Tag: South Korea

January 20, 2017January 19, 2017

January 13 – January 19, 2017

China’s maritime footprint. Judicial independence in China – don’t count on it. Music streaming to the rescue.

Headlines

NYT – Samsung Heir Faces Arrest on Charges of Bribing South Korea’s President 1/15. It appears that no one is ‘safe’ if the arguably the most powerful person in the country can be taken down – it’s like watching House of Cards.

NYT – Earth Sets a Temperature Record for the Third Straight Year 1/18. “The heat extremes were especially pervasive in the Arctic, with temperatures in the fall running 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit above normal…”

FT – China’s 2016 capital outflows estimated at over $700bn 1/18. A recent report from Standard Chartered puts the 2016 total at $728bn, slightly less than the record $744bn in 2015.

Briefs

Sue-Lin Wong and Lusha Zhang of Reuters highlighted the continued flow of credit by Chinese banks and the concerning increase in debt levels.
- “China’s banks extended a record 12.56 trillion yuan ($1.82 trillion) of loans in 2016 as the government encouraged more credit-fueled stimulus to meet its economic growth target, despite worries about the risks of an explosive jump in debt.”
- “In December alone, Chinese banks extended 1.04 trillion yuan in net new yuan loans, far more than economists had expected, central bank data showed on Thursday.”
- “Analysts polled by Reuters had expected new lending would fall to 700 billion yuan from November’s 794.6 billion yuan.”
- “New bank loans last year surpassed the levels of China’s massive credit-led stimulus during the global financial crisis in 2009, according to Reuters calculations based on central bank data. The 2016 total was some 8% above the previous all-time high of 11.72 trillion yuan set just the year before.”
Dexter Roberts of Bloomberg Businessweek brought attention to the crisis facing China’s aging rural poor.
- “Unlike people in much of the rest of the world, China’s citizens spend less on their health as they grow older, not more, says Albert Park, an economist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.”
- Why, simply because they seek to avoid healthcare costs due to the cost relative to their incomes.“The average cost of a hospital visit is 50% of the annual income of a city dweller; for rural residents it’s 1.3 times annual income, according to Gerard La Forgia, the lead author of Healthy China: Deepening Health Reform in China, a joint report by the World Bank, the World Heath Organization, China’s finance ministry, and other government agencies.”
Onur Ant and Benjamin Harvey of Bloomberg Businessweek covered the purge that is paralyzing Turkey.
- Following the failed coup in Turkey,“at least 100 media outlets have been closed and more than 36,000 suspected Gulenists detained.”
- The markets are not amused.“The lira has tumbled more than 18% since the coup attempt, the largest depreciation among major currencies worldwide, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The Borsa Istanbul 100 index fell as much as 28% in dollar terms by early December.”
- Further“on Dec. 12 the Turkish government released third-quarter numbers for gross domestic product, which contracted for the first time in seven years, by 1.8%.”
- Bottom line, now is a terrible time to have any affiliation with Gulenists. If you do have any, be prepared to have assets seized.“If a seizure is endorsed by the courts, the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund, a government-backed fund that manages companies the government takes over, will prepare the underlying assets for sale. The fund estimates the collective value of all the companies seized to date at about $10 billion.”
- As Sevket Pamuk, an economist at Bogazici University in Istanbul puts it“what I find most striking is how easily ownership rights are being ignored. Why would local businesses invest in such an environment?”
Art Patnaude of The Wall Street Journal illustrated the growing amounts of ‘dry powder’ being accumulated by real estate funds as for-sale supply has been limited.
- “Investors are piling money into real-estate funds – but fund managers are finding it a challengeto spend it.”
- “Global fund managers had a record $237 billion available to invest in commercial property at the end of last year, according to data firm Preqin, up from $229 billion at the end of 2015 and $136 billion at the end of 2012.”
- “Global fund managers have raised $446 billion for commercial property in the last four years, on par with the total raised between 2015 and 2008 in the run-up to the global financial crisis, Preqin said.”
- However, there simply has not been enough property to buy. “One reason for the lack of property to buy: Landlords aren’t willing to sell. Their low debt levels and readily available bank financing have made it easy to hold on to properties longer in hopes of reaping bigger paydays later, analysts said.”
- Another are the“potential returns down the road. Strong levels of demand now suggest that if they wait, the value of their property could rise even more.”
- Further, don’t forget that if they do sell, then there are the taxes to pay and what to do with the proceeds?
Tom Hancock of the Financial Times highlighted a recent acknowledgement by a Chinese provincial governor that they had been falsifying fiscal data.
- “The Chinese province of Liaoning fabricated fiscal data for four years, a senior official has admitted, the latest blow to the already shaky reputation of China’s economic statistics.”
- “Fiscal revenues in the province were inflated by at least 20% from 2011 to 2014, said provincial governor Chen Qiufa, according to Communist party mouthpiece The People’s Daily.”
- “Economists and investors have long expressed doubts about Chinese economic data, particularly gross domestic product figures.Compared with other countries, China’s inflation-adjusted GDP growth rates are remarkably stable from quarter to quarter.”
- “Following Mr. Chen’s admission, respected Chinese financial publication Caijing said it had already exposed Liaoning’s fake data in a 2015 report… that report dated the falsification of the data back to 2009, earlier than the 2011 date given by Mr. Chen, who became provincial governor in 2015.”
Yuan Yang of the Financial Times covered that China’s housing boom appears to have ended now that prices have fallen in its top cities.
- “House prices have fallen across most of China’s hottest property markets for the first time in almost two years, marking an end to the enormous growth that saw prices rise as much as 40% last year.”
- “Prices of newly built residential properties dropped between 0.1 and 0.4% in December from the previous month in 12 out of 15 ‘hotspot’ cities, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday.”
- “Although many analysts expect property prices to fall at most 5% year on year in the current downturn, local governments are ready to move to avoid sharper crashes.”

