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.
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.
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.
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.
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 […]
Energy has been one of the clear victims of the banking stress, but a more positive outlook may re-surface once the dust settles. Is it time to get upbeat on oil prices? Andreas and Warren disagree.
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.
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.
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?
It’s been another of those macro weeks that makes you 10 years older in a matter of days. We look at the timeliest indicators of the deposit flight crisis and assess how to deal with it.
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?
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!
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.
What a week. Let’s have a look at flow and positioning indicators. Some of them will surprise you
Are EU banks more solid and protected from bank runs and instability in the banking system? Have the EU set up safe-guards that will keep the European Banks safe? We take a closer look and are not overly convinced.
What happens when the curve steepens? It is bad good news for commodities, mixed news for equities and often temporarily good news for the USD except against JPY. Here is why..
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 […]
We focus on three categories in today’s inflation print from the US. Shelter, Medical Services and Transportation Services. Overall, we find risks to be on the downside for inflation but mostly in March/April.
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.
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!
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?
Silicon Valley Bank is under water on the exchange and a bank-run is currently unfolding it seems. Should we be worried? A few notes from a night of full of telcos.
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.
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?
Risk reward may be about to turn for parts of the European energy space after a land-slide in prices in recent quarters. Will margins increase this spring again? Let’s have a look at the details, while we wait for more data in oil space.
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.
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.
Some have labeled 2022 a “white collar recession” as the job market has remained stable throughout. Are there early signs of weakening in US labor markets? And what would be the consequences? We look at 7 charts here.
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.
The consumer is rebounding fast due to several inflation-linked technicalities in January, while China is now obviously open for business. This should be fuel for equities despite all the bear-porn out there, but also worrying from an inflation perspective.
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
