In today’s briefing:
- Smartkarma Webinar | Australia-ASEAN Summit: Prospering in Partnership
- [US Nat Gas Options Weekly 2025/07] Henry Hub Rises on Cold Weather and Declining Storage
- UK: Hawkish Alignment As 2024 Ends
- Trump’s Reciprocal Tariffs and Reducing Bilateral Trade Imbalances
- India & Trump’s Trade War
- [US Crude Oil Options Weekly 2025/07] WTI Falls for Fourth Consecutive Week on Tariff Concerns
- First Quantum Minerals (FM CN): Better Than Expected Results, But Cobre Panama Arbitration Delayed
- CX Daily: How to Provide Relief as Personal Debt Piles up in China
- Australia: 25bp Rate Cut to 4.1% (Consensus 4.1%) in Feb-25
- Cocoa Price Update // CTAs Are Quite Long Commodities
Smartkarma Webinar | Australia-ASEAN Summit: Prospering in Partnership
In the next installment of our Webinar series, in collaboration with ASEAN Exchanges, we go live with Smartkarma Insight Provider Thomas Lam.
Australia and ASEAN have built a strong, enduring partnership over the past 50 years, culminating in the Australia-ASEAN Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) in 2021.
The CSP has accelerated inter-regional cooperation across key areas such as the energy transition, digital economy, health, and human rights, reflecting a shared commitment to regional stability and growth.
In October 2024, the 4th ASEAN-Australia Summit in Vientiane, Laos emphasized the importance of connectivity, infrastructure development, and economic integration to support ASEAN’s community-building efforts.
Join us as Thomas Lam shares his expert analysis on the Summit, and what the Australia-ASEAN collaboration means for the future of the ASEAN region.
The webinar will be hosted on Wednesday, 26 February 2025, 16:30 SGT/HKT.
Thomas Lam has over two decades of experience in the realm of economics and finance, with expertise ranging from covering the global economy, deciphering financial markets, including macro forecasting, to advising on investment strategy. He commenced his career in New York, initially at a large money-center bank and then at a hedge fund. Thereafter, while in Singapore, he worked at two financial institutions and later joined academia. Tom has been consistently ranked among the top five most accurate economists in the world on forecasting the US economy overall (placed third, last published by the “Bloomberg Rankings of Top Forecasters”). During the Global Financial Crisis, he was also acknowledged as the second-best US forecaster worldwide.
[US Nat Gas Options Weekly 2025/07] Henry Hub Rises on Cold Weather and Declining Storage
- For the week ending 14/Feb, U.S. natural gas prices gained 12.6% on the back of colder weather forecasts, rising LNG exports, and falling inventories.
- Henry Hub Put/Call volume ratio dropped to 0.66 from 1.33 (07/Feb) the previous week as call volumes surged by 102.1% WoW, while put volumes inched down by 0.2%.
- Henry Hub OI PCR rose to 0.98 from 0.97 (07/Feb) last week. Call OI rose by 5.2% WoW, while put OI increased by 6.5%.
UK: Hawkish Alignment As 2024 Ends
- Unemployment’s rising trend was a dovish crutch broken by stability in December, with the turn in underlying changes repeating the hawkish patterns after Jul-23 and Feb-24.
- An intensification of wage growth to 0.7% m-o-m extended its hawkish trend to return the annual rate to around 6%, meaning no progress on where it started the year.
- Payback in unemployment follows that in GDP, bringing the data to a more consistently hawkish position at the end of 2024. We still only expect a final BoE rate cut in May.
Trump’s Reciprocal Tariffs and Reducing Bilateral Trade Imbalances
- President Trump’s executive order on reciprocal tariffs has not produced much market reaction, as the proposals will not be delivered to the president until April 1
- The process of Commerce/U.S. Treasury and Homeland Security input is seen reducing the odds of penal tariffs.
- However, uncertainty still exists and the EU in particular is at real risk of threats and implementation in the spring.
India & Trump’s Trade War
- Buy and hold investors should be looking to buy on dip, and we are structurally long Indian equities.
- However the attraction of India as a hedge against Trump’s global trade war and China has diminished. Two reasons.
- First, India’s disappointing economic performance. Second, Trading Post’s expectations that the trade war will be over sooner than consensus is expecting and that a US-China trade deal will be struck.
[US Crude Oil Options Weekly 2025/07] WTI Falls for Fourth Consecutive Week on Tariff Concerns
- WTI futures fell by 0.4% for the week ending 14/Feb, marking its fourth straight weekly drop. Prices fell due to trade policy uncertainty and rising crude inventories.
- WTI options Put/Call volume ratio fell to 0.94 from 1.18 (07/Feb) last week, as call volume rose by 23.6% WoW while put volume dropped by 1.6%.
- WTI OI PCR fell to 0.96 from 0.98 last week. Call OI dropped by 16.9% WoW, while put OI decreased by 20.1%.
First Quantum Minerals (FM CN): Better Than Expected Results, But Cobre Panama Arbitration Delayed
- Total copper production, excluding Cobre Panamá, was 431,000 tonnes—14% higher than the previous year and exceeding guidance of 420,000 tonnes. Gold production also surpassed guidance at 139,000 ounces.
- Management believes the ICC’s five-month arbitration delay for the Cobre Panama mine, now set for February 2026, is unlikely to affect the pace of negotiations.
- The company trades at an EV-EBITDA of 9.4x, which is more expensive than some of its peers. However, Cobre Panama’s option value materializing makes it attractive (4.7x EV-EBITDA).
CX Daily: How to Provide Relief as Personal Debt Piles up in China
- Debt / Cover Story: How to provide relief as personal debt piles up in China
- Private business /: Xi emphasizes private sector’s role in rare meeting with business titans
- Shenzhen /: Shenzhen may report first drop in fiscal revenue since 1990
Australia: 25bp Rate Cut to 4.1% (Consensus 4.1%) in Feb-25
- The RBA lowered the cash rate to 4.1% as inflation moderates faster than expected, with underlying inflation at 3.2% in the December quarter, supported by easing wage pressures and subdued private demand.
- Labour market tightness persists despite overall economic weakness, with the unemployment rate at 4%, sustained employment growth, and high unit labour costs posing potential inflationary risks.
- The outlook remains uncertain, with global risks including US trade tensions and geopolitical instability, while further rate cuts will depend on continued disinflation and stable labour market conditions.
Cocoa Price Update // CTAs Are Quite Long Commodities
- Cocoa Price Update Much of the price increase between summer and winter can be fundamentally explained with the decision by the cocoa board of the Ivory Coast (about 35-40% of global supply) not to allow farmers to plant new trees to discipline supply, as cocoa bean prices were too low from its perspective.
- Also contributing were cyclical happenings such as complicated weather occurring, swollen shoot virus and speculation.
- By now, the liquidity (measured by open interest in the futures market) in the cocoa market is quite low, making it almost impossible for smaller retail investors to participate in the market anymore.
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