Graphics

WSJ – Daily Shot: China’s credit-driven Growth Model 01/12

WSJ – Forecasters See Upside Risks to Their Economic Outlooks at Highest in More Than Two Years – Josh Zumbrun 1/12

WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED Retail Department Store Sales 01/15

FT – The problem with US healthcare in one chart – Federica Cocco 1/16

NYT – How 2016 Became Earth’s Hottest Year on Record – Jugal K. Patel 1/18

WSJ – Daily Shot: US Cost of Living Changes by Category 01/17

Featured

*Note: bold emphasis is mine, italic sections are from the articles.

How China rules the waves. James Kynge, Chris Campbell, Amy Kazmin, and Farhan Bokhari. Financial Times. 12 Jan. 2017.

“Investments into a vast network of harbors across the globe have made Chinese port operators the world leaders. Its shipping companies carry more cargo than those of any other nation – five of the top 10 container ports in the world are in mainland China with another in Hong Kong. Its coastguard has the globe’s largest maritime law enforcement fleet, its navy is the world’s fastest growing among major powers and its fishing armada numbers some 200,000 seagoing vessels.”

“China understands maritime influence in the same way as Alfred Thayer Mahan, the 19th century American strategist. ‘Control of the sea,’ Mr. Mahan wrote, ‘by maritime commerce and naval supremacy, means predominant influence in the world; because, however, great the wealth of the land, nothing facilitates the necessary exchanges as does the sea.”

“‘There is an inherent duality in the facilities that China is establishing in foreign ports, which are ostensibly commercial but quickly upgradeable to carry out essential military missions,’ says Abhijit Singh, senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. ‘They are great for the soft projection of hard power.’“

“Beijing’s shipping lines deliver more containers than those from any other country, according to data from Drewry, the shipping consultancy. The five big Chinese carriers together controlled 18% of all container shipping handed by the world’s top 20 companies in 2015, higher than the next country, Denmark, the home nation of Maersk Line, the world’s biggest container shipping group.”

“In terms of container ports, China already rules the waves. Nearly two-thirds of the world’s top 50 had some degree of Chinese investment by 2015, up from about one-fifth in 2010, according to FT research.”

“And those ports handled 67% of global container volumes, up from 42% in 2010, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence, the maritime and trade data specialists.”

“Rounding out a picture of China’s merchant fleet dominance is the country’s fishing fleet, which is by far the largest in the world, according to a recent paper by Michael McDevitt, a former rear admiral in the US navy and now a senior fellow a CNA Strategic Studies, a US think-tank.”

Bottom line, “analysts say that China’s naval strategy is aimed primarily at denying US aircraft carrier battle groups access to a string of archipelagos from Russia’s peninsula of Kamchatka to the Malay Peninsula in the South, a natural maritime barrier called the ‘first island chain’ within which China identifies its strategic sphere of influence.”

China’s top judge denounces judicial independence. Lucy Hornby. Financial Times. 16 Jan. 2017.

“China’s top judge has fired a warning shot at judicial reformers by formally acknowledging that China’s court system is not independent of the Communist Party and rejecting attempts to make it so.”

