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The Next Phase of the V

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

#1: A global synchronous recovery: We expect a broad-based recovery, both geographically and sectorally, to take hold from March/April onwards. Driving this synchronous recovery will be a more expansive reopening of economies worldwide and the extraordinary monetary and fiscal support now in place. Global GDP, already at pre-COVID-19 levels (based on seasonally adjusted GDP levels), continues to accelerate and is on track to resume its pre-COVID-19 trajectory by 2Q21. We expect China to return to its pre-COVID-19 path this quarter, and the US to reach it by 4Q21.

#2: EMs boarding the reflation train: After a prolonged period in which EMs have faced a series of cyclical challenges, macro stability is now in check. With the COVID-19 situation improving in a broad range of EMs, their pace of recovery is catching up. EM growth rebounds sharply in 2021, helped by a widening US current account deficit, low US real rates, a weaker dollar, China’s reflationary impulse, and EMs ex China's own accommodative domestic macro policies.

#3: Inflation regime change in the US: We see a very different inflation dynamic taking hold, especially in the US. The COVID-19 shock has accelerated the pace of restructuring, creating a significant divergence between the output and unemployment paths. With policymakers maintaining highly reflationary policies to get back to preCOVID-19 rates of unemployment quickly, wage pressures and inflation will pick up from 2H21. We expect underlying core PCE inflation to rise to 2%Y in 2H21 and to overshoot from 1H22, with the risk that it happens sooner.



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A New UN Push Aims to Feed the World's Rabid Hunger for Carbon Credits

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

It’s a tricky proposition, though. Offset programs are notoriously difficult to execute with confidence. REDD+, launched in 2007 to much fanfare among developing nations and UN climate negotiators, but has rarely lived up to its original excitement as developed nations failed to install carbon-pricing policies that succeed in guaranteeing demand. 

Global demand for offsets may outstrip supply by 2025, according to a September analysis by Fitch Ratings. Many companies, including Microsoft Corp, The Walt Disney Co, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, have already begun either buying or planning to buy offsets. Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos this week announced $791 million in funding for 16 environmental groups, including $100 million each to organizations with strong forestry or offsets programs—EDF, World Resources Institute, and World Wildlife Fund.

Navigating the challenges to come may require groups like Emergent to continue to act as market-making entities. Or, if markets get the boost they need from the Green Gigaton Challenge and other initiatives, “we'd be thrilled to turn off the lights, close the door,” Bloomgarden said. “Impact achieved.”



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Rocketing Bitcoin Stakes Claim as Pandemic Refuge for Brave

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

“Bitcoin seems to be the hedge of choice against the U.S. dollar debasement that is looming, either through more Federal Reserve quantitative easing, higher government debt or a steepening yield curve -- or all three,” Jeffrey Halley, a senior market analyst with Oanda Asia Pacific Pte, wrote in an email.

Bitcoin’s investor base is also widening as more institutions make the jump into the asset class. Purchases or endorsements from the likes of Square Inc., Paul Tudor Jones and Stan Druckenmiller add to the mix. But its volatility -- including a furious run toward $20,000 in December 2017 followed by a bust -- make arguments for the cryptocurrency as a store of value contentious.

Fear of missing out “is well and truly in play here, and the fact that so many big hitters are publicly declaring their positions is clearly helping,” Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone Financial Pty, wrote in a Nov. 18 note. “I don’t see this move as a mania or grossly over-loved just yet.”



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Platinum Heads for Record Deficit This Year on Supply Disruption

This article by Eddie Spence for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscriber. Here is a section:

Platinum markets are poised for a record deficit this year as disruptions to key producers and an increase in investor appetite far outstripped the pandemic’s effect on industrial demand.

Pandemic-related mine closures and outages at Anglo American Plc’s converter plant in South Africa have cut supply, according to a report by the World Platinum Investment Council. The group projects a deficit of 1.2 million ounces for 2020, the largest since records began, and almost four times higher than it forecast two months ago.

Despite the record shortfall, platinum has declined about 3% this year, making it one of the worst-performing major metals. Demand from auto-catalysts, the biggest consumers of platinum, is forecast to drop 16%. By contrast, gold has surged 24%, while sister metal palladium has advanced more than 19%.



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Panasonic Is the Latest Company Betting on Electric Vehicles, Powering Past Its Tesla Partnership to Explore a Venture in Norway

This article by Jack Denton for Barrons may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Europe is one of the fastest-moving spaces in the race to dominate an expected boom in electric vehicles, with at least 12 countries planning a ban on internal combustion engine vehicles in coming years. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Wednesday a ban on the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars, to come into effect by 2030.

Tesla is building a gigafactory in Germany and is reportedly planning one in the U.K., while one of its key rivals, Northvolt, is building a gigafactory in Sweden. Established European car makers like Daimler, Volkswagen, and BMW are racing to build electric vehicles on their own or through partnerships, and Panasonic has previously supplied batteries to Volkswagen and Peugeot.



