Watch Series

The “Watch Series” is a collection of individual series such as Europolitics Watch, Inflation Watch, Real Estate watch and much more. Stay tuned for in-depth coverage of your favourite subjects.

Türkiye Election Watch: Erdogan’s Swan Song?

Türkiye Election Watch: Erdogan’s Swan Song?

Geopolitically, no election can contest the significance of the dual Turkish Presidential and Parliament elections this year. President Erdogan has never lost an election (national, local or referendum) in his 21 year reign, but right now polls predict a toss-up between him and the opposition coalition. We are following the campaign trail with an eagle’s-eye, and are giving you the key insights in our new Turkey Election Watch Series. Come along for the ride. 

Rewind the Clock – Back to the 80’s ?

Rewind the Clock – Back to the 80’s ?

Economic stability coupled with low rates and lack of effective regulation have led minor banks to take considerable risks chasing profits. Now the chickens are coming home to roost- and we have seen it before.

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5 Things We Watch: The BTFP, US and EU Deposit Flights, Credit Tightening, and The FFR

5 Things We Watch: The BTFP, US and EU Deposit Flights, Credit Tightening, and The FFR

The recent turbulence in the banking system has been for the history books. It may have cost the lives of some banks on both sides of the pond, but has the situation finally dialed down? We turn to our timeliest gauges on the deposit flight crisis and weigh up how to position for it.

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Demographics Watch – A Public Debt Timebomb

Demographics Watch – A Public Debt Timebomb

Welcome to a new Demographics Watch! We will take a deep dive into public debt and how it’s related to birth rates and ageing population. If you want to go even deeper into our numbers, we have set up a Demographics page on our Datahub, where you can play around with the numbers yourself. It’s for Premium users only – but you can try it out for free with a 14-day trial.   Demographics Watch – A Public Debt Timebomb   In our first Demographics Watch article, we introduced ‘The Problem Index’ – a measure of a country’s ability to deal with an ageing population. Weighing the pull and push forces of growing dependency (an increasing older population relying on its diminishing working age population) and migration (as one potential way to fill this gap), we outlined the countries most vulnerable to a continuation, or worsening of current demographic trends. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t make for comfortable reading anywhere, but the index suggested two major problem regions – Eastern and Southern Europe, and East Asia.    We also highlighted that the Problem Index would serve as the groundwork on which we’d build. Today, we want to expand upon the pure demographic trends explored by considering the second order economic impacts captured by the Problem Index – namely, an ageing population’s impact on a country’s public debt.    Before we delve into the forecasts and data itself, a brief 101. The theory itself is relatively straightforward: ageing populations – people living longer […]

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Money Watch: How do we track deposit flights?

Money Watch: How do we track deposit flights?

While good old balance sheet data is only available once banks publish their books, we have looked up metrics reported more frequently, which you can follow to give you an overview of just how bad conditions are for banks.

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Money Watch: How do we track deposit flights?

Money Watch: European bank loan books look worse than US peers

European counterparts too have suffered from contagion from the turmoil unfolding in the US banking system, but have troubles been contained or will we see further spillovers take its toll? Europe is better equipped to deal with a liquidity crisis, but a credit crisis will hit Europe more than the US.

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Money Watch: How do we track deposit flights?

Money Watch: Is the BTFP just another form of QE?

A new abbreviation has made its way into the vocabulary of those with an interest in finance, markets, the state of the economy or all of the above. So, what is this ‘Bank Term Funding Program’, and does it really differ from QE in nature?

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Equity watch: Fire-sale or Outright Fire in US Bank Stocks

Equity watch: Fire-sale or Outright Fire in US Bank Stocks

What a couple weeks! Confidence in the US banking system has been under immense stress, and some contagion crossed the Atlantic and struck Europe as well. Triggered by a casino in disguise, the troubles have for now been backstopped, but is further distress lurking beneath the surface?

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Energy Cable #12 – Banking crisis seeping into energy

Energy Cable #12 – Banking crisis seeping into energy

Energy prices- and stocks have suffered due to the banking crisis as it flows through to the real economy. Was this the actual recession trigger? If so, it may be too early to tilt positive on Energy and underlyingly our models have rather turned more bearish than they already were over the past weeks.

Find out what to expect from Gas, electricity and oil markets below!

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Fed Watch: 25bps that they will woefully regret

Fed Watch: 25bps that they will woefully regret

The FOMC will likely decide to raise the Fed Funds target range by 25bps and regret it soon thereafter on Wednesday. Everything but the banking sector stress screams higher interest rates, why the Fed will attempt to regain control of the narrative.

