Comment of the Day
30th January 2023
Jan 31
Video commentary for January 30th 2023
A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area.
Some of the topics discussed include: China consumption disappoints, Wall Street pauses ahead of Fed, energy weak, gold pauses.
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Adani Debts Enter Spotlight as Dollar Bond Coupon Deadlines Loom
This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:
There has been no suggestion that the Adani entities would struggle to make these payments, and Adani has flagged interest coverage ratios that show it has the wherewithal to meet such obligations.
But Hindenburg’s report last week alleging “accounting fraud” along with its short position in Adani’s US-traded bonds and non-Indian-traded derivatives has put the debt in the spotlight. Some of the notes have fallen to distressed levels below 70 cents on the dollar that generally show mounting concern about creditworthiness. The securities extended declines Monday after a rebuttal by the Indian conglomerate and as Hindenburg followed with its own response.
Eoin Treacy's view
Tightening global liquidity causes liquidity issues. We’ve seen several examples of that in the last 12 months. The UK pension crisis, South Korean perpetuals, frontier country sovereign defaults, REIT withdrawal issues are all symptoms of that theme. The issues currently being explored with Adani are part of the same trend. The longer rates stay high and as liquidity tightens the more these issues will appear. Eventually we will see solvency issues arise.
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Email of the day on inflation and interest rates hikes
In a recent article, Joseph Stiglitz argues that the current inflation is primarily due to the supply-side shock of the Covid crisis and to shifts in the demand patterns. His view is that the rate of inflation has already peaked - it is 1% higher now than in June 2022. He claims that the rise in interest rates has been largely passed on to consumers via higher prices and that any future interest rate rises would be inflationary.
Eoin Treacy's view
Thank you for this email which may be of interest. I believe the article you referring to is Stiglitz’s one in Project Syndicate. Here is a section:
Worse, it is not even clear that there is any upside to this approach. In fact, raising interest rates could do more harm than good, by making it more expensive for firms to invest in solutions to the current supply constraints. The US Federal Reserve’s monetary-policy tightening has already curtailed housing construction, even though more supply is precisely what is needed to bring down one of the biggest sources of inflation: housing costs.
Moreover, many price-setters in the housing market may now pass the higher costs of doing business on to renters. And in retail and other markets more broadly, higher interest rates can actually induce price increases as the higher interest rates induce businesses to write down the future value of lost customers relative to the benefits today of higher prices.
To be sure, a deep recession would tame inflation. But why would we invite that? Fed Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues seem to relish cheering against the economy. Meanwhile, their friends in commercial banking are making out like bandits now that the Fed is paying 4.4% interest on more than $3 trillion of bank reserve balances – yielding a tidy return of more than $130 billion per year.
The assumption the passthrough mechanism from costs to rents is seamless is a big leap. Without a healthy economy that delivers wage growth, rental yields increase through lower purchase prices. This article describing how robo-purchases by institutional investors in property have gone wrong, particularly Opendoor, may also be of interest.
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Zero-emission Steel Won't Happen Without Trade-offs, Scientists Say
This article from the Washington Post may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:
The steel industry is working on solutions. According to the Leadership Group for Industry Transition, at least 73 green steel projects are in progress. But the researchers say the technology just isn't there yet.
"These technologies still face serious technical, economic, and social challenges, and have yet to be implemented at scale," said Takuma Watari, a researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Japan and the paper's first author, in a news release. It's still unclear whether enough electricity will be available in the future to power these innovations, he said.
Better processes for recycling steel scraps into high-quality materials are needed, the researchers write. They call for partnerships between the steel industry and users in a variety of sectors. But the current system "is incompatible with a zero-emission future," they write.
Eoin Treacy's view
Electric arc furnaces rely on scrap steel and the major steel producers in developed countries have been busy securing scrap supplies over the last decade. If global steel production is to grow, then relying on scrap to provide carbon content is not going to be sufficient. That means either production new steel is going to have to become much more carbon efficient or the global sector will need to contract significantly to meet carbon emissions targets.
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Eoin's personal portfolio: trading short breakeven stop triggered January 20th 2023
One of the questions subscribers ask most often is how to find details of my open trades. To make it easier I will simply repost the latest summary on a daily basis until there is a change.
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