“‘Bare your swords towards false western ideals like judicial independence,’ Mr Zhou told a gathering of higher court officials. Only two months before, he had said that party committees should not interfere in the judicial process.”

“‘This statement is the most enormous ideological setback for decades of halting, uneven progress toward the creation of a professional, impartial judiciary,’ said Jerome Cohen, an 86-year old American lawyer who has spent most of his career promoting legal exchanges between the US and China. ‘It has already provoked some of China’s most admirable legal scholars to speak out in defiance, and I fear not only for their academic careers but also for their personal safety.'”

“Mr. Zhou, once seen as a reformist, is one of the highest-ranking members of the Communist Youth League faction, which Mr. Xi moved to neutralize last summer ahead of a leadership reshuffle later this year.”

Further, “a crackdown on lawyers has intensified since 2015, ‘disappearing’ hundreds of lawyers. The most recent is Jiang Tianyong, a particularly active civil rights lawyer, who has been missing since November.”

How streaming saved the music industry. Anna Nicolaou. Financial Times. 16 Jan. 2017.

“Thanks to growth in Spotify and Apple Music, music streaming has passed the milestone of 100m paying subscribers worldwide, a feat few imagined possible a few years ago. The US music industry is on track to record a second consecutive year of growth – something that has not happened since 1999, the year Napster launched. Some analysts and executives are beginning to confidently predict a new golden age.”

“It has been hard to imagine how the music industry could ever match its pre-Napster performance in the 1990s, when compact disc sales ruled. But now one monthly payment zaps 30m songs into your smartphone, tablet or desktop app, enabling artists like Drake to notch up streams by the billions. The Canadian rapper’s music was streamed more than 4.7bn times on Spotify alone last year. Every hour, his songs are streamed more than 500,000 times on the service.”

“Artists like Drake helped power Universal to profitability last year, earning the company $.1bn in streaming revenues in the first nine months – enough to offset the fall in sales of digital downloads and CDs.”

“In a research note called Music in the Air, Goldman Sachs projected that streaming will help revenues double to $104bn by 2030.”

“Each year more people are buying access to digital music; Americans streamed 431bn songs on demand in 2016.”

Doesn’t mean there aren’t detractors – i.e. Taylor Swift – but the format continues to gain momentum.

As to control of this pipeline, “the music groups hold the leverage. The source of their power is…through ownership of the rights to… master recordings, Vivendi-owned Universal, Warner Music and Sony together control 80% of all recorded music, with Universal having a one-third share.”

Further, “streaming is a high-margin business. The labels no longer face the costs of hauling truckloads of CDs to Walmart. Instead of ownership, they are selling access to a digital music fortress.”

“This compares well with television studios, which have lost some grip over content as video streaming services like Netflix make shows and offer a limited selection of programs. Music fans, though, expect streaming services to offer more comprehensive digital back-catalogues, forcing them to cut deals with the labels. As one label executive puts it: ‘TV and film studios have to coexist with Netflix now. We haven’t made that mistake.'”

However, the “one large thorn in the labels’ side is Google-owned YouTube, whose music draws more regular listeners than Spotify and Apple Music combined. Most music consumption on YouTube takes place on its free, ad-supported tier, a revenue stream vulnerable to the fortunes of the advertising market.”

At this point “streaming is the industry’s latest white knight but after decades of grappling with pirates, new technologies and evaporating sales, music executives know there will be twists to come.”

Other Interesting Articles

Bloomberg Businessweek

The Economist

FT – How smartphones are transforming healthcare 1/12

FT – Over half of China’s white-collar workers go without year-end bonus 1/12

FT – Toyota marks break from past with fund for tech investments 1/15

FT – US companies rush to reprice debt as higher rates loom 1/15

FT – China’s energy strategy: power and independence 1/15

FT – Fingerprint theft points to digital danger 1/16

FT – Saudi Arabia energy minister downplays US shale threat 1/17

FT – Mall staple Claire’s pulls IPO 1/17

FT – Capital Group chief says post-Trump change in markets ‘is real’ 1/17

NYT – With the Rain Comes Hope That 6-Year California Drought Is Ending 1/13

WSJ – Pulling Retirement Cash, but Not by Choice 1/16

WSJ – Mall Owners Find Relief From Unlikely Source: Online Retailers 1/17

WSJ – Mortgage-Rate Rise Hits Coastal Property Markets Hardest 1/18

December 30, 2016December 30, 2016

December 23 – December 29, 2016

A review – how India and Indonesia have gone about chasing tax revenue. Global bond sales hit a record in 2016 led by corporations. US housing gains highlight the growing economic divide.

