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Heard on the Street: Tesla Rival Finds Its Lane

This article from the Wall Street Journal may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

BYD is scouting lithium mines to protect itself from surging prices of the essential battery metal. Despite rapid sales growth, BYD's margins were hammered last year due to high raw material prices. Net margins fell to 1.4% in 2021 from 2.6% a year earlier, according to FactSet. That compares with Tesla's 10.3%.

There is some hope of that reversing however, as commodity prices retreat again and new, pricier models hit showroom floors: The models in BYD's launch pipeline are twice as expensive as prior ones, according to Goldman Sachs. The bank expects BYD's net margin to expand to 2.2% this year and 2.5% in 2023.

BYD has paid down debt rapidly in recent years and as of December had more cash and short-term investments on hand than debt according to FactSet -- a reverse of the situation as recently as June last year.

In the downside scenario of a nasty Chinese recession, that could prove to be an important cushion.

One obvious challenge at home will be getting buyers to pony up for pricier cars with China's economy, potentially at least, deep in the doldrums. But for now at least, the company seems confident. BYD, which reports on Aug. 29, said in July that first-half net income could climb as much as 207% to 3.6 billion yuan, equivalent to about $528 million.

Sustaining such heady numbers will be a challenge but with strong, cost-effective technology, an integrated supply chain and Beijing's determination to dominate the sector, it would be a mistake to count BYD out.

 



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Rechargeable aluminum: The cheap solution to seasonal energy storage?

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

Researchers from Switzerland's SPF Institute for Solar Technology have been studying aluminum redox cycles for many years now, and with funding from the EU's Horizon Europe program and the Swiss government, they've just kicked off a research project called Reveal, drawing in nine different partners from seven European countries, to develop what looks like a very promising idea.

As a 2020 report from the SPF team states, a single, one cubic meter (35.3 cu ft) block of aluminum can chemically store a remarkable amount of energy – some 23.5 megawatt-hours, more than 50 times what a good lithium-ion setup can do, or roughly enough to power the average US home for 2.2 years, on 2020 figures. That's by volume – going by weight, aluminum holds a specific energy of 8.7 kWh per kilogram, or about 33 times more than the batteries Tesla uses in its Model 3.

Big fat blocks like that aren't exactly practical to work with, though, so the Reveal team proposes using 1-mm (0.04 in)-diameter balls of aluminum instead. Naturally, you lose some volumetric density here, but you're still coming out over 15 MWh per cubic meter.



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Hawkish Jackson Hole Surprise Will Pop Credit's Summer Bubble

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

Any sign from this week’s Jackson Hole symposium of more aggressive rate hikes to come will whack credit markets, which have already started to give back summer gains. Misplaced optimism about the US inflation and economic outlook squeezed spreads to unsustainably tight levels, leaving debt vulnerable to a fall that will be exacerbated by dwindling liquidity.

US high-grade bonds got overbought as fund inflows chased better returns, despite a barrage of issuance which will likely resume in September. The high-duration debt stands to lose most from a more hawkish Fed.

Spreads have almost 25 bps to go before hitting the July wide at 160 bps, but investors are keeping powder dry for a move back to May 2020 levels above 180 bps. That would be a fairly extreme move for a market that tends to move in 1-2 bps daily increments, but pre-Labor Day lack of liquidity provides scope to gap out.

Junk’s summer gains were led by the riskiest bonds, which would be battered most by a higher rates/lower growth environment. Some are waiting for a pummeling to 800 bps -- from 432 bps currently -- before buying in.



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There Were Hawkish Bits in the Minutes, Too

This note from Cameron Crise at Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers.

While the market has reacted as if the minutes were dovish, I am not sure if that’s the right interpretation. To be sure, they did repeat the line that a slower pace of tightening would likely be appropriate in the future, and of course there was the line about the risk of over-tightening.

But here’s the thing-- the minutes acknowledge that growth momentum is fairly weak and the economy will expand below trend in the second half. They even note that the headline labor market data may not represent the true state of the economy. But for now, the Fed doesn’t care. Below-trend growth is a feature, not a bug, of the current policy setting, because it is required to get demand more in line with supply to curb inflation. And while the uncertainty of the data does indeed make over-tightening a risk, the possibility of high inflation becoming entrenched was a “significant risk” if the public didn’t accept the Fed’s resolve to tighten appropriately.

In other words, fading the Fed’s commitment to tighten makes it more likely that they will fulfill it. Oh, and there is a nice bit about the need to regulate crypto as well, so perhaps the Wild West mentality of that market might find that its days are numbered.



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Largest Bitcoin Miners Lost Over $1 Billion During Crypto Crash

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

While the shares of crypto-mining companies have enjoyed a respite in recent weeks, they are still deep in the red this year. The miners had to shift from their Bitcoin-hoarding positions and sell coins as they struggled to repay debt and cover operational costs in the recent quarter. That continued into the third quarter.

