Tag: Interest Rates

January 12, 2018

Perspective

WSJ – Advisers at Leading Discount Brokers Win Bonuses to Push Higher-Priced Products – Jason Zweig and Anne Tergesen 1/10

  • “At Fidelity, Schwab and TD Ameritrade, employees win extra pay and other incentives to put clients in products that are more lucrative for them, and the firm.”

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

Bloomberg View – Even Cynics Can Love Crypto – Matt Levine 1/11

  • “There are no true believers in pump-and-dump; only those who get in early and profit.”

FT – A bitcoin bubble made in millennial heaven – Roula Khalaf 1/10

MarketWatch – The man who called a new bull market in 2012 says take your profits now – Howard Gold 1/11

Mauldin Economics – The Moment of Truth for the Secular Bond Bull Market Has Arrived – John Mauldin 1/10

Markets / Economy

NYT – Investors Spooked at Specter of Central Banks Halting Bond-Buying Spree – Landon Thomas Jr. 1/10

  • “All told, the three central banks are sitting on $14 trillion in securities they have bought since 2009: a $4.4 trillion mix of Treasuries and mortgage securities held by the Federal Reserve; the European Central Bank’s $5 trillion in corporate and government bonds; and $4.5 trillion worth of bonds and exchange traded funds accumulated by the Bank of Japan.”
  • “Moreover, the view that the United States government, in the wake of the tax cut package, will have to issue more securities to finance a larger budget deficit is giving bond investors pause.”
  • “’The U.S. is about to issue a whole lot more debt in an environment where the demand for that debt is about to go down,’ said Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. ‘What that means is interest rates are about to go up’.”
  • “And that is bad news for bond investors.”

Real Estate

WSJ – Manhattan Rent Fell 2.7% in December to Median of $3,295 – Josh Barbanel 1/11

WSJ – Malls May Be Dying, But Bets Against Their Debt Haven’t Paid Off – Esther Fung 1/9

Energy

FT – New York sues big oil companies over climate change – Attracta Mooney and Ed Crooks 1/10

Finance

FT – Bitcoin tumbles as South Korea plans trading ban – Song Jung-a and Bryan Harris 1/10

WSJ – Bond Markets Have Picked Up the Wrong Signal From Japan – Anjani Trivedi 1/11

WSJ – Chinese Dragon Still Needs U.S. Treasurys for Its Hoard – Nathaniel Taplin 1/11

South America

WSJ – Daily Shot: Venezuela Monetary Base 1/10

WSJ – Daily Shot: Venezuelan Bolivares to USD Black Market Exchange Rate 1/10

January 8, 2018

Perspective

Visual Capitalist – Visualizing the Global Millionaire Population – Jeff Desjardins 1/4

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

Bloomberg Gadfly – A French Challenge to Gundlach’s ‘Disaster’ Bond Theory – Mark Gilbert 11/17/17

  • “A record month for inflows into corporate bonds is ‘setting up a disaster for when rates rise & `investors’ learn that, yes, these bonds have rate risk’ was yesterday’s latest tweeted warning from Jeffrey Gundlach.”
  • “French utility Veolia Environnement SA is one of a handful of low-rated borrowers—assessed at BBB or lower by Standard & Poor’s—with fixed-rate debt repayable in three years or longer that trades at yields below zero in euros.”
  • “Veolia already has three-year paper that trades at a negative yield. Those bonds, however, were sold in 2005 at a yield of almost 4.5%; they dipped below zero for the first time last year, and recently turned negative once more.”
  • “But on Thursday, Veolia went one better by pulling off the neat trick of persuading investors to pay it directly to borrow, selling 500 million euros of bonds repayable in three years at a negative yield of 0.026%—’a first for a BBB issuer,’ the company trumpeted in a press release. What’s more, the sale was oversubscribed by more than four times.”
  • “Now, you could view the sale one of two ways. For the optimists, it provides evidence that investors are awash with cash and still confident that the European Central Bank’s bond-buying program will continue to support the market.”
  • “If, like Gundlach, though, you’re concerned that the world of fixed-income is in for a rude awakening and that the stress will first show up in the corporate bond market, you’ll probably view it as a last hurrah before reality hits home with a vengeance.”

FT – Iran and the oil price – Nick Butler 1/2

  • “Increasing oil exports would be an obvious way to fund more public spending.”

FT – Watch 10-year Treasury yields for signs of danger in 2018 – John Authers 12/29

  • “Investors should stay in stocks as a big bear market looks unlikely as early as 2018.”

Mauldin Economics – Outside the Box: Et Voila – Grant Williams 1/3

NYT – How Do You Vote? 50 Million Google Images Give a Clue – Steve Lohr 12/31

  • The more our world becomes ‘codified,’ the more insights will be derived, the less privacy we will have, and the more predictive the models will become…

WSJ – The Limits of Amazon – Christopher Mims 1/1

  • “The tech giant is very good at delivering what customers need, but is it as well positioned to sell them things they want?”

WSJ – Bitcoin Isn’t a Currency, It’s a Commodity – Price It That Way – Nathaniel Taplin 1/3

Real Estate

Housing Wire – Value of U.S. housing market climbs to record $31.8 trillion – Kelsey Ramirez 12/29

  • “The total value of all homes in the U.S. increased in 2017 to a total $31.8 trillion, according to the latest report from Zillow.”
  • “This is up from last year’s record high of $29.6 trillion, data from 2016 shows.”
  • “This is so high, that total homes in Los Angeles and New York City metro areas are worth $2.7 trillion and $2.6 trillion, respectively, the size of the U.K. and French economies.”
  • “This is an increase of $1.95 trillion over the past year, more than all of Canada’s GDP or two companies the size of Apple, Zillow’s report showed.”
  • “And renters are also now spending more money than ever before on housing, spending a record $485.6 billion in 2017. This is an increase of $4.9 billion from 2016.”
  • “Renting in San Francisco is especially expensive as renters collectively paid $616 million more than renters in Chicago, despite having 467,000 fewer renters in San Francisco.“
  • “Of the 35 largest U.S. markets, most home value growth occurred in Columbus, Ohio, which saw an increase of 15.1% to $152.3 billion in 2017.”

