in May’s Cabinet is that what is agreed as a fix for the Irish border could morph into a long-term status quo for the whole U.K. Businesses have long called for the U.K. to remain in the customs union to ease trade with the bloc, an option EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier has repeatedly offered as a way out of the stalemate. In parliament, the main opposition Labour party is also pushing for a customs union.

    The thorny question of how to avoid a hard border between the U.K. and the Irish Republic has held up progress in Brexit talks since March. Time is running out for the EU and the U.K. negotiating teams to settle the terms of the divorce and sketch out the future trading arrangements before Britain leaves the bloc on March 29.

    A summit of EU leaders in Brussels this week had been billed as the moment when the exit agreement would be struck but instead broke up with major issues still unresolved. The key question remains how to come up with a backstop for the Irish border.

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