In today’s briefing:
- Technically Speaking: Japan Meets Resistance and Hong Kong Finally Breaks Downtrend
- China Economics: Don’t Celebrate the Good PMIs Just Yet
- Great Game – Israel running out of friends, China growing friendships
- Energy Cable #63: It is still all eyes on China
- CX Daily: How a China-built railway is connecting Ethiopia to the world
- Malaysia: Socioreligious Controversies Expose Limits of Government
- Positioning Watch – Steepener bets back on?
Technically Speaking: Japan Meets Resistance and Hong Kong Finally Breaks Downtrend
- With the BOJ’s struggle to support the yen gaining traction, the NKY and TPX both hit major resistance
- Hong Kong finally breaches resistance with a potential move to 20k in the near term
- Diversification opportunities are abundant with potential negative correlation between China/HK markets and US
China Economics: Don’t Celebrate the Good PMIs Just Yet
- The newest set of PMIs is a positive, but ultimately tentative, sign that the cyclical position of China’s economy is finally firming up after prolonged woes in the past year.
- But readers should not be carried away by one month of good data; bottom-up indicators in the consumer and business sectors have yet to show a convincing turnaround.
- Given the elevated uncertainties in domestic and global demand, we do not expect a linear, smooth-sailing recovery. Expect more than a few speed bumps along the way.
Great Game – Israel running out of friends, China growing friendships
- Welcome to this week’s Great Game, where we cover current geopolitical events relevant to your portfolio!Israel-Hamas War takes toll on hospitalsSituation: Israeli troops have left the Shifa hospital in Gaza after reducing the site to rubbles.
- Meanwhile, Israeli strikes have hit the Al-Aqsa hospital as well as a ‘World Food Kitchen’ convoy, killing seven NGO workers.
- Finally, Israel bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria, killing a couple of high-ranking Iranian military commanders.
Energy Cable #63: It is still all eyes on China
- Solid PMI numbers out of China supporting the reflation story
- Steel Production looks ok. There is still potential for the USD to throw a wrench in the works
- This week we’ll pick up where we left off last week and continue to talk about China as we have had a surprise in PMI numbers.
CX Daily: How a China-built railway is connecting Ethiopia to the world
- BRI / Cover Story: How a China-built railway is connecting Ethiopia to the world
- FDI /Foreign direct investment into China plummets to 23-year low
- Personnel /Provincial officials moved to key leadership jobs in Beijing
Malaysia: Socioreligious Controversies Expose Limits of Government
- Prime minister Anwar Ibrahim and his government are struggling to keep a lid on ongoing controversies surrounding religious tensions and citizenship reforms.
- At the core of its difficulties is continued insecurities over the relatively low level of support among Malay-majority voters.
- There are consequences for economic policy; measures that are seen as harming bumiputra interests will face difficulties in being carried out.
Positioning Watch – Steepener bets back on?
- Hello everyone, and welcome back to our weekly positioning watch! Hope you all had a great time off during the Easter break.
- The market narrative has remained more or less intact after the break, with equity sentiment still going strong until today despite a bit of a hiccup delivered from the Fed, with especially Waller but also to a certain extent Powell pushing back on the 3 rate cuts priced in just a couple of weeks ago.
- The scenario with 0 Fed cuts in 2024 is looking to come into play, right as European central banks have likely received the final evidence for them to start cutting rates, with German CPI surprising on the dovish side, and UK Retail Prices collapsed, paving the way for both BoE and ECB to cut rates before the Fed, which admittedly has a more difficult time battling inflation.
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