WSJ – You Got Priced Out of … Philadelphia? The Spread of Hot Housing Markets – Scott Calvert and Laura Kusisto 1/3

  • “The gentrification of the Fishtown neighborhood here looks like something city planners dream of, with developers renovating old row houses as young professionals, along with new restaurants and businesses, pile in.”
  • “But home prices have shot up so quickly in recent years that the latest wave of young professionals say they are having a hard time making the finances work.”
  • “Now several Philadelphia City Council members want to pass a law requiring property developers to set aside 10% of new projects as below-market units, to improve overall affordability in a city that once was among America’s biggest bargains.”
  • “Soaring housing costs aren’t confined to New York or San Francisco. Cities including Pittsburgh, Detroit, Buffalo and Nashville all have explored or adopted policies that, like Philadelphia’s, seek to create more cheap housing by an approach known as inclusionary zoning.”
  • “’It really underscores the housing-affordability problem is much more widespread than simply a problem in the 10 most expensive coastal cities,’ said Stockton Williams, executive director of the Terwilliger Center for Housing at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C.”

WSJ – Private-Equity Funds Focused on Property Raising Less Capital – Peter Grant and Shefali Anand 1/4

  • “Private-equity funds that focus on real estate have been raising less money for the past few years, and chances are dim that there will be much pickup in fundraising in 2018.”
  • “But the reason for this trend isn’t that pension funds, endowments and other institutions that invest in private equity have lost their appetite for commercial property. A big part of the slowdown is that private-equity funds haven’t been able to spend all of the money they have raised, according to investors, analysts and fund managers.”
  • “The declining pace of fundraising and spending is partly due to the old age of the current real-estate cycle. Prices started rising in 2009 and remain near record levels in many cities, including San Francisco and New York, making it trickier to make new investments.”
  • “This is especially true for the most aggressive opportunistic private-equity funds that typically try to produce returns of at least 20%. Fundraising by these funds has fallen particularly sharply, dropping to $33.5 billion as of Dec. 27, compared with $43.8 billion in 2016 and $63.7 billion in 2015, Preqin said.”
  • “Still, the large amount of unspent cash sitting in the vaults of private-equity funds has been comforting to investors who are concerned the markets are due for a steep correction. As long as demand for property stays strong, prices are likely to remain healthy.”
  • “Green Street Advisors says that there was $136 billion of buying power sitting with private-equity firms and real-estate investment trusts at the end of 2017. That compares with about $120 billion at the end of 2016 and less than $80 billion at the end of 2011.”
  • “Another trend that some expect to accelerate in 2018: investors who buy stakes in real-estate fund managers. Dyal Capital Partners, which raises money to buy minority equity stakes in alternative asset managers, in 2016 purchased an interest in Starwood Capital Group.”
  • “Park Hill is seeing a number of large foreign investors who invest in real estate express an interest in buying into managers, Mr. Stark said. They are saying: ‘Rather than investing through some third-party manager, why don’t we buy into a manager,’ he said. ‘If you have enough capital you can leverage the talent and buy the machine, not just pay to rent one’.”

WSJ – Peak Commercial Real-Estate Prices Force Investors to Get Creative – Peter Grant and Shefali Anand 1/2

Finance

FT – Private equity turns to early loans to boost returns – Henny Sender 12/31

  • “Borrowed money improves fund rating on key metric of results over time but is risky.”

FT – How high-frequency trading hit a speed bump – Gregory Meyer, Nicole Bullock, and Joe Rennison 1/1

  • “Smaller volumes and a fall in market volatility have dented business – so much so that some are quitting.”

China

FT – China steps up capital controls with overseas withdrawal cap – Charles Clover and Tom Mitchell 12/31

  • Under the guise of preventing money laundering and terrorist financing, “China’s authorities have capped overseas withdrawals using Chinese bank cards at Rmb100,000 per year.”
  • “China has sought to limit foreign exchange purchases by its citizens in an effort to conserve forex reserves. The new measure plugs one of the few remaining ways Chinese citizens get money out of the country by broadening the Rmb100,000 ($15,400) limit from a single account to a single individual.”
  • “Previously, the annual limit of Rmb100,000 for overseas withdrawals was set for a single bank card.”
  • “An annual purchase limit of $50,000 worth of foreign currency per person remained unchanged, said the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) in a statement on Saturday.”
  • “A regional currency analyst said that the move appeared to be a tightening of capital controls. ‘I was not expecting this since outflows have been slowing. But by doing this it clearly shows China’s desire to manage the outflows more aggressively, particularly on individual flows’ he said.” 
  • In other words, if you happen to make or to have made a meaningful amount of money in China, don’t plan on taking it home. It’s like a casino, the house always wins if you play long enough – especially, if you’re not allowed to leave the table with your chips.
  • The follow up question: will U.S. companies with meaningful overseas cash balances be allowed to repatriate funds in 2018 now that the U.S. tax laws have changed?

FT – Dalian Wanda to slim down ecommerce unit as it refocuses on core – Emily Feng 1/2

NYT – China Offers Tax Incentives to Persuade U.S. Companies to Stay – Sui-Lee Wee 12/28

Japan

FT – Japan Inc: a corporate culture on trial after scandals – Peter Wells and Leo Lewis 1/2

  • “Public admissions by some of the country’s greatest companies reveal deeper problems in how they are run.”

South America

WSJ – Cash-Strapped Venezuela Offers to Pay for Medicines With Diamonds – Kejal Vyas 1/4

  • “With hospital shelves bare and the government stumped on how to settle $5 billion in arrears to pharmaceutical companies, cash-strapped Venezuela recently offered some foreign suppliers alternative compensation: diamonds, gold and coltan, the rare metal used to make cellphones and Playstations.”
  • “While it isn’t clear if any of the companies accepted it, the proposal underscores how Venezuela’s economic collapse is forcing President Nicolás Maduro’s embattled administration to improvise to pay for goods as severe dollar shortages push the country toward a barter society.”
  • “Bartering is also creeping into daily street transactions for staples, partly because the government is too broke to print enough currency. The so-called Strong Bolivar, which the government created in 2008 by lopping three zeros off its previous currency, lost 97% of its value in 2017 alone as the oil-rich country plunges further into hyperinflation.“
  • “Using commodities as payment isn’t uncommon for large global companies trading in mining or oil, but is almost unheard of as a way to settle debts to other sectors like pharmaceuticals, according to Caracas-based economic consultant Orlando Ochoa.”
  • “Given the country’s opaque finances, it isn’t clear how much Venezuela holds in certified precious metals and stones.”
  • “As for the Health Ministry’s proposal to pharmaceutical suppliers, ‘It feels like a bluff,’ Mr. Ochoa said. ‘It’s as if they want to show off their assets to give the illusion that there’s still an intention of paying even though they can’t pay’.”
  • “Lower crude prices and nearly two decades of profligate public spending have left Venezuela’s economy—once Latin America’s most prosperous—in tatters. Gross domestic product shrunk by more than 16.5% in 2016, according to the government, and there is scant evidence of improvement in 2017. The International Monetary Fund estimates inflation will top 2,000% in 2018. The government has defaulted on more than $700 million in bonds in recent months, spurring drastic cuts in imports that have resulted in chronic shortages of food and medicine.”
  • “Tito López, head of Venezuela’s Pharmaceutical Industry Chamber, says because companies in his sector haven’t received payments from the government in more than a year, 95% of medications that were available three years ago aren’t now. Antibiotics and treatments for chronic illnesses like hypertension and diabetes are among those hardest to find.”
  • “In the past pharmaceutical companies operating in Venezuela have considered accepting bonds or even oil as payment, but the government has never followed through, Mr. López said. ‘What we’re missing is a serious system that actually guarantees payments,’ he added.”

