In today’s briefing:
- The Great Game – Will China Attack Taiwan?
- China Macro: Loan Prime Rates Unchanged in Jan; Easing Bias Remains
- CX Daily: The Questions Hanging Over Ant Group
- The Two Buzzwords of Davos – And What We Can Learn from Them
- UK: Unfestive Sales Volumes in 2022
The Great Game – Will China Attack Taiwan?
- China will attempt to annex Taiwan before 2049, but no invasion pre-2030
- China might, however, enforce a naval blockade of Taiwan at some point before 2030
- Read our reasons and analysis as well as the geopolitical perspectives
China Macro: Loan Prime Rates Unchanged in Jan; Easing Bias Remains
- China’s loan prime rates have held steady for a fifth month, with 1Y and 5Y benchmarks at 3.65% and 4.30%, respectively.
- We expect to see a 15bp cut to the 5Y LPR as early as Feb. 20, in view of extremely weak domestic demand.
- Even that may not be enough. Infrastructure spending will have to carry the load, fueled by a surge in local government bond issuance.
CX Daily: The Questions Hanging Over Ant Group
Ant Group / In Depth: The questions hanging over Ant Group
Davos / China-U.S. ties are more robust than people think, Bloomberg chief says
Personnel / Harvard-trained former PBOC deputy governor appointed Beijing mayor
The Two Buzzwords of Davos – And What We Can Learn from Them
- The Globalization Elite is convening at Davos this week. The average passenger count is falling to 1.5 per airplane and top CEO’s seem to embrace Patagonia vests over Italian suits.
- Other than that – what have we learned from the week in the Alps? Is Davos still relevant and what does this year’s edition tell us about the world markets?
- The main takeaways boil down to “polycrisis” and “friendshoring”. Two terms that are threatening the very existence of the World Economic Forum.
UK: Unfestive Sales Volumes in 2022
- UK retail sales massively undershot a naively optimistic consensus by crashing 1% m-o-m in Dec-22, extending its steep trend decline.
- High inflationary impulses continue to squeeze real incomes, so retailer reports of high nominal spending still erode into falling festive sales volumes.
- Depressed consumers anticipate another bleak year, but their attempts to avoid that with wage rises are stoking problematic second-round effects that push BoE rate hikes.
💡 Before it’s here, it’s on Smartkarma
Sign Up for Free
The Smartkarma Preview Pass is your entry to the Independent Investment Research Network
- ✓ Unlimited Research Summaries
- ✓ Personalised Alerts
- ✓ Custom Watchlists
- ✓ Company Data and News
- ✓ Events & Webinars