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The Energy Cable #13 – Oil – Bull Case Approaching?

The Energy Cable #11: Trust the plan

  The Energy Cable #11: Trust the plan Our price models are deteriorating under the surface. The oil and gas bull market is probably not around the corner. We look at risk/reward in the energy space in the context of the recessionary vibes stemming from the banking crisis. We know, we know … You are all focused on the banking drama in the US and its potential contagion to other markets. We wouldn’t want to let you down on a fresh Energy Cable, however we promise to be brief. Our latest model updates do not hint of a bull-market in energy around the corner. Rather the contrary. Let’s have a look at the risk/reward across oil, nat gas and metals in the context of the ongoing banking crisis. Steno Research: China bought as much energy as they usually do in 2022. Forget about the “reopening story” in Energy Loyal readers will know that we have remained very skeptical about the bullish outlook for energy on the back of the Chinese reopening. Lo and behold, we have some more data to back up that point. The ‘Europe is doomed once China starts to bid for LNG’ story has been the go to story by doomsday sayers and other charlatans but we just don’t see it. Firstly let’s just compare the Chinese demand for LNG imports with Japan. 2023 has seen Japanese demand converging towards Chinese.      Moving on to the average LNG import by China. In a lockdown year China […]

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Fixed Income Watch: Zooming in on the curve steepening

Positioning Watch: How big were the SVB flows?

Let’s have a look at our flow -and positioning indicators after a week of market turbulence. How big were the SVB-fueled flows on Thursday and Friday? We look across assets in this analysis.

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Money Watch: How do we track deposit flights?

Money Watch: Have people forgotten that everything is about money? Also the SVB case..

Most people tend to agree that the amount of money in an economy affects economic conditions. More money makes consumers buy more goods and services, and the excess demand leads to increasing prices.. but what happens when we destroy USDs as we currently do? More SVB cases show up!

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China Week: This is China’s successor in global manufacturing

China Week: This is China’s successor in global manufacturing

In the first edition of our Demographics Watch series, we took inventory of the global problem of aging populations. The issue is a familiar one in the West, but ‘The Asian Tigers’ too are waking up to a new reality of shrinking working populations. Who is next in line to take over from China as the world’s labour hub?

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5 Things We Watch: The BTFP, US and EU Deposit Flights, Credit Tightening, and The FFR

5 Things We Watch: Fed rhetoric, Chinese rebound, Chinese inventories, US labor market and a record-breaking yield curve inversion

Midweek has arrived and that calls for a rundown of the five things we watch the closest. As is the custom every Wednesday, we will take you through these most important themes (and charts) in macro and summarize how we interpret them.

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China Week: The reopening play vol 2

China Week: The reopening play vol 2

The abiding tale of a Chinese reopening has been about as labile as pundits’ conviction of a soft landing. In fact the two may very well be tightly correlated. Now, it seems data has finally arrived to firmly lay to rest the debate whether a reopening would show. What better time then to unwrap and examine the implications?

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Fed Watch: 25bps that they will woefully regret

Positioning Watch: Does positioning and fund flows unfog the ambiguity ruling markets?

In this somewhat unusual edition of the ‘Positioning Watch’ we’ll take a look at relevant and readily available data to assess whether we are leaning with or against the wind. Maybe this can provide further insight into the ambiguity which we have experienced in markets lately.

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CHINA WEEK: What does new 2023 growth targets signal about Xi’s priorities

CHINA WEEK: What does new 2023 growth targets signal about Xi’s priorities

China’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC), opened its annual meeting yesterday. The main highlight was the presentation of the new work report by outgoing Premier Li Keqiang which sets the 2023 fiscal targets for the Chinese economy. Later this week, Xi Jinping is expected to further consolidate his power with several high-profile appointments including the new Premier, vice-premiers, and the new governor of the central bank.

Inflation Watch: Is the inflation momentum back before it even disappeared? 5 Pros and 5 Cons

Inflation Watch: Is the inflation momentum back before it even disappeared? 5 Pros and 5 Cons

Some early indicators of inflation have started to show worrisome signals 4-6 months down the road, which may lead to a resurfacing of inflation trends before the first battle is even won. Is the double-top inflation narrative warranted? Let’s have a look at pros and cons.

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Europe Wants To Get Paid – 5 Feuds To Look Out For

Europe Wants To Get Paid – 5 Feuds To Look Out For

A gap has opened between European wages and prices over the past 12 months. This naturally leads to heightened expectation for collective bargaining agreements across the continent. We point you to the most important battlegrounds for 2023

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