December 22, 2017

Perspective

WEF – In 2020 Bitcoin will consume more power than the world does today – Adam Jezard 12/15

  • “Can the world afford Bitcoin? The cryptocurrency is enjoying something of a resurgence as investment and central banks weighed its benefits and caused its value to balloon.”
  • “But generating Bitcoin requires a truly staggering amount of energy. The electricity used in a single Bitcoin transaction, for instance, could power a house for a month.”
  • “And bitcoin mining (the process of generating a bitcoin) now consumes the same amount of electricity every year as Denmark – 33TWh, according to one recent report.”
  • “Bitcoin mining’s energy use is reportedly growing at a rate of 25% per month. At that rate of growth, it will consume as much electricity as the US in 2019.”
  • “And by 2020, bitcoin mining could be consuming the same amount of electricity every year as is currently used by the entire world.“
  • “A new chain is created every 10 minutes or so and, according to a Business Insider article, the use of complicated and energy-intensive algorithms are part of a deliberate ploy to guarantee a degree of exclusivity.”
  • “The article quotes ING economist Teunis Brosens as saying a single Bitcoin transaction uses 200 kilowatt hours. ‘This number needs some context,’ he says, ‘200 kWh is enough to run over 200 washing cycles. In fact, it’s enough to run my entire home over four weeks, which consumes about 45 kWh per week costing €39 of electricity (at current Dutch consumer prices)’.”
  • “Bitcoin also uses a lot more power when compared with other transaction systems. A typical Visa card payment, for example, requires 0.01 kWh while another cryptocurrency, Ethereum, uses 37 kWh.”
  • “However, although Bitcoin is one of the worst examples of our profligate use of fossil fuels to create wealth, it is not alone. The whole digital world relies on power generation to run the data centers at the heart of the modern economy.”
  • “According to 2013 statistics, Google’s data centers used enough electricity to consistently power 200,000 homes, while the amount of power needed to run a large data center would run a small US town. And as we move to driverless cars and other data-intensive ‘internet of things’ technologies, the demand for energy will only increase.”
  • “It seems that businesses around the world are looking to a digital future while governments are talking of a more sustainable one: how to achieve both goals at the same time needs to be the subject of urgent discussion.”

US Census Bureau – Idaho is Nation’s Fastest-Growing State 12/20

WSJ – Daily Shot: CRFB.org – Largest US Tax cuts as percentage of GDP 12/21

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

Economist – Free Exchange: A decade after it hit, what was learnt from the Great Recession? 12/16

Economist – Leaders: Bitcoin is a speculative asset but not yet a systemic risk 12/16

Economist – Leaders: America’s long-running economic expansion 12/16

NYT – Congress Refuses to Do Right by Children’s Health Care – Editorial Board 12/20

Markets / Economy

Bloomberg – U.S. Treasury Sales Are About to Double 2018. Who’s Buying? – Liz McCormick and Katherine Greifeld 12/19

  • “With the U.S. about to sell the most debt in eight years, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin may find himself relying on a buyer base that needs to see higher yields before loading up.”
  • “Government debt sales are set to more than double in 2018, lifting net issuance to $1.3 trillion, the most since 2010, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. estimates. With the Federal Reserve shrinking its bond holdings and deficits poised to swell even before taking into account the tax overhaul, all signs point to higher financing costs.”
  • “The challenge for Mnuchin is that some analysts predict buying by central banks — a pillar of support this year — may fade, in part as international-reserve growth stabilizes. In the view of Credit Suisse Group AG, that will put the onus on more price-sensitive buyers, particularly a group that the Fed classifies as including households, hedge funds, private-equity firms and trusts for wealthy individuals.”
  • “By Credit Suisse’s calculation, with the Fed pulling back and issuance surging, the slice of debt sales available for price-elastic buyers to absorb will rise to about 60% by the end of 2019, from 54% now. It would be their biggest share since the early 2000s.”
  • “The Treasury said last month that it expects to unveil bigger coupon auctions in February for the first time since 2009, and dealers see issuance rising for years to come. With entitlement costs heading higher, the U.S. debt burden was already projected to increase by $10 trillion in the next decade. Now the tax overhaul could boost the deficit by $1 trillion in the period.”
  • “JPMorgan’s 2018 net issuance tally of $1.3 trillion includes $847 billion of coupon debt, ballooning from an estimated $409 billion this year amid a darkening fiscal backdrop. The federal deficit may exceed $1 trillion by fiscal 2020, from about $666 billion in 2017, according to the most dire estimates by primary dealers. Meanwhile, the Fed could roll off about $250 billion of Treasuries in 2018.”
  • “The catch is that demand from China, which with almost $1.2 trillion of U.S. government debt is America’s biggest foreign creditor, may be about to ebb. The bulk of China’s buildup came as it boosted foreign-exchange reserves to help offset a strengthening yuan. But some forecasters see yuan stability in 2018, meaning limited need for currency intervention.”
  • “The wave of supply and the questions about demand come amid expectations for higher yields with the prospect of quicker U.S. growth and inflation. The Fed projects three more rate hikes in 2018, and firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predict 10-year yields will rise to 3% in a year, from 2.46% now.”
  • “’There should be some overall repricing of yields higher, albeit modestly, on the back of the rising supply picture,’ said Subadra Rajappa, head of U.S. rates strategy at Societe Generale. ‘The amount of the supply increase will be quite large, and it’s not clear how much support is going to come from overseas’.’’

Finance

WSJ – Daily Shot: Bitcoin 12/20

  • “The Bitcoin rally has stalled for now, with prices falling to pre-futures launch levels.”

