aneekaguptaWTE

aneekaguptaWTE

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live”, Joan Didion (writer and journalist). Thematic investing brings this notion to the fore. Avenues of investing aligned with megatrends are inherently predicated on visions of the future. But what makes thematic investing a lot more palatable than prophesising is that certain megatrends are already in motion. Thematic...

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Oil prices were whipsawed this week with swings of more than 6%1 after a report from the Wall Street Journal suggested that Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+) is looking to possibly increase output by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd). The rumour could have easily been justified by President Biden’s decision to offer sovereign immunity to the...

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What happened with FTX: Rumours began circulating starting on the week of 1st November that the balance sheet of Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm, and a sister company of FTX, a Bahamas-based offshore crypto exchange, might be in trouble. They both have the same owner, a 30-year-old crypto’s “golden boy”, Sam-Bankman Fried. It now appears FTX might...

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Recession may be a red herring for a market fuelled by a supercycle While broad commodities have outperformed most major asset classes year-to-date1, the pressure of rising interest rates, a strong US dollar and fears of several large economies tipping into recession has led to a pull-back since the summer of 2022. In our Market Outlook, we argued that the...

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We consider gold, with its unique behavioural traits, to be an important building block to consider for any portfolio. The metal’s price can behave defensively which is typically very beneficial in times of economic shocks and it also tends to respond well to inflation which can be beneficial in times of economic growth. Like any core component of a portfolio, we...

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Recently, the following headline caught my eye: ‘Tesla Supplier Panasonic Plans Additional $4 Billion EV Plant in U.S.’ 1 Even in an environment with significant inflation, and a monetary policy that may continue raising rates for some time, significant capital expenditure continues within the battery space. Panasonic is particularly notable because, in July...

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We recently wrote about semiconductors from the perspective of capital spending and government policies aimed towards encouraging further capital spending and ultimately semiconductor independence. However, we’d be remiss to not at least touch on some of the current geopolitics. A simplified look at the semiconductor supply chain If one simplifies a rather...

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On Friday 28 October, EU carbon emission allowances (EUA) had extended their largest weekly gain in 5 years following a strong rally over the preceding six days1. This happened during a week when the first ‘Fit for 55’ proposal was agreed2. The EU has strengthened targets for CO2 emissions from road transportation. To understand this price action, it is important...

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We recognise we have a diverse array of readers, probably some individual business owners, some employees of large companies, some employees of smaller companies and possibly even some people who are retired or between jobs. Whatever your situation—how many different cybersecurity tools are you aware of that you interact with? A password manager? A single-sign-on...

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Those of us following the markets in 2022 have tended to hear certain words again and again: Supply chains Energy shortage Inflation Renewable energy metals We need energy. We want to transition from significant emissions of greenhouse gases towards more sustainable, climate-neutral sources of energy. It is difficult to foresee the demand for batteries...

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Restrictive policy and geopolitical risks raise the odds of a global recession What a difference a year makes. 2022 saw the ‘reopening’ of markets from the COVID pandemic evolve into a ‘recession’. Margaret Thatcher put it succinctly on 27 February 1981 – “The lesson is clear. Inflation devalues us all.” Monetary policy has been on the most pronounced tightening...

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2022 continues to prove difficult for investors around the globe. The conjunction of heightened geopolitical risks, increasingly hawkish central banks, and runaway inflation has forced many investors to change tack and modify their asset allocation significantly over the last 12 months. Duration has been lowered across asset classes, and a survey we commissioned1...

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This week the UK economy posted its highest inflation reading in 41 years rising 11.1% year on year (yoy) in October. The recent jump is largely the result of the uprating of the household energy price cap in October. Core inflation moved sideways at 6.5% yoy. We expect this to represent the peak for UK inflation. As the base effects of high energy prices begin to...

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The Ethereum network expanded the Bitcoin-conceived idea of a decentralised blockchain and added new functionality to the blockchain. It introduced programmable applications and smart contracts that would automate decisions and transactions. Smart contracts are self-executing pieces of code that create conditions for a certain action to take place. This means that...

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The clock is ticking for Europe to shield its economy amidst the current energy crisis. The cost of electricity across the European bloc is nearly 10 times the 10-year average in response to Russia cutting back natural gas supplies in retaliation to sanctions1. There has been a substantial increase in the share of supply of Liquidifies Natural Gas (LNG) and...

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Industrial metals prices are traditionally cyclical Industrial metals have historically been cyclical. In this current downturn, we are finding that metal prices are suffering, as they have done in the past. However, the importance of base metals in delivering the energy transition has never been greater. We are currently living in an energy crisis exacerbated...

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In the classic 1980s film, ‘Back to the Future’, the protagonists, Dr. Emmett Brown and Marty McFly, travel 30 years into the future. In the year 2015, their DeLorean time machine, which now runs on waste matter, is airborne in what appears to be heavy car traffic in the skies. Although our skies don’t quite look like what was envisioned in the movie, ‘Back to...

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More and more metal smelters are falling victim to the European energy crisis. Last week, Nyrstar, a large European zinc smelter, announced it would shutter production at its Dutch Budel facility from 1 September 2022 and Norsk Hydro, a significant aluminium producer in Norway, said it will close its Slovakian smelter around the same time. Aluminium is one of the...