In today’s briefing:
- Flash Liquidity Update: A USD liquidity PUT is now in place
- Rubber Cultivation Goes Up In Leaps And Bounds In India’s Northeast
- The Drill: Fade the tough Trump tariff talks
- Green Bubble Deflating
- Why I just switched from RBOT to ROBO
- CX Daily: China’s Multitrillion-Dollar Salve for Local Government Hidden Debt
Flash Liquidity Update: A USD liquidity PUT is now in place
- We just received the meeting minutes from the November FOMC meeting, which include two important takeaways on liquidity—both of which are positive.
- We have been highlighting for some time that markets are trading close to pain thresholds in USD liquidity (and below them in EUR liquidity).
- The Fed is now acknowledging the need for a “put” on liquidity levels.
Rubber Cultivation Goes Up In Leaps And Bounds In India’s Northeast
- INROAD project prompts Tripura to extend CM’s Rubber Mission
- Nagaland aims to cover 30,000 hectares with rubber by 2030
- Northeast starts getting saplings from its own nurseries
The Drill: Fade the tough Trump tariff talks
- The recent threats of heavy tariffs on Canada and Mexico appear to be aimed at pressuring those governments to address U.S. concerns regarding immigration and drug enforcement.
- While it’s unlikely these tariffs will materialize, the threat serves as a strong incentive for both countries to take action on closing the border and curbing the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. Trump has effectively imposed a hard deadline of January 20th for these efforts, signaling a stark departure from the Biden administration’s earlier carrot-based approach, which focused on incentivizing Mexico with financial support to manage border issues.
- In contrast, Trump is clearly opting for the stick over the carrot.
Green Bubble Deflating
- Donald Trump’s re-election breaks global momentum in green policies. The COP29 flop demonstrated the green bubble’s deflation amid a return of much-needed pragmatism.
- The EU and UK face competitive pressure to soften their few plans to lower emissions. For example, mandating synthetic fuel would pivot clear from China’s EV advantage.
- Preserving the non-green capital stock would reverse some stagflationary pressures. Adaptation remains the answer to climate change, even if many don’t want to hear it.
Why I just switched from RBOT to ROBO
- In our multi theme portfolios (both managed accounts and in the UCITS strategy we run with Toscafund*) one of the longest and most stable positions has been in the I- Shares Robotics and Automation fund (RBOT) since we see this as an enduring long term thematic.
- However, we have just switched it to a different ETF, the L&G fund, ROBO and the reason for writing this is that the reasons for doing it reflect some important conflicts within markets and within ETFs themselves.
- When we invest thematically, we use baskets (currently in the form of ETFs) in order to diversify our stock specific risk.
CX Daily: China’s Multitrillion-Dollar Salve for Local Government Hidden Debt
- Debt / In Depth: China’s multitrillion-dollar salve for local government hidden debt
- Argentina /: Argentinian President’s ‘chainsaw’ economic reforms catch Elon Musk’s eye
- Jobless /: Hong Kong to require unpaid work for jobless welfare recipients
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