WSJ – Daily Shot: Fintech Startups Seek to Shake Up Money-Transfer Industry – Corinne Abrams 12/19

Construction

The Atlantic – The Weird, Wooden Future of Skyscrapers – Amanda Kolson Hurley – Dec. 2017

Asia – excluding China and Japan

NYT – Jakarta Is Sinking So Fast, It Could End Up Underwater – Michael Kimmelman 12/21

  • “Experts say Jakarta has only a decade to halt its sinking.”

India

Bloomberg Quint – Deepest India Bond Rout in 17 Years Shows No Sign of Abating – Kartik Goyal 12/21

South America

WSJ – Venezuela’s Brutal Crime Crackdown: Executions, Machetes and 8,292 Dead – Juan Forero and Maolis Castro 12/21

  • I imagine it will take two generations to recoup what they’ve lost from bad politics – if ever.

August 31, 2017

Perspective

FT – Taxpayers face lion’s share of $50bn storm Harvey bill – Alistair Gray 8/30

  • “Tropical storm Harvey is shaping up to be one of the three costliest natural disasters in modern US history.”
  • “As the system encircles the devastated region for a sixth consecutive day, some forecasters warn it may prove even more financially ruinous than superstorm Sandy and be topped only by Hurricane Katrina.”
  • “This time, however, the insurance industry — traditionally the backstop in tough times — is expected to avoid picking up much of the tab as many householders lack cover for flooding. Taxpayers are likely to cover a big chunk of the loss, but how much support the state will provide is far from clear.”
  • “Gary Martucci, director at the rating agency Standard & Poor’s, described the storm as ‘unique’ in that it released so much rainfall while its winds caused a small proportion of the devastation. Flood damage is particularly difficult to assess, not least because it makes it harder for loss adjusters to access stricken properties.”
  • “Many homeowners will not, in any case, be covered as standard US home insurance policies exclude flood damage. For decades the industry has been unprepared to underwrite flood risk because of the potential for catastrophic losses.”
  • “Householders can get cover from a government-backed scheme, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), but only about one in six properties in the county in which Houston is located has the protection, according to Larry Greenberg, insurance analyst at Janney Montgomery.”
  • “Lawyers predict protracted disputes over insurance coverage — on issues ranging from the definition of flood damage to whether or not a property was rendered inaccessible.”
  • “Mr. Pasich (Kirk Pasich, attorney), who represents corporate policyholders, expects battles for years to come. ‘Some of the litigation that came out of Katrina is still going on,’ he said.”

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

Bloomberg – Kushners’ China Deal Flop Was Part of Much Bigger Hunt for Cash – David Kocieniewski and Caleb Melby 8/31

MarketWatch – Amazon is actually the weakest of the big U.S. retailers, Moody’s says – Ciara Linnane 8/31

  • “The perception that as soon as Amazon enters a product category, it immediately wins is also flawed, said the analyst. While Amazon is clearly disruptive, it does not dominate any category in which it operates.”
  • Well maybe not ‘any’…very few companies have figured out the hype game so well (except for maybe Tesla and Bitcoin).

Project Syndicate – Odious Ratings for Public Debt – Ricardo Hausmann and Ugo Panizza 8/30

Markets / Economy

WSJ – Daily Shot: ADP – US Job Creation by Category 8/31

Real Estate

FT – Harvey floods prompt alert on risk of mortgage bond defaults – Joe Rennison 8/30

  • “Tropical storm Harvey has put up to $30bn of securitized commercial mortgages on the watch list of analysts and investors, as damage from the disaster has heightened the risk of defaults.”
  • “Morningstar Credit Ratings said 1,529 properties, with an outstanding mortgage balance of $19.4bn could be affected. The majority of the properties are in Harris County, which has suffered from severe floods since Harvey hit Texas as a hurricane on Friday.”
  • “Data company Trepp cast a wider geographical net and put the universe of affected loans at a larger $29.6bn across 2,200 properties.”
  • “Fitch Ratings estimates $10.4bn of loans in bonds it has provided credit ratings to could be impaired.”
  • “’The storm could add long-term uncertainty to the performance of the properties if homes are damaged and residents . . . are unable to move back promptly,’ Fitch said.”
  • “The risk centers on properties that may be uninsured against flood. The widespread impact of the hurricane means that properties outside traditional flood zones could be affected, said analysts. Other risks include the possibility that flooding may have left undamaged properties stranded. For example, a hotel may be open but if people cannot reach it, then it will suffer.”
  • “But Mr. Clancy (Manus Clancy, head of research at Trepp) added that damage from previous storms, such as from Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Sandy, had resulted in little knock-on effect to commercial mortgage-backed securities. Traders and analysts said there had been little noticeable effect in markets, with bonds trading without impairment on Wednesday.”
  • “’The market has not reacted in a way to assume assets will be written off,’ said Mr Clancy. ‘People want to know their Houston exposure but they are expecting there will be enough insurance proceeds to cover the value of the bonds.’”

FT – ‘Nonprime has a nice ring to it’: the return of the high-risk mortgage – Ben McLannahan 8/30

Energy

FT – Storm Harvey exposes Achilles heel for global energy market – Gregory Meyer and Jude Webber 8/31

  • “’It’s a major event. It’s going to impact both domestic and world markets,’ says John Auers, executive vice-president at Turner Mason, a consultancy.”
  • “The shale drilling boom catapulted the US into the top tier of oil and gas producers in the past decade. Refineries clustered in Texas and Louisiana have expanded and now export about 4m barrels per day of refined fuel overseas.”
  • “The US’s new status as an energy powerhouse has created a more flexible, diverse, and arguably resilient world fuel market.”
  • “But Harvey is exposing an Achilles heel: the concentration of US energy assets in a low-lying, hurricane-prone coastal corridor makes the world more exposed to local weather.”
  • “The immediate effects of the storm have been to knock out more than 3m barrels per day of oil refining capacity, or 16% of the US total, according to S&P Global Platts. Among the refineries to close was the nation’s largest, Motiva in Port Arthur, Texas, where nearly four feet of rain fell.”
  • “’There are huge amounts of US products that are not being delivered,’ says Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix, a Swiss-based consultancy. ‘The US is exporting so much compared to before, this is a major disruption for world oil flows.’”
  • “The Gulf’s energy industry may well recover quickly from Harvey, but the Atlantic hurricane season has months to go. On Thursday a storm named Irma was forecast to blow into the Caribbean as a major hurricane.”

