Macro: Smartkarma Webinar | Will Central Banks Bail Out the World Again? and more

For our next Webinar, taking place this week, we are excited to welcome back Michael J. Howell. Michael will look at the devastating implications of higher oil prices and China’s latest monetary squeeze on Global Liquidity and the markets.

The webinar will be hosted on Thursday, 17 March 2022, 17:00 SGT/HKT.

Michael J. Howell is Managing Director at CrossBorder Capital, an investment advisory firm specialising in macro-investing. Founded in 1996 with an international client base, CrossBorder focuses on monitoring and understanding global liquidity and capital flows.

• Two downside risks confront the global economy, with implications for Asia. The Ukraine crisis and the subsequent surge in energy and food costs is one and a slowdown in China. 
• We present scenarios for the impact of these risks on global growth. In our baseline scenario, global growth suffers a hit in 2Q22, before activity recovers a degree of momentum.
• Overall, we find that global growth diminishes moderately in 2022. The surge in inflation peaks in 2Q22, then eases.

• Asian economies ex-China should remain remarkably resilient in the face of the global supply shock. In most cases, we cut our 2022 growth forecasts by only 20-40 basis points. 
• China, however, is likely to suffer a severe slowdown. Even with policy makers turning to stimulus, we expect growth to come down to 3.8% in our baseline scenario (previously 5%) 
• In our downside scenario, China barely grows in 2022. A major consideration is that it will take time for China’s policy response to be effective due to contradictory policy aims.

• Malaysia’s ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition led by UMNO won a sweeping victory in the Johor state elections.
• BN will almost certainly call an early election around mid-year which it has a good chance of winning with a solid majority. 
• That could provide some political stability which has been in short supply since the 2018 general election

• The Week That Was in ASEAN@Smartkarma is filled with an eclectic mix of differentiated, substantive, and actionable insights, macro and equity bottom-up, from across South East Asia.
• The past week saw insights on Grab (GRAB US) post-results plus on Jardine Matheson Holdings (JM SP), as it completed its buybacks but it still looks inexpensive.
• There was also a commentary on Property Guru ahead of its listing and on the single stock futures launch by SGX (SGX SP) for Sea Ltd (SE US) and Taiwan Semiconductor.

• Cover Story: Why the wild ride for oil and gas prices isn’t over. 

• China ramps up curbs in race to contain local omicron outbreaks. 

• Analysis: The seven factors that’ll shape China’s economy this year.