“Public miners are still dumping their Bitcoin holdings at a higher rate than their production rate,” Jarand Mellerud, an analyst at Arcane Crypto, wrote in a research note. “Public miners sold 6,200 coins in July, making July the second highest BTC selling month in 2022.”



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Carbon Capture Could Get $100 Billion in Credit from US Climate Bill

This report from Bloomberg New Energy may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The new legislation raises the credits for captured CO2 that is used and stored to $60/tCO2 and $85/tCO2 respectively. However, project owners must meet prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements in order to qualify. If they do not, they will be paid a lower credit than the existing 45Q payment. Projects must be under construction by the end of 2032 to receive the credit

A new, much higher credit is available to direct air capture (DAC) projects. DAC currently costs around $600/tCO2. The credit pays $130/tCO2 for gas that is used, say, for enhanced oil recovery or to make synthetic fuels, and $180/tCO2 for CO2 that is stored permanently.

 



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Illumina Falls Most Since May on Outlook for Demand, Grail Costs

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

Illumina has been embroiled in a costly prolonged battle over its acquisition of Grail. In an unusual move, Illumina finalized the Grail purchase in August 2021 despite complaints from regulators in both the US and Europe. Illumina and Grail were warned last month that they risk “hefty fines.” In its earnings report, Illumina said it recognized $609 million in legal contingencies, including an accrual of $453 million during the second quarter for a potential fine.

“The $8 billion Grail purchase has shifted the story, with multiple antitrust challenges that will play out in 2022,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jonathan Palmer wrote. “These have raised the stakes and shaken confidence.”

On a call with investors, Chief Executive Officer Francis deSouza gave no indication of backing down from the purchase. Meanwhile, the company expects reduced revenue growth from its core business in the second half of the year. 

Piper Sandler analyst David Westenberg said the most concerning factor behind Illumina’s guidance cut was deferred lab investments by some users of the company’s DNA sequencing machines, and customers holding less inventory.

“Some customers experienced supply chain pressures that delayed their lab expansions,” deSouza said on the call. Those who planned to launch new labs or expand existing ones were stymied by supply chain issues, while others are managing capital “more conservatively,” he said. 



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Cooler Inflation Takes Fed's Rate-Hike Size "Down to the Wire"

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

“This is a necessary print for the Fed, but it’s not sufficient,” Pond said. “We need to see a lot more. You can think about this print as sort of like the weather -- it’s better today than it has been over the past few days. But it’s still summer. There’s still a lot of humidity out there. It’s not great. So it’s in the right direction. But we’re certainly not there yet.” 

For Diane Swonk, the chief economist at KPMG LLP, the Fed is now hedging against risk of future supply shocks as well as combating current inflation and will likely favor a 75 basis-point increase.

“The Fed is no longer willing to rest on their laurels on a one-month move,” she said. “The greater risk for the Fed is to stop too soon than stop too late. It will take a lot more cooling than this for the Fed to shift its decision rule, although in this economy, September seems an eternity away.”



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Micron's Warning Adds to Evidence of Collapsing Chip Demand

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

The Boise, Idaho-based company is the latest to reveal just how quickly demand for electronic components is declining, following a warning by Nvidia Corp. on Monday and weak reports by Intel Corp. and other chipmakers this earnings season. The majority of the pain is being felt by companies that make chips for personal computers. Consumer demand for those devices is drying up rapidly as pandemic lockdowns end and household budgets are hammered by inflation.

Highlighting the speed with which demand is evaporating, Micron said orders deteriorated since the company last gave an update just over a month ago. Crucially, it’s not just PC makers that are cutting back.

“Compared to our last earnings call, we see further weakening in demand because of adjustments broadening outside of just consumers to other parts of the market including data centers, industrial and automotive,” Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Mehrotra said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

The prospects for the chip industry are dimming on a day that was supposed to herald a renaissance in semiconductor manufacturing in the US with President Joe Biden signing the Chips and Science Act. That $52 billion stimulus package is designed to make it cheaper for companies to build domestic factories and help counteract the loss of the crucial skill set to Asia. Shortages during the pandemic inspired US and European politicians to prioritize the creation of additional plants locally to create a more robust supply chain.



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Assessing the Macroeconomic Consequences of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022

Thanks to a subscriber for this report from Moody’s. Here is a section:

Lawmakers appear close to passing into law the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The legislation is born out of the Build Back Better agenda that President Biden proposed more than a year ago. It raises nearly $750 billion over the next decade through higher taxes on large corporations and wealthy individuals and lower Medicare prescription drug costs, to pay for nearly $450 billion in tax breaks and additional government spending to address climate change and pay for lower health insurance premiums for Americans benefiting from the Affordable Care Act (see Table 1). The remaining more than $300 billion goes to reducing the federal government’s future budget deficits (see Chart 1). Broadly, the legislation will nudge the economy and inflation in the right direction, while meaningfully addressing climate change and reducing the government’s budget deficits.



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