FT – European fuel armada heads for US after tropical storm Harvey – David Sheppard 8/30

  • “A flotilla of European fuel tankers is preparing to sail to the US in the wake of tropical storm Harvey, as oil traders rush to replace supplies of petrol knocked out by the worst storm to hit Texas in 50 years.”
  • “Shipbrokers in London said almost 40 cargoes of petrol had been booked or were being negotiated so far this week, well up on the usual volume, and traders were asking for flexibility to deliver either to the Atlantic seaboard or the Gulf Coast depending on when ports may reopen.”
  • “Tanker earnings for the transatlantic route, a proxy for demand, have soared almost six-fold in the past week, shipbrokers said, rising to more than $20,000 a day for the benchmark voyage, from $3,500 a week ago. The total number of shipments could still change because not all voyages are arranged through brokers, and some still being discussed may not be finalized. About 25 have already been fixed or are expected to be in the coming days.”

Finance

WSJ – Daily Shot: S&P Global Market Intelligence – BB/BB- Spreads 8/31

WSJ – Daily Shot: S&P Global Market Intelligence – B+/B Spreads 8/31

WSJ – Daily Shot: S&P Global Market Intelligence – Debt Buyers 8/31

  • “This chart shows banks pulling out of corporate leveraged loans, as institutions (such as BDCs, CLOs, credit funds, hedge funds, etc.) pile into the market.”

China

Bloomberg – China’s $2 Trillion of Shadow Lending Throws Focus on Rust Belt – Jun Luo and Alfred Liu 8/29

  • “By analyzing 237 Chinese banks, many of them small and unlisted regional lenders, Bedford casts a new spotlight on underground financing and the risks it poses to the nation’s $35 trillion banking industry. Shadow loans grew almost 15 percent to 14.1 trillion yuan ($2.3 trillion) by December from a year earlier, equal to about 19% of economic output, he estimates.”
  • “’This is a sleeper issue,’ Bedford wrote. ‘The remarkable level of concentration in regional banks in rust-belt region banks, combined with evidence that these assets are increasingly being used to roll over loans to existing borrowers as well as being swapped between banks without a clear transfer of risk are alarming.’”
  • “Accounting for this financing, Chinese banks’ nonperforming loans could be three times higher than the official published level, he said.”
  • “By recording such lending under ‘investment receivables’ rather than ‘loans’ on their financial statements, banks were able to disguise what is in effect lending, to get around regulatory lending curbs or heavy reliance on wholesale funding. Such financial engineering also enabled some lenders to overstate their capital adequacy ratios, understate nonperforming loans and reduce provision charges.”

July 10, 2017

If you were to read only one thing…

NYT – Rooftop Solar Dims Under Pressure From Utility Lobbyists – Hiroko Tabuchi 7/8

  • “Over the past six years, rooftop solar panel installations have seen explosive growth — as much as 900% by one estimate.”
  • “That growth has come to a shuddering stop this year, with a projected decline in new installations of 2%, according to projections from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.”
  • “A number of factors are driving the reversal, from saturation in markets like California to financial woes at several top solar panel makers.”
  • “But the decline has also coincided with a concerted and well-funded lobbying campaign by traditional utilities, which have been working in state capitals across the country to reverse incentives for homeowners to install solar panels.”
  • “Utilities argue that rules allowing private solar customers to sell excess power back to the grid at the retail price — a practice known as net metering — can be unfair to homeowners who do not want or cannot afford their own solar installations.”
  • “Their effort has met with considerable success, dimming the prospects for renewable energy across the United States.”
  • “Prodded in part by the utilities’ campaign, nearly every state in the country is engaged in a review of its solar energy policies. Since 2013, Hawaii, Nevada, Arizona, Maine and Indiana have decided to phase out net metering, crippling programs that spurred explosive growth in the rooftop solar market. (Nevada recently reversed its decision.)”
  • “Many more states are considering new or higher fees on solar customers.”
  • “’We believe it is important to balance the needs of all customers,’ Jeffrey Ostermayer of the Edison Electric Institute, the most prominent utility lobbying group, said in a statement.”
  • “The same group of investor-owned utilities is now poised to sway solar policy at the federal level. Brian McCormack, a former top executive at the Edison institute, is Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s chief of staff.”
  • “Four years ago, the Edison institute, an industry group made up of the country’s largest investor-owned electric companies, declared that the business of generating electricity was in danger of being sucked into what has since become known as a ‘utility death spiral.’”
  • “As more consumers switched to rooftop solar and bought less electricity from the grid, the trade group worried in a 2013 document, the costs of running conventional coal, oil, gas or nuclear power plants would be shared among an ever-smaller customer base. That could cause rates to spike, chasing even more customers away.”
  • “Since then, the utilities have targeted state solar power incentives, particularly net metering, which credits solar customers for the electricity they generate but do not use and send back to the grid. That offsets the cost of electricity they may still buy from their local utility during cloudy days and at night, reducing or even eliminating their electricity bills.”
  • “Utilities argue that net metering, in place in over 40 states, turns many homeowners into free riders on the grid, giving them an unfair advantage over customers who do not want or cannot afford solar panels. The utilities say that means fewer ratepayers cover the huge costs of traditional power generation.”
  • “Utilities found a receptive audience in many states.”
  • “Arizona legislators voted in December to move away from net metering, lowering the credit solar customers receive for the excess energy they generate and limiting how long customers keep their favorable rates.”
  • “In Florida last year, the utility industry contributed more than $21 million to an ultimately unsuccessful ballot initiative to ban third-party sales or leasing of rooftop solar panels. A leaked audio recording appeared to reveal that the utility campaign deliberately misled pro-solar voters into voting for an anti-solar policy, a tactic one consultant called ‘political jujitsu.’”

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

Bloomberg View – Has Asia Learned From the 1997 Crisis? – Michael Schuman 6/15

Economist – 3D printers will change manufacturing 6/29

WSJ – So Long, Hamburger Helper: America’s Venerable Food Brands Are Struggling 7/6

Markets / Economy

WSJ – Daily Shot: Gold Eagle – Most Googled Car/Truck by State 7/7

Bloomberg – These U.S. States Still Haven’t Fully Recovered From Recession – Steve Matthews and Catarina Saraiva 7/5

Finance

WSJ – Daily Shot: UK 5yr Government Bond Yield 7/6

  • The world is turning hawkish.

WSJ – Daily Shot: German 10yr Government Bond Yield 7/6

WSJ – Daily Shot: US 10yr Government Bond Yield 7/6

WSJ – Daily Shot: Canadian 5yr Government Bond Yield 7/6

WSJ – Daily Shot: Japan 10yr Government Bond Yield 7/6

Middle East

WSJ – Daily Shot: Saudi Arabia Bank Lending Growth 7/7

July 6, 2017

Perspective

FT – China changes tack on ‘social credit’ scheme plan – Lucy Hornby 7/4

  • “Beijing delays licenses for country’s tech champions amid conflict of interest fears.”

