Is China a currency manipulator? While there is little doubt that the recent RMB depreciation occurred without PBOC approval, it isn’t clear China meets the three criteria to be considered a manipulator. China does run a significant bilateral trade surplus with America, but the other two points are less clear cut. Is China’s current account […]

Copper prices are fast approaching their 2017 and 2018 lows and risk breaching these technical support levels, as risk sentiment sours. President Trump’s additional tariff announcement last week spooked risk assets, with notable weakness in the RMB. The PBOC has signaled more monetary policy easing is coming, which could be supportive of copper prices. However, […]

As public equities enter a period of earnings weakness driven by sluggish economic growth and margin pressures, investors are left looking for alternatives. One interesting universe has been private equity (PE). Despite economic uncertainties, the world’s largest PE firms have been raising ever larger funds to invest globally. Interestingly, the public listings of these PE […]

Japanese equities are taking a beating this week. Its earnings season over the next few weeks appears particularly gloomy. Over the last 12 months, the global growth slowdown has been especially troublesome for Japanese equities, which have steadily unperformed DM equities. The underperformance has also been a common theme in the 12-months leading up to […]