First, Happy New Year!

Headlines

NYT – China’s ‘Godfather of Real Estate’ Pitches Reverse Mortgages to Skeptical Elders 12/26. With a pension system that is projected to have a $116tn deficit by 2050, some folks are proposing implementing reverse mortgages to ease the burden, though adoption of the program will require overcoming cultural norms.
FT – Japan ducks UN pension accounting rule to flatter its public debt 12/28. As Japan’s debt burden continues to climb, the country is going to adjust its books despite UN rules on accounting – it will be akin to “a company recording its assets in the annual report’s balance sheet, but burying the liabilities in the footnotes.”

Special Reports / Opinion Pieces

Briefs

Yuan Yang and Sherry Fei Ju of the Financial Times highlighted how China city governments have collided with Didi over migrant drivers.
- “China’s ride-sharing platforms face their biggest regulatory test so far after city governments in Beijing and Shanghai approved a policy of ‘local cars, local drivers’ on Wednesday.”
- “Migrants from rural China constitute the core of the workforce for not only car-hailing apps but some of the country’s largest internet groups including Alibaba and Meituan-Dianping, all of which rely on low-paid drivers and couriers.”
- “The regulations say you can be fined Rmb10,000 ($1,440) if you are discovered. But 99% of passengers don’t want us to be checked, or they wouldn’t be able to take taxis, so they won’t report us.” – Mr. Huang, a driver in Shanghai originally from Jiangsu
- “About 40% of Beijing’s and Shanghai’s combined 43m residents are from outside the city, according to the cities’ statistics bureaus.”
- “China has over 270m rural migrants who have moved to cities to seek a better livelihood. But they are kept under firm restrictions by China’s internal passport rules, the hukou system, under which people receive different benefits depending on whether they have an urban or rural registration and where they are registered.”
- So two things: 1) you have a huge section on the economy that operates at an equilibrium that requires subsidized labor and investor losses in order to provide products at a price point where consumers will pay for them, and 2) there are millions of people that are forced into a “second-class” citizenship (with rights similar to those of illegal immigrants in the US) by a registration system that seeks to control migration patterns. Think about it.
Tom Mitchell of the Financial Times covered how the lease renewals in Wenzhou have eased homeowner fears.
- “In an announcement at the weekend, the land ministry said that 20-year residential property leases in the eastern city of Wenzhou would be automatically extended without charge, ending speculations that homeowners would face steep renewal fees equivalent to one-third of their property’s value.”
- “Ever since Deng Xiaoping’s landmark economic reforms were introduced in the early 1980s, allowing people to buy land and property for the first time since the 1949 communist revolution, titles in the world’s most populous country have been limited by fixed-term leases.”
- Wenzhou was the first to the fixed-term leases to expire – clearly garnering national and global interest. Granted, the city is unusual with its 20-year leases versus the norm of 70-years; “the shorter leases were introduced in Wenzhou in the 1990s to make properties more affordable.”
- The bigger issue at hand is the moral hazard that it represents. Presumably buyers believed that the government would come to their rescue at the end of their lease terms – probably the punters selling the units assured the buyers of the same – and low and behold, they did. While the lease rollovers represent a huge revenue source for municipalities, actually letting market forces take hold would put many homeowners in dire straits when their leases expire. Further such a course of action would send shivers across the country when all property owners suddenly realize how precarious their land tenures are… which of course would limit property appreciation – likely to send it down meaningfully, and so on and so forth.
- To be sure the special case of Wenzhou “does not signal a final resolution of the issue.” The government is “studying a new law that would regulate lease renewals nationwide.”
Bruce Einhorn, Peter Pae, Jungah Lee, Kanga Kong, and Abhishek Vishnoi of Bloomberg Businessweek featured the current unrest in South Korea as the country seeks to rein in its corporate elite.
- The recent impeachment of South Korean President Park Geun-hye and the scandal surrounding it has brought to the surface the anger and frustration “of a population struggling with the transition to a slow-growth era.”
- “Economists expect South Korean gross domestic product this year to expand 2.7%, marking the first five-year period with growth below 3.5% since the 1950s. Manufacturers are suffering from the slowdown in China, South Korea’s top export market, and soft demand elsewhere. Export growth has declined in 21 of the past 23 months. Youth unemployment is 9.3%, in part because rigid labor laws discourage employers from hiring young graduates. ‘ Without some serious restructuring,’ says Emily Dabbs, an economist for Moody’s Analytics in Sydney, the outlook ‘is going to be quite weak.'”
- “Monthly household incomes for urban salary and wage earners grew 1.7% in the third quarter from a year earlier. As recently as 2012, income growth regularly topped 5%.”
- Worse, “many jobs are low-paying temporary positions without the insurance, pensions, and other benefits regular workers enjoy. Temporary employees, who make up one-third of the workforce, earn on average about 41% of what a full-fledged employee does.“
- “Since the end of military rule in the late 1980s, an unwritten social compact has allowed corruption among the political and corporate elite as long as ordinary Koreans enjoyed solid economic growth.”
- This story line is being played out all around the globe…

