making sense of the narrative
January 13, 2022
Traditionally, Year Ahead pieces tend to take the form of a laundry list of predictions about ‘key market variables’, alongside some narrative to support why these might be slightly above, or slightly below, the consensus. Sometimes, the predictions are deliberately Read more…
November 22, 2021
Sometimes it is annoying/alarming to be right. As we noted in Trojan Horses and slippery slopes, the takeover of private sector savings to serve public sector policies is continuing apace. the seemingly unstoppable ESG bandwagon may well represent a Trojan Read more…
October 27, 2021
As COP26 turns into a sort of Glastonbury for ESG funds, nobody seems to have noticed that all the big energy users have already committed to ‘new nuclear’ already and thus it is the collection of Robber Barons from Finance, Read more…
October 7, 2021
Two sides to Every Story September turned out to be true to type, increased risk aversion in and around the triple witching mid month led to a spike in the price of put options (expressed as a higher VIX) and Read more…
September 6, 2021
For those with a subscription, the link to the latest AFR piece is below. What you thought you knew about investing in China is wrong The reality is that under Xi Jinping, the where and how of investing in China Read more…
September 1, 2021
In a rare sighting, George Soros appeared in the Financial Times yesterday warning investors about investing in China. (The link is behind a paywall, but it appears in multiple other places, including here). This was interesting for a number of Read more…
August 1, 2021
Short Term Uncertainties As Equities and Commodities moved higher, western investors in Chinese VIE structures got a shock as one of the hitherto ignored risks to the sector (change in Chinese policy) suddenly appeared. The other risks – taxation and Read more…
June 25, 2021
The Bond market is trying to front run the Fed (as usual), while traders trying to front run China are finding a more determined adversary. As we used to see with FX markets, monetary authorities will intervene to push markets Read more…
October 26, 2020
Since the Global Financial Crisis, the west has slowly woken up to the fact that China does not intend to play entirely by their rules. It has adapted its centralised approach to allow for market prices to send signals about Read more…