WSJ – Ill-Funded Police Pensions Put Cities in a Bind – Heather Gillers and Zusha Elinson 7/4

  • “Police pensions are among the worst-funded in the nation. Retirement systems for police and firefighters have just a median 71 cents for every dollar needed to cover future liabilities, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data provided by Merritt Research Services for cities of 30,000 or more.”
  • “The combined shortfall in the plans, which are the responsibility of municipal governments, is more than $80 billion, nearly equal to New York City’s annual budget.”
  • “Broader municipal pension plans have a median 78 cents of every dollar needed to cover future liabilities, according to data from Merritt. The 100 largest U.S. corporate pension plans have 85% of assets needed on hand, according to Milliman Inc. data as of March 31.”
  • “And yet any attempt to bring police pensions into line with today’s municipal budgets and stock-market performance runs into the reality that many officers won’t stand for it—and they often have the public behind them.”

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

FT – Apple has built an office for grown-ups – Lucy Kellaway 7/2

Markets / Economy

FT – Fed ready to begin unwinding stimulus ‘within months’ 7/5

Africa

Economist – South African mining is in crisis – 7/4

  • “The industry faces tough times, made worse by foolish policies.”

China

FT – Hyundai’s China sales plunge 60% amid ‘anti-Korea sentiment’ – Song Jung-a 7/4

  • “Hyundai Motor’s problems in China are worsening as China’s backlash over the deployment of a controversial US missile shield continues to dent sales in one of its key overseas markets amid heightened competition with fast-growing local automakers.”
  • “Hyundai said on Tuesday its China sales dropped 64% to 35,000 in June from a year earlier while Kia’s fell 58% to about 19,000 units. ‘Because of the anti-Korea sentiment, fewer Chinese are visiting our showrooms these days,’ said a company spokeswoman.”

June 29, 2017

Perspective

FT – Samsung set to eclipse Intel as world’s number one chipmaker – Song Jung-a 6/27

  • “Samsung Electronics is expected to overtake Intel as the world’s largest chipmaker in the current quarter, for the first time ever, on the back of strong demand for chips for mobile devices and data servers.”
  • “Intel has been the number one chipmaker since 1993 after releasing the Pentium CPU (central processing unit) for personal computers. However, the rapid adoption of mobile devices around the world has enabled Samsung to close the gap in chip sales in recent years.” 
  • “Samsung is estimated to have generated $15.1bn in chip sales for the April-June quarter, surpassing Intel’s estimated sales of $14.4bn, according to Nomura. Samsung is also expected to displace Intel as the industry leader for the full year, unless memory chip prices fall sharply in the second half. Samsung’s 2017 chip sales are forecast at $63.6bn, versus Intel’s estimated $60.5bn.” 

Real Estate

The Lead Left – Private Debt Intelligence: North America Real Estate Debt 6/26

WSJ – Has America Built Its Last Major Mall? – Esther Fung 6/27

  • “Appetite for building enclosed malls of more than 800,000 square feet has dried up. Department stores, once dependable foot-traffic generators, are closing locations amid stiff competition from off-price retailers and the growth of online shopping.”
  • “A mall construction spree in the 1970s and 1980s has left in its wake aging properties at a time when there is little capital available for upgrades. As anchor stores close, more mall space sits idle and foot traffic wanes, hastening the march toward death.”
  • “In all, there are roughly 1,200 malls in the U.S., and some analysts see the figure bottoming out at 500 to 800.”
  • “As of the current quarter, there were 612 so-called superregional malls, which typically have a gross floor area of 800,000 square feet or more, only two more than there were in 2010. Between 2002 and 2009, there were 37 such malls built. The number of smaller enclosed malls of 400,000 to 800,000 square feet stands at 599, up by 16 since 2010. Between 2002 and 2009, 40 such malls were constructed.”
  • “But other categories of retail are flourishing. The number of neighborhood shopping centers and strip centers has jumped by 2,303 since 2010 to 114,683. These centers typically offer a narrower range of goods and feature tenants such as grocery stores, laundromats and other necessity-based services that cater to nearby residents.”
  • To be sure, not everyone is hurting.
  • “Grade A malls in dense neighborhoods with above-average household incomes are still doing well, and their landlords argue that consolidation in the industry works in their favor.”

WSJ – Labor Shortage Squeezes Real-Estate Developers – Peter Grant 6/27

  • “About two-thirds of the contractors who are struggling with the labor shortages gripping the construction industry say it has become a challenge to finish jobs on time, according to a new survey.”
  • “More than one-third of contractors said they are being forced to turn work down and 58% said they are putting in higher bids, said the survey sponsored by USG Corp. and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Three-quarters of those who said they are having difficulty finding skilled labor said they are simply asking their employees to work harder.”
  • “Labor shortages are partly due to the increasing number of construction projects moving forward. During the first four months of this year, construction spending amounted to $359.5 billion, 5.8% more than the same period in 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.”
  • “Also, tens of thousands of workers left the building trades during the economic downturn.”

Finance

WSJ – Daily Shot: US Leveraged Loan Issuance 6/26

WSJ – Daily Shot: Pension Partners – European High Yield Index – Effective Yield 6/26

Why… so much money chasing yield products.

WSJ – Daily Shot: Topdown Charts – ETF Assets in Yield Products 6/26

China

FT – China’s fake travel spending masks capital flight, warns Fed – Gabriel Wildau 6/28

  • “Capital flight disguised as overseas tourism spending has artificially cut China’s reported trade surplus while masking the extent of investment outflows, according to research by the US Federal Reserve.” 
  • “A significant share of overseas spending classified in official data as travel-related shopping, entertainment and hospitality may over a 12-month period have instead been used for investment in financial assets and real estate, the Fed paper argued.”
  • “Disguised capital outflows in the year to September may have amounted to $190bn, or 1.7% of gross domestic product, according to the paper.”
  • “Foreign exchange purchases by individuals are capped at $50,000 a year, with the money meant to be used for consumption purposes such as travel, foreign medical care and tuition.”
  • “Until recently, however, Chinese bank tellers rarely asked for documentation to prove how the foreign currency they sold to individuals was actually used. Clients typically ticked the “travel” box on bank disclosure forms, even when they intended to stash funds in foreign bank or brokerage accounts.”
  • “Those wanting to buy real estate or make other large investments could pool quotas from friends and family in a process known as “antlike house moving” — named after the way ants can transport an entire colony by carrying one small piece at a time.”
  • “The Fed’s suspicion was sparked by a sharp rise of so-called travel spending among Chinese tourists.”
  • “Previously, official data showed the scale of Chinese travel spending was consistent with other middle-income countries. But in 2014 this spending became “anomalously high”, the Fed paper argued, with per-capita travel spending as a share of per-capita GDP reaching the same level as the UK — where per-capita GDP is seven times higher.”
  • “Zhang Zhiwei, chief China economist at Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong, acknowledged the possibility of disguised capital outflow but suggests another explanation: the wealth effect from rising house prices. ‘It’s hard to pin down how much comes from each factor,’ he said.”