Graphics

WSJ – Paying to Lend: The Negative-Yield Story of 2016 – Richard Barley 12/27

WSJ – The Mystery of Japan’s Stagnant Wages – Anjani Trivedi 12/27

WSJ – As Home Prices Rise, Flippers Make a Comeback – Kirsten Grind and Peter Rudegeair 12/28

WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED Declining US Homeownership Rate 12/28

WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED US Home price growth vs. Wage growth 12/28

Doesn’t help that rents and home prices are outpacing wage growth

WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED US Housing Cost Inflation 12/28

WSJ – Daily Shot: Prescription Drug Price Inflation 12/28

Another place inflation has been taking off

WSJ – Daily Shot: US Food Deflation 12/28

And a place where it is not

WSJ – Daily Shot: Declining Cost of Chinese Imports 12/28

WSJ – Daily Shot: Value of US Manufacturing Shipments 12/28

WSJ – Daily Shot: China Central Government Stimulus 12/28

As things are slowing down in China, the government has been stepping up its stimulus

WSJ – Daily Shot: China Private investment growth 12/28

While the private sector has been hitting the breaks

WSJ – Daily Shot: China 20yr Government Bond Yield 12/28

Doesn’t help that the cost of funds is jumping

WSJ – Daily Shot: China AA+ Corporate Bond Yield (Index) 12/28

WSJ – Daily Shot: Family Incomes spent on childcare 12/28

I can relate to this.

Comstock’s – California to Pay Billions More After CalPERS Cuts Assumed Rate – Romy Varghese 12/29

Bloomberg Businessweek – Mapping the Growth of Disability Claims in America – Brendan Greeley 12/16

Visual Capitalist – These 5 Big Companies Control the World’s Beer – Jeff Desjardins 8/4

Featured

*Note: bold emphasis is mine, italic sections are from the articles.

How India and Indonesia are chasing tax revenue. Erwida Maulia and Kiran Sharma. Financial Times – Nikkei Asian Review. 25 Dec. 2016.

The Financial Times put together an interesting article on Indonesia’s and India’s efforts to increase their tax revenue base.

In Indonesia, they have “calculated that political stability and a dramatic drop in the tax rate could help to bring home an estimated 11,400tn rupiah ($851bn) parked overseas.”

To help repatriate this wealth, Indonesian President Joko Widodo has launched a massive tax amnesty campaign. “More than 10,000 people a day answered the president’s pitch in September: declare assets now and take advantage of a discounted tax rate – as little as 2% compared with 25% – and, in turn, be part of Indonesia’s future.”

The good news for some of this money is that “beyond the new low rates, the amnesty doesn’t require tax officials to trace the origins of the assets and it prohibits the disclosure of information, even to law enforcement.”

Granted, not everyone is happy about the repatriation. “The efforts to corral big assets unsettled Singapore, one of Asia’s leading financial centers, which is estimated to hold more than $200bn in assets for Indonesians. Account holders who notified financial institutions in Singapore that they would apply for the amnesty suddenly found the financial police involved. Singapore policy and the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the financial industry watchdog, had informed banks there to file suspicious transaction reports whenever anyone sought to participate in the amnesty.”

“According to financial sources, Singapore banks offered some of the wealthiest Indonesians better interest rates if they would declare but not repatriate their money.”

“As of December 19, 141tn rupiah had been committed for repatriation, just 14% of the target. The number of participants declaring assets, though, has been far more encouraging. From July to mid-December, there were 508,000 participants and a total of 4,035tn rupiah of assets declared, equal to 30% of the country’s gross domestic product.”

“While Indonesia has pursued a single, clear and well-publicized program to find hidden assets, India has launched a multi-faceted assault to find revenue in a country where only 1% of the 1.25bn population pays income tax.”

“It has made for a tumultuous year for nearly every Indian household.”

