Matein Khalid A country should never be dependent on the kindness of strangers – hot money inflows from global bond markets to fund a bloated, irrational fiscal and current account deficit. This is a lesson Britain learnt the hard way in 1976 when HM Treasury was forced to go cap in hand to Washington for an IMF bailout and again on Black Wednesday, September 1992 when billionaire […]
Matein Khalid “Our currency, your problem”. John Connally, Treasury Secretary in the Nixon White House uttered these words to the world’s elite when he torpedoed the Bretton Woods regime’s gold link to the US dollar in 1971. Fifty one years later, the world is still paying a terrible price for the US dollar’s role as the dominant reserve currency. The US Dollar Index (DXY) is up 20% […]
Matein Khalid Mortgage rates in the UAE have now doubled from 2% to 4%. My view on a protracted inflation cycle and a sharp rise in credit risk during the next year as the global/UAE economy slips into recession means that mortgage rates could rise to 7 to 8%, making a mockery of the argument that this is a cash only market with juicy rental yields. When […]
Matein Khalid The year 2022 has been an annus horribilis for Pakistan’s sovereign debt, even by the dismal standards of the emerging markets. Political stability has been illusive as the populist, incompetent PTI government of Imran Khan lost a no confidence vote in parliament and the fragile PDM coalition has not been able to restore credibility on macro policy as the free fall in the rupee to […]
Matein Khalid Brent’s rise to $103 is entirely rational on short covering, the Friday rally in risk assets and the absence of any firm commitment by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and UAE, to boost output during President Biden’s state visit to the kingdom. Apparently, the Jerusalem Declaration and fist pump diplomacy have not been sufficient to reset relations between the Biden White House and MBS. This rally is […]
Matein Khalid My strategy recommendation to my friends was to short Brent crude at or above $120 for the $65 target I got from the world’s pre-eminent oil economist/OPEC watcher Ed Morse. The short Brent idea has been a money gusher now that Brent has plunged 7% in today’s session to 99 as I write. The fall in oil prices was inevitable. King Dollar is at 20 […]
Matein Khalid This is definitely not the best of all possible Panglossian macro worlds as the S&P 500 is 20% below its January peak, growth stocks continue to get crushed on Nasdaq while credit spreads have almost doubled and Brent crude is at $114. The Powell Fed waited too long to tighten with its myopic mantra of “inflation is transitory” and has pivoted to monetary tightening at […]
Matein Khalid Massive buying of Treasury bonds since last evening when we hit 3.18% yield on the UST 10. UST 10 yield fell to 3.00% in Asia, 2.97% in London and is now only 2.94% in New York. This is a very unusual move in a 24 hour period. I think some major financial institution is in trouble and fear is making big money move cash into […]
Matein Khalid King Dollar is now on a rampage that will redefine global capital flows and have a seismic impact on the economies, financial markets and even politics of Europe, Asia and EM, which should now invite Britain to join their club since sterling is a mere 1.25 and Bo Jo antiques would make him an ideal third world tinpot dictator though bring your own booze to […]
Matein Khalid The mini crash in crude oil in Asia was triggered by the rumour that China’s zero Covid policy means that Beijing will join Shanghai, the world’s largest port and the PRC’s financial capital, in a draconian lockdown that will gut demand for petroleum products in the world’s second largest oil importer. Brent has fallen almost $40 from its post-Ukraine invasion high and it’s evident that […]
By Matein Khalid Unlike Hitler’s Panzer blitzkrieg against France/Benelux in May 1940, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has not been a pushover. Putin’s battle tanks have not taken Kiev or decapitated the Zelenskyy’s government. NATO is a far greater threat to Russia now that Germany has decided to rearm and send anti-tank/stinger missiles to the Ukrainian […]
The post Post-Ukraine NATO Threat To Russia Is Far Greater Than Before first appeared on IPA Newspack.
By Matein Khalid If Checkpoint Charlie in West Berlin was the epicentre of the Cold War between NATO and the Soviet Union’s Warsaw Pact satellite states, Ukraine is the crucible of the geopolitical confrontation between the West and Putin’s Russia. Putin weaponized Gazprom’s gas exports to Ukraine as far back as 2006, fomented secessionist militias […]
The post A New Global Energy Order Emerging With US Supplies As Pivot first appeared on IPA Newspack.