Europe

WSJ – Daily Shot: Bloomberg & BMI – Select European Country NPL Exposure 6/26

India

FT – Trump’s India property empire hit by tax shake-up – Kiran Stacey 6/27

  • Come July 1, there will be a national goods and services tax that is implemented. In anticipation of this, many retailers and developers are pushing their products through discounts prior to the deadline.

 

June 22, 2017

Perspective

Data Is Beautiful – Adult Obesity rates in the United States – zonination 6/20

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

Project Syndicate – Brexit In Reverse? – George Soros 6/19

  • “Economic reality is beginning to catch up with the false hopes of many Britons. One year ago, when a slim majority voted for the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, they believed the promises of the popular press, and of the politicians who backed the Leave campaign, that Brexit would not reduce their living standards. Indeed, in the year since, they have managed to maintain those standards by running up household debt.”

A Teachable Moment – How Can We Fix a Broken 403(b) System? – Anthony Isola 6/21

Markets / Economy

Reuters – For thousands of U.S. auto workers, downturn is already here – Nick Carey 6/21

Real Estate

WSJ – Avocado Toast Looks a Better Bet Than Australian Housing – Jacky Wong 6/20

  • “Chinese buyers have been gobbling up houses all over the world in recent years. There could be some nasty surprises when the buying stops.”
  • “There are already signs of imminent pain for the global property market, thanks to China’s efforts to stop money pouring out of the country. Inquiries from China for foreign real estate fell 31% in the first quarter from a year ago, according to Juwai.com, a portal that connects potential Chinese buyers to property listings overseas. For some of the most popular destinations, the drop was even bigger—42% for the U.S. and 39% for Australia.”
  • “The property market Down Under looks particularly vulnerable. China accounts for four in every five foreign buyers in Australia, with their interest a prime reason why home prices have surged to unaffordable levels: Prices in Sydney, for example, are up 72% since 2012.”
  • “Some are waking up to the potential trouble ahead, with Australia’s household debt now nearing 200% of disposable income. Moody’s downgraded 12 Australian banks and their affiliates Monday, citing rising risks associated with the housing market, following a similar move by Standard & Poor’s last month. The country’s four biggest banks alone have a $1.1 trillion exposure to Australian housing loans, making up 55% of their total portfolios, according to Morgan Stanley.”
  • “Worse still, nearly 40% of home loans now are interest-only, meaning borrowers don’t need to repay the principal for a certain period, usually five years. Such loans work fine when house prices keep rising. The worry now is that prices will start falling as Chinese buying interest wanes: Meanwhile, homeowners who have only had to pay interest on mortgages could see a rise in payments as the interest-only period on their loans expires.”

Energy

WSJ – Oil Returns to Bear Market – Stephanie Yang, Alison Sider, and Timothy Puko 6/20

  • “Prices are down 20.6% since Feb. 23, marking the sixth bear market for crude in four years and the first since August. Crude prices have lost 62% since settling at $115.06 a barrel three years ago. A bear market is typically defined as a decline of 20% or more from a recent peak, while a bull market is a gain of 20% or more from a recent trough.”

Finance

FT – Argentina’s 100-year bond cannot defy EM playbook forever – Jonathan Wheatley 6/20

  • “Really? A dollar-denominated bond that pays back 100 years from now, from a junk-rated country that has barely managed to stay solvent for more than half that time in its entire history as a creditor? While there is certainly an investment case for taking part, several analysts warn that this issue is a classic sign of a market getting ahead of itself.”
  • “The point, though, is not the 100 years. The complexities of bond math mean that, once maturities go beyond 30 years, the investment case barely changes. Barring default, with a yield of nearly 8%, the bond will repay investors in full in about 12 years, all else (such as inflation) being equal — and that’s leaving aside its resale value. Many investors will have much shorter horizons.”
  • “In a world starved of yield, the 7.91% on offer proved to be quite a pull and the bond attracted orders of $9.75bn for the $2.75bn issued. ‘People are looking out over the next 12 to 24 months and see a pretty positive outlook [for Argentina],’ says David Robbins, head of emerging markets at TCW in New York. ‘Duration in high yield is something they are more comfortable with.’ Argentina, he notes, is in effect selling equity in its economic recovery.”
  • “Sérgio Trigo Paz, head of emerging market fixed income portfolio management at BlackRock, says the rationale and the pricing are all good. But, he adds: ‘When you put it into perspective, it gives you a sense of déjà vu.’”
  • “He sees two scenarios. In one, the Fed is right about inflation and rates will continue to rise. This would turn the Argentine bond into ‘a bad experience’. In the other, markets are right, US inflation and payrolls will disappoint and we will be back in a low rate environment, which will be good for the bonds — until deflation rears its head again, hurting the Argentine economy and its ability to pay.”
  • “In the meantime, he says, there is a ‘Goldilocks’ middle ground in which investors can suck up an 8% coupon. Beyond that: ‘It doesn’t look good either way — which is why you get an inflection point.'”

Japan

FT – Toshiba picks government-backed group as chip unit buyer – Kana Inagaki and Leo Lewis 6/20

  • “After a chaotic months-long search for a buyer, Toshiba has picked a consortium led by a Japanese government-backed fund as the preferred bidder for its prized memory chip business.”
  • “The group — which includes the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan fund, private equity group Bain Capital and the Development Bank of Japan — competed against rival offers topping ¥2tn ($18bn) from US chipmaker Broadcom and Apple supplier Foxconn.”
  • “’Toshiba has determined that the consortium has presented the best proposal, not only in terms of valuation, but also in respect to certainty of closing, retention of employees, and maintenance of sensitive technology within Japan,’ the company said in a statement on Wednesday.”

South America

NYT – Venezuela Opens Inquiry Into a Critic: Its Attorney General – Nicholas Casey 6/20

  • Long a Chavista, attorney general Luisa Ortega is being investigated now that she has expressed concern at how far those in power are willing to go to quiet dissent.