“From June to September, the government embarked on a much-publicized program for people to self-declare secret assets. The first such tax amnesty in nearly 20 years drew in a disappointing 673bn rupees ($9.93bn) from 71,726 people. Soon after, Modi (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) authorized raids of high-net-worth individual’s homes and offices.”

And then “November 8 was the game-changer. From midnight, the government declared a withdrawal of high-denomination notes, sucking out 86% of the currency in circulation by value from a predominantly cash economy. People were given until December 30 to deposit the banned notes into their bank accounts.”

The affects are still being felt, especially as new notes have been slow in their roll out. “Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an economist, said the national income could decline by 2%.”

Hopefully it was worth it.

Bottom line, “sophisticated investors and wealthy families will always be searching for privacy and confidence in how their money is secured and governments will be hard pressed to keep pace. ‘Thinking of Indonesia in 1998 or India’s latest currency reforms gives you a good idea as to why people in these two countries want a safe place for their money,’ said Jason Sharman, professor of governance and public policy at Griffith University in Australia. ‘Offshore is often told as a story of greed, which it often is, but it’s even more a story of fear. Often justified fear.'”

Corporates lead surge to record $6.6tn debt issuance. Eric Platt. Financial Times. 27 Dec. 2016.

“The bond rally that dominated the first half of the year helped entice borrowers that issued debt via banks to take on just over $6.6tn, according to data provider Dealogic, breaking the previous annual record set in 2006.”

“Companies accounted for more than half of the $6.62tn of debt issued, underlining the extent to which negative interest-rate policies adopted by the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan, as well as a cautious Federal Reserve, encouraged the corporate world to increase its leverage.”

“While US government bond yields touched their low in July, the prospect of Mr Trump cutting taxes and injecting fiscal stimulus has accelerated a move higher in interest rates that some investors fear will make debt burdens harder to bear in 2017.”

“After touching a record low of 1.32% in July, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury – an important benchmark for corporate borrowing costs – has surged more than a percentage point to 2.57%.”

“With the universe of negative-yielding bonds touching almost $14tn at one point, money managers were willing to stomach lower returns. The year’s debt sales were buoyed by China and Japan-based issuers, up 23% and 30% respectively, from a year earlier.”

“Investors say they expect 2016 is likely to prove a high-water mark for debt issuance in this cycle, with the Fed forecast to raise rates further and question marks growing over the future of bond-buying programs from the BoJ and the ECB.”

Housing Gains Highlight Economic Divide. Laura Kusisto. Wall Street Journal. 27 Dec. 2016.

“The volatile housing market of the past 15 years is widening the divide between pricey urban and coastal areas and more affordable inland regions, creating large swaths of winners and losers based largely on geography.”

While the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index is up 5.6% in the last twelve months through October, however, “adjusted for inflation, prices are still roughly 15% below the peak.”

“Much of the spoils have been concentrated on the high end. A study by Weiss Analytics, a housing-data firm, found homes in ZIP Codes where the median value is $500,000 to $1 million are now worth 103% more than they were 16 years ago, before a boom in the mid-2000s was followed by the worst housing crash since the Great Depression. Home prices in those areas have shot up 39% since the bust.”

“In ZIP Codes where the median home was worth $100,000 to $150,000, prices have risen 16% since the trough of the market and are now worth 24% more than they were in 2000.”

Adding a political lens to this, “in counties that voted for Mr. Trump, home prices have been largely flat for the past 15 years, according to a county-by-county analysis of home values and voting patterns by real-estate tracker Zillow.”

“In January 2000, just before the housing market’s boom-bust cycle began, homes in counties that voted for Mrs. Clinton in 2016 were worth $36,000 more than those in the counties that voted for Mr. Trump, according to the Zillow analysis. Today, the gap stands at almost $97,000.”

“The difference is even starker in counties that changed how they voted in this election. In counties that swung for Mrs. Clinton, homes are worth about $147,000 more than homes in counties that swung for Trump.”