Matein Khalid A paranoid autocrat is never a rational decision maker and has historically sent untold millions of humans to their deaths for nothing. So Adolf Hitler ranted and raved in his Berlin Führerbunker even though it was obvious that Nazi Germany had lost the war by late 1944. Stalin cynically starved millions of people in Ukraine and Mao’s Great Leap Forward cost 50 million lives in […]
By Matein Khalid Recurrent lesson in Russian history is that the top guy in the Kremlin is toast if he loses a war or a high stakes geopolitical gamble. In 1962, Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban missile crisis gamble against JFK backfired and he was booted out from the Politburo by his fellow oligarchs two years later. […]
The post Parallels Seen With Stagnation After Invasion Of Czechoslovakia first appeared on IPA Newspack.
Matein Khalid The Russian invasion of Ukraine is both a humanitarian tragedy and an economic disaster. Something is dangerously wrong in a world where its second largest oil producer is now a pariah state that makes a mockery of international law and will soon be crippled once its banks are ejected from SWIFT. Russia and Ukraine are also the source of almost one third the world’s wheat/corn […]
By Matein Khalid The wicked witch of Wall Street waved her ursine broomstick over the global financial market in mid-November and all hell broke loose on the US equity indices. The Nasdaq was slammed by 18% at its recent 13,350 low and has broken its 200 day moving average and dozens of its high multiple components are down 30, 40 and even 50% from their highs. The […]
By Matein Khalid It is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end but it is the end of the beginning. Churchill’s famous words express my own feelings about the latest psychotic Bitcoin cycle. This crypto-puppy was at an all time high of $68,990 last November but then plunged to $33,000 in its January lows. So whatever crypto is, it is definitely not […]
Matein Khalid As multinational diversify supply chains from China, Vietnam obviously benefits. Vietnam has always fascinated me yet it is a frontier market I have not had the opportunity to visit, thanks to the pandemic lockdowns in Ho Chi Minh City. Yet I still believe that Vietnam is the beneficiary of major macro trends that are transforming the geopolitics, economics and financial markets of South East Asia. […]
By Matein Khalid 2021 was a classic annus horribilis in the Chinese stock market as even a wannabe bottom fisher in Alibaba at 160 like moa can attest. Yet the 37% plunge in MSCI China index and Hong Kong red chips was the worst financial performance in the Middle Kingdom since the 2008 global financial meltdown. The pain was most concentrated in Chinese internet and property developer […]
By Matein Khalid As the 5% crude oil plunge in both WTI and Brent on fears of Omicron demand shock demonstrates, the fate of the virus is inextricably linked to global economic growth, Fed policy and thus commodities returns. Yet thanks to black gold’s stellar performance the GSCI Energy index was a winner in 2021, up 47%. Even Brent rebounded 4% to 74 a barrel in its […]
By Matein Khalid The financial markets gave a green light to risk assets after the December FOMC conclave because the Federal Reserve has shifted its monetary strategy from post pandemic money printing to a traditional anti-inflation stance. Chairman Powell’s decision to drop his “inflation is transitory” argument and the FOMC’s decision to double the taper with three planned rate hikes in 2022 is thus a game changer […]
By Matein Khalid Every time I noticed a Garuda flight in Jakarta airport, visited the ancient Thai capital of Ayodhya or saw the Ramayana frescos in the royal palace complex in Bangkok or bantered with the Sikh ladies in Singapore’s Changi airport, I was reminded about India’s ancient civilizational links with Southeast Asia. In fact, Vietnamese slang still calls Indians “Klinga”, after the ancient Kalinga kingdom in […]
By Matein Khalid I will never forget watching the 2006 soccer World Cup final in Berlin on TV with my two then nine year old twins, eating pizza and watching our common idol Shakira come out in her belly dancing costume and exchange karate moves on the world stage with her Spanish Harlem (El Barrio) with homeboy partner as she sang “hips don’t lie”. Trust me as […]
By Matein Khalid Speculative manias in the financial markets invariably culminate in hysteria and greed run amok. So the 25% fall in the $2.5 billion Paytm IPO, India’s celebrated fintech could well be a cycle peak for the current zeitgeist, just as the busted IPO of Reliance Power was in the Dalal Street asset bubble of 2007-08. Mr. Marketji is obviously unimpressed by Paytm’s brand name investors […]