June 13, 2017

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

A Wealth of Common Sense – Bulls, Bears & Charlatans – Ben Carlson 6/11

  • “A market crash is always a possibility. But using scare tactics to get people out of the markets (or keep them in) isn’t helpful to anyone.”

NYT – Stop Pretending You’re Not Rich – Richard Reeves 6/10

Markets / Economy

WSJ – Daily Shot: Change in U.S. Retail Jobs 6/12

Real Estate

WSJ – Daily Shot: Canadian Real Estate Assoc. – Home resales above $1 million 6/12

WSJ – Does Anyone Remember How to Make a Subprime Mortgage? – Kirsten Grind 6/12

Finance

WSJ – Daily Shot: Capital Economics – 10-Year Gov’t Bond Yields 6/12

  • “Take a look at this Capital Economics forecast for German government bond yields – a 1.75% increase in 2.5 years. Note that a 1% increase in the 10-year German yield will result in nearly a 10% mark-to-market loss. Time to short these bonds?”

 

May 1, 2017

If you were to read only one thing…

NYT – China’s Appetite Pushes Fisheries to the Brink – Andrew Jacobs 4/30

  • “Overfishing is depleting oceans across the globe, with 90% of the world’s fisheries fully exploited or facing collapse, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. From Russian king crab fishermen in the west Bering Sea to Mexican ships that poach red snapper off the coast of Florida, unsustainable fishing practices threaten the well-being of millions of people in the developing world who depend on the sea for income and food, experts say.”
  • “But China, with its enormous population, growing wealth to buy seafood and the world’s largest fleet of deep-sea fishing vessels, is having an outsize impact on the globe’s oceans.”
  • “Having depleted the seas close to home, Chinese fishermen are sailing farther to exploit the waters of other countries, their journeys often subsidized by a government more concerned with domestic unemployment and food security than the health of the world’s oceans and the countries that depend on them.”
  • “Increasingly, China’s growing armada of distant-water fishing vessels is heading to the waters of West Africa, drawn by corruption and weak enforcement by local governments. West Africa, experts say, now provides the vast majority of the fish caught by China’s distant-water fleet. And by some estimates, as many as two-thirds of those boats engage in fishing that contravenes international or national laws.”
  • “China’s distant-water fishing fleet has grown to nearly 2,600 vessels (the United States has fewer than one-tenth as many), with 400 boats coming into service between 2014 and 2016 alone. Most of the Chinese ships are so large that they scoop up as many fish in one week as Senegalese boats catch in a year, costing West African economies $2 billion a year, according to a new study published by the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.”
  • “Many of the Chinese boat owners rely on government money to build vessels and fuel their journeys to Senegal, a monthlong trip from crowded ports in China. Over all, government subsidies to the fishing industry reached nearly $22 billion between 2011 and 2015, nearly triple the amount spent during the previous four years, according to Zhang Hongzhou, a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.”
  • “That figure, he said, does not include the tens of millions in subsidies and tax breaks that coastal Chinese cities and provinces provide to support local fishing companies.”
  • “When it comes to global fishing operations, China is the indisputable king of the sea. It is the world’s biggest seafood exporter, and its population accounts for more than a third of all fish consumption worldwide, a figure growing by 6% a year.”
  • “The nation’s fishing industry employs more than 14 million people, up from five million in 1979, with 30 million others relying on fish for their livelihood.”
  • “But as they press toward other countries, Chinese fishermen have become entangled in a growing number of maritime disputes.”
  • “Indonesia has impounded scores of Chinese boats caught poaching in its waters, and in March last year, the Argentine authorities sank a Chinese vessel that tried to ram a coast guard boat. Violent clashes between Chinese fishermen and the South Korean authorities have left a half-dozen people dead.”
  • The good news is that “Beijing has become sensitive to accusations that its huge fishing fleet is helping push fish stocks to the brink of collapse.”
  • “The government says it is aggressively reducing fuel subsidies — by 2019 they will have been cut by 60%, according to a fishery official — and pending legislation would require all distant-water vessels manufactured in China to register with the government, enabling better monitoring.”
  • “’The era of fishing any way you want, wherever you want, has passed,’ Liu Xinzhong, deputy general director of the Bureau of Fisheries in Beijing, said. ‘We now need to fish by the rules.’”
  • “But criticism of China’s fishing practices, he added, is sometimes exaggerated, arguing that Chinese vessels traveling to Africa were simply responding to the demand for seafood from developed countries, which have been reducing their own fleets.”
  • “’People come to me and ask, ‘If China doesn’t fish, where would Americans get their fish to eat?’’ he said.”

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

WSJ – Whatever You Do, Don’t Read This Column – Jason Zweig 4/28

  • “Investors have a hard time looking truth square in the face.”

NYT – Internment, America’s Great Mistake – George Takei 4/28

FT – London housing: too hot for young buyers – Nathan Brooker 4/26

  • “Some first-timers need to borrow 40 times their salary to buy in parts of the city.”
  • Clearly this isn’t an affliction unique to London.

Real Estate

WSJ – Daily Shot: John Burns Consulting – Home Building Material Cost Increases 4/28

WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED – US Household Growth 4/28

WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED – Household Debt / GDP – Australia, Canada, & US 4/28

CoStar – Smaller Non-Traded REITs Scrambling to Catch Up with Institutional Players Shaking Up Sector – Mark Heschmeyer 4/27

Energy

WSJ – Daily Shot: eia – US Dry Shale Production 4/28

China

FT – China’s short-term money market rate hits 2-year high – Jennifer Hughes, Hudson Lockett, and James Kynge 4/28

  • “Since taking up his post in late February, Guo Shuqing, chair of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, has issued a stream of directives aimed at, among other issues, clamping down on shadow banking practices and raising lending standards in the interbank market.”
  • “Applying a squeeze on interbank market liquidity by guiding short-term rates higher has become the strategy of choice for Chinese monetary authorities trying to rein in the country’s credit bubble without causing it to burst.”
  • “One of the main targets of the squeeze is a huge proliferation of ‘wealth management products’ issued by banks but often kept off their balance sheets to elude capital regulations. These WMPs, the outstanding amount of which stands at Rmb29tn ($4.2tn) or equivalent to 40% of GDP, are regarded as culprits behind the swelling of China’s unregulated shadow finance market in recent years.”
  • “The danger for China, though, is that by squeezing liquidity to curb WMP issuance, Beijing is also jeopardizing a key funding source for some of the weakest institutions in the financial system, namely small and medium-sized banks. A scramble among such banks for liquidity has prompted a surge in issuance of bank certificates of deposit, increasingly at higher interest rates than such banks are receiving from their WMP investors.”