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Nobel UN food agency warns 2021 will be worse than 2020

This article by Edith Lederer for AP News may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

In April, Beasley said 135 million people faced “crisis levels of hunger or worse.” A WFP analysis then showed that COVID=19 could push an additional 130 million people “to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020.”

He said in Wednesday’s virtual interview from Rome, where WFP is based, that while famine was averted this year, the number of people facing crisis levels of hunger is increasing toward 270 million.

“There’s about three dozen countries that could possibly enter the famine conditions if we don’t have the money we need,” Beasley said.

According to a joint analysis by WFP and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in October, 20 countries “are likely to face potential spikes in high acute food insecurity” in the next three to six months, “and require urgent attention.”

Of those, Yemen, South Sudan, northeastern Nigeria and Burkina Faso have some areas that “have reached a critical hunger situation following years of conflict or other shocks,” the U.N. agencies said, and any further deterioration in coming months “could lead to a risk of famine.”

Other countries requiring “urgent attention” are Afghanistan, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Lebanon, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somali, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, they said.



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Sugar, Coffee Jump as Hurricane Threatens Central America Crops

This article by Marvin G. Perez and Patrick McKiernan for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Iota will hit near the Honduras-Nicaragua border on Monday in the aftermath of Hurricane Eta, which killed more than 100 people. Iota’s winds reached 160 miles (257 kilometers) per hour as a Category 5 storm, the strongest on the five-step Saffir Simpson scale. A hurricane that powerful can crush homes, snap trees and make areas uninhabitable for months.

Honduras is Central America’s biggest arabica producer. Guatemala is second and a key shipper of raw and refined sugar. Iota may bring 24 inches (61 cm) to 36 inches of rain as the storm crosses the two countries and Nicaragua, Donald Keeney, senior meteorologist for Maxar in Gaithersburg, Maryland, said in a telephone interview.

The region was hammered by Tropical Depression Eta earlier this month as torrential rain damaged roads, compounding hurdles for growers facing labor shortages during the coronavirus pandemic.



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Quant Shock That 'Never Could Happen' Hits Wall Street Models

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

 

As money managers rushed to price in stronger economic growth, factor investors who dissect stocks by how much they’ve risen or fallen saw this strategy, known as momentum, crash on Monday like never before. Equities more sensitive to the economic cycle like value and small-cap names skyrocketed.

So while the S&P 500 is just shy of its record high, it’s been a wild week for quants even by the standards of this wild year, with many enduring violent moves rather than capitalizing on the risk-on mood.

All this recalls long-standing worries that freakish cross-asset gyrations are getting more common thanks to cheap money and investor crowding.

Quigley’s estimate for the odds of this week’s shock is in part tongue-in-cheek, based on a rule of thumb for a normal distribution of statistical data. Asset moves are not known to reliably obey this convention that says 98% of all data points occur within three standard deviations of the mean.

But even with the knowledge that market prices are more prone to outlier moves, a rotation of the magnitude seen this week was still a shock to risk models.



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Can Marijuana Help Biden Heal a Divided Nation?

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

What’s more notable is that unlike in the past, all of this happened without much of a public uproar. To be fair, there have been bigger concerns on Americans’ minds these days. But this is the moment that cannabis companies and their investors have been waiting for: to be considered a legitimate industry rather than a hot voting issue. From here, the goal is to make weed every bit as normal as junk food, wine and other vices long found in stores across America.

In order for the industry to flourish it needs the federal government’s help, and the prospects of that are suddenly looking better. Two-thirds of U.S. adults are in favor of marijuana legalization — 91% if you include those who support it at a minimum for medicinal purposes, according to Pew Research Center. That’s more than the number of Americans who support abortion rights or who think human activity contributes to climate change.



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Sustained high palladium price favours substitution

This report from Heraeus may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Substitution of palladium with platinum in three-way autocatalysts will help to offset platinum’s decline in time, but near-term upside is limited. A modest level of substitution is expected in gasoline autocatalysts from 2021, initially in the US where vehicles are generally larger with lower temperature engines. In China and Europe, car manufacturers have prioritised meeting increasingly tight emissions legislation, so will be behind on changing catalyst formulations compared to the US.

However, a sustained palladium price above that of platinum could be tipping the balance in favour of increased substitution, which is necessary to bring both the platinum and palladium markets closer to balance. Palladium has traded at an average of $2,187/oz this year, despite being in the midst of a pandemic and a global recession, with significant contractions to demand. The palladium market deficit is forecast to shrink to around 340 koz this year (as demand was impacted more than supply by Covid-19), and again in 2021 due to work-in-progress stock but is expected to expand significantly thereafter as light-vehicle production recovers.



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