Other Interesting Articles

Bloomberg Businessweek

The Economist

Buttonwood: What not to expect in 2017 – How the markets may take investors by surprise

Bloomberg – Forget Rogue One, Disney Is Rebuilding the Entire Star Wars Universe 12/15

Bloomberg – It Was Going to Be the Year of the REIT 12/27

FT – Five industries under threat from technology 12/25

FT – Cristina Fernandez charged in Argentina corruption case 12/27
FT – Toshiba writedown warning revives financial stability fears 12/27

FT – China debt: long time coming 12/27

FT – Bond investors must accept low-for-long era is over 12/27

FT – US hits Russia with tough sanctions over election hacking 12/29

Investment News – Coming off a disastrous 2016, sales of nontraded REITs could bounce back in 2017 12/27

Naked capitalism – A Tale of Two Retirements: The Great Divide Between CEOs and Everyone Else 12/28

NYT – Growth of U.S. Population Is at Slowest Pace Since 1937 12/22

NYT – Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking 12/29

WP – The Arctic is showing stunning winter warmth, and these scientists think they know why 12/23

WSJ – Italy’s Bank Rescue Is a Precarious Balancing Act 12/23

WSJ – Xi’s Power Play Foreshadows Historic Transformation of How China is Ruled 12/26

WSJ – The Real Story About Rising Home Prices 12/26

WSJ – Plain-Vanilla Real Estate Gains Clout With Chinese 12/27

WSJ – Aluminum Billionaire Planning Escape From China: Lawyer 12/28

WSJ – China’s Currency Drops But Pressure Still Builds 12/28

September 16, 2016September 16, 2016

September 9 – September 15, 2016

It appears there is no “too big to fail” in South Korea. US inflation coming only from a few unproductive sectors. China’s credit hose targeted at housing.

Headlines

NYT – Oceans Are Absorbing Almost All of the Globe’s Excess Heat 9/12. “Since 1955, more than 90% of the excess heat retained by the Earth as a result of increased greenhouse gases has been absorbed by the oceans, leaving ocean scientists like Eric Leuliette at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration feeling that 90% of the climate change story is being ignored.”
NYT – ‘Lula,’ Brazil’s Ex-President, Is Charged With Corruption 9/14. It was only a matter of time once Rousseff went down.

Briefs

Richard Barley of the Wall Street Journal wrote an interesting piece on how bond markets are just waking up to their own craziness.

“Yields on “junk”-rated euro-denominated debt hit a record low of 3.35% last week.”
“Traditional signals of risk aren’t as reliable as they might be in markets that have been so distorted by central-bank policies.”
“Take the developments in junk bonds. Ultralow yields and issuance of PIK (payment-in-kind) notes might usually suggest a market that is too bullish for its own good. Demand was so strong for Schaeffler’s (bearings maker) sale that it was able to sell €3.6 billion of debt in euros and dollars, versus an originally planned €2.5 billion; in the process it refinanced debt that carried rates ranging from 5.75% to 6.875% with notes paying from 2.75% to 4.75%. Moreover, it Ardagh’s (packaging group) case, some of the proceeds were used to pay a dividend to shareholders, another sign that borrowers have the upper hand.”

Ben Bland of the Financial Times highlighted how Hong Kong is losing its status as China’s ‘great mall.’

“Retail sales in Hong Kong fell by 10% in the first seven months of the year, compared with the same period in 2015, with purchases of jewelry and watches declining by 22%.”
“‘Our customer flow has dropped 60-70%’ since the peak of Chinese luxury spending in 2013, says manager (Kingdom Jewelry) Jacky Sze. ‘I don’t have much hope for the rest of this year, or next.'”

The Economist gave some perspective on Turkey’s Gulen purges.

First there was the failed coup d’etat on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, now there is the purge of detractors and then sum…
For those not familiar, the coup is being blamed on the Gulen community, aka the cemaat, an Islamist sect that promotes an interchange/dialogue with science. The imam that founded the movement is Fethullah Gulen who now lives in Pennsylvania.
Over 100,000 Gulen sympathizers have been rounded up so far.
“According to one minister, the state has seized more than $4 billion-worth of Gulenist assets.”
And following on the maxim to ‘never waste a good crisis.’ President Erdogan is also targeting Kurdish minorities.
However, for a little bit of context, the “secular Turks (of which President Erdogan is one) have no love for the Gulenist, who targeted them in their own purges in the 2000s.”

Also in the Economist was a piece on how shipping profits are going overboard.
- “Of the biggest 12 shipping companies that have published results for the past quarter, 11 have announced huge losses. Several weaker outfits are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.”
- “The industry could lose as much as $10 billion this year on revenues of $170 billion, reckons Drewry, a consultancy.”
- Essentially, two primary forces are at play 1) world trade is down/slowing and many multinationals are creating manufacturing operations near their customers, and 2) there is overcapacity in the industry from the recent commodity boom.
- As a result, “sending a container from Shanghai to Europe now costs half of what it did in 2014.”

