Comment of the Day
Video commentary for April 27th 2022
A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area.
Some of the topics discussed include: advance decline continues to trend lower, oil steady, gold weak, stocks contiue to correct, bonds stable, China bounces on renewed hope of stimulus.
Xi's Pledge Boosts Hopes Among Jaded China Stock Traders
This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:
Shares of Chinese infrastructure firms rallied on Wednesday following Xi’s pledge. The smaller, growth-heavy ChiNext Index soared 5.5%, the most since March 2016.
The barrage of verbal promises has drawn comparisons to the events in October 2018, when stocks were plummeting amid the U.S.-China trade war and domestic deleveraging worries.
Despite the initial boost, profit-taking soon kicked in and stocks tanked to fresh lows less than two months later. Historically cheap valuations pulled the market out of the doldrums in 2019.
“A revelation has hit traders that Chinese policy makers are facing an impossible trinity of goals here: they’re not going to hit the 5.5% growth target and limit the amount of leverage in their system and also have a zero-Covid tolerance policy,” Eli Lee, head of investment strategy at Bank of Singapore, told Bloomberg Television. “And this means, at the margin, the thesis for the Chinese renminbi and equities is weaker.”
My view - There is no way the Chinese administration can walk back its COVID-zero policy. That’s as much about practicality as political priorities. Therefore, to even come close to placating an increasingly restive population, the Renminbi is being sacrificed at the expense of supporting the economy.
GS, Doosan and Samsung to Cooperate in SMR Power Plant Business
This article from BusinessKorea may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:
A signing ceremony was held at GS Energy Headquarters in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on April 26 with the presence of representatives from the four companies. They included GS Energy president Huh Yong-soo, Doosan Enerbility vice president Na Gi-yong, Samsung C&T vice president Lee Byung-soo, GS Energy vice president Kim Seong-won, and NuScale Power president John Hopkins.
NuScale’s SMR is the only one of its kind to receive design certification from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). It is regarded as the most advanced SMR in the world. It can be used for hydrogen production, seawater desalination, and heat supply to industrial complexes in addition to electricity generation.
The MOU is expected to generate huge synergies by combining NuScale’s SMR technology, GS Group’s power plant operation capabilities, Doosan Enerbility’s expertise in nuclear power plant equipment production, and Samsung C&T’s power plant construction capabilities.
A power plant using NuScale SMRs will be built and put into commercial operation in Idaho of the United States in 2029.
My view - Last month Samsung also signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at building Seaborg’s modular self-contained molten salt reactors for nearshore power production. In addition to taking a minority stake in NuScale last year, this represents a significant bet on small scale nuclear construction. It’s not an exaggeration to think South Korea is aiming to dominate the construction of small modular reactors.
Crypto Mortgages Let Homebuyers Keep Bitcoin, Pay Down Nothing
This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:
Digital wealth meant little to banks when it came to a mortgage. And Burniske, 63, wanted to keep his coins rather than trade them for dollars.
“If you cash out, you have to pay sizable tax and you’re leaving a lot of upside on the table because you’re getting out early,” he said.
Then came an option that wasn’t available when Burniske found the properties late last year: a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage secured by part of his Bitcoin and Ethereum holdings. He nailed down the loan from Milo Credit, a Miami-based startup that’s seeking to tap into the burgeoning pool of crypto loyalists who want to diversify their wealth while hanging on to their tokens.
Crypto mortgages are the latest example of the deepening role of digital coins in the U.S. real estate market, with property buyers and lenders alike embracing the volatile currencies to underpin deals for hard assets. Last year, Fannie Mae started allowing borrowers to use crypto for their down payments. New buildings going up in tech hot spots like Miami are accepting digital tokens for deposits on condos. A house in Tampa, Florida, even sold as an NFT earlier this year.
My view - The conventional metrics we have available come nowhere close to measuring the extent of leverage in the system. Companies buyback shares instead of paying dividends for a variety of reasons. From an investor’s perspective buybacks are preferrable to dividends because they are a tax-free benefit.
Eoin's personal portfolio: fixed income investment position initiated April 27th
One of the questions subscribers as most often is how to find details of my open trades. To make it easier I will simply repost the latest summary daily until there is a change.
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