Special Reports / Opinion Pieces

FT – The twisted logic of negative interest rates – John Kay 9/9
- “All told, the primary effect of monetary policy since 2008 has been to transfer wealth to those who already hold long-term assets – both real and financial – from those who now never will. This week’s debt sale reinforces this. Henkel and Sanofi are not borrowing at negative interest rates to invest in new productive facilities. Both companies have large cash piles, and the cash generated from their operations far exceeds their investment needs.”
FT – Mongolia: Living from loan to loan – Lucy Hornby 9/12
- “Mongolia was a darling among emerging markets during the commodities boom. Foreign miners flocked to exploit the mineral wealth under its grasslands and deserts, pushing up growth in gross domestic product by 17% in 2011. But after a debt-fueled spending spree at the peak of the cycle, the landlocked country is now one of the worst hit by the downturn.”
- “Mongolia’s efforts to extricate itself highlight the dangers of the ‘resource curse’ – the notion that countries blessed with tremendous natural resources find themselves at the mercy of wealth-destroying boom-bust cycles.”

Graphics

FT – Air pollution deaths cost global economy $5tn annually – Shawn Donnan 9/8

Bloomberg – San Francisco Housing Frenzy Shifts Across the Bay to Oakland – Alison Vekshin 8/22

WSJ – Paradise Lost: Why the Good Times Are Over for Global Bonds – Richard Barley 9/14

FT – Vantage to break famine for energy IPOs – Eric Platt and Ed Crooks 9/14

Featured

*Note: bold emphasis is mine, italic sections are from the articles.

Seoul signals tougher stance with Hanjin demise. Song Jung-a. Financial Times. 11 Sep. 2016.

“Hanjin’s move to seek bankruptcy protection last month was the first time a big container shipping line had done so for 30 years, and it caught out many in the industry. As recently as a couple of months ago, shipping executives considered the failure of Hanjin Shipping – the world’s seventh-largest container line and South Korea’s largest – unthinkable.”

“Hanjin Shipping and its rival Hyundai Merchant Marine handled the bulk of South Korea’s exports, which account for more than half of the country’s $1.4tn economy.”

“Until now, Seoul has spent decades keeping lossmaking companies afloat with cheap state loans. In the case of its embattled shipbuilders, it has injected billions of dollars, despite next to no progress in turning them around.”

“How Seoul ultimately handles Hanjin Shipping’s collapse will set the tone for future restructuring of Korea Inc.”

“Many of the country’s smokestack industries – including steel, chemicals and construction – are similarly suffering from overcapacity.”

“The government has set up the principle that it will no longer support ailing companies with taxpayers’ money just because they are too big.” – Yoo Il-ho, South Korea’s finance minister

Alphaville – Least productive sectors only thing keeping inflation going. Matthew C. Klein. Financial Times. 12 Sep. 2016.

Since 1990 “…the bulk of the growth in employment can be attributed to a few sectors where productivity is either low or unmeasurable, a whopping 88% of the total rise in the price level boils down to four sectors of the US economy.”

1) Healthcare services, 2) Housing, 3) Education, and 4) Prescription drugs

“In January 1990, those four product categories only accounted for 30% of the money spent on consumption by the average American.”

And within education the main culprit has been the textbook. Akin to prescription drugs, supply in both industries is tightly controlled by regulation.

“By contrast, thanks to astounding technological innovation, television prices have plunged at an average rate of 12% each year since 1990 and computer prices have fallen more than 18% per year.”

“In general, the prices of durable goods are about a third lower now than in 1990, while the prices of nondurable goods excluding commodity products (food, drinks, and fuel, which tend to rise at the same rate as the broader price level over time) and excluding prescription drugs, have also fallen, albeit not by as much. Inflation outside of healthcare and education has generally been modest, with the notable exception of a few small professional services such as tax preparation, lawyers, and funeral homes.”

China’s Credit Fire Hose Floods Housing Market. Anjani Trivedi. Wall Street Journal. 15 Sep. 2016.

“More than 70% of new loans in August were to households, much of that in the form of mortgages, going by historical averages, a remarkable shifting of the fire hose of credit. It also helps explain why China’s property market has raced higher despite broader economic worries.”

“China’s stock of mortgages stood at 16.9 trillion yuan ($2.5 trillion) as of June 30. Almost a quarter of that was built up in just the past year, according to ANZ. Mortgage loans outstanding now account for 18% of total loans, the highest since at least 2008.”

“Local regulators are imposing clampdowns on mortgage lending and property speculation in the hottest cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. They are right to do so, as this leg of China’s multi-decade property bubble is clearly being fueled by leverage in a way that it wasn’t in the past.”

Other Interesting Articles

Bloomberg Businessweek

The Economist