Inflation Expectations

  • Fascinating chart from BIS on how survey inflation expectations shift over time.
  • As they say – first you get skewness, then variance, then both decline and the mean shifts.
  • Temporary shocks become persistent in expectations.
  • This happened in 1960s into 1970s in the US and 2010s in Brazil (see page 11 of deck).

Consumer Confidence

  • Pretty staggering chart.
  • Buying conditions for cars, houses, and large durable goods fell to multi-decade lows in June, according to the University of Michigan survey, meaning the vast majority of respondents believe it’s a bad time to buy the above“.
  • Consumer sentiment about the economy is also at a 40-year low. Interestingly, Oaktree make the point that the magnitude of decline could be skewed by political bias.
  • For context, in June 1980, the difference between sentiment figures for self-identified Democrats and Republicans was 4.1 points. The gap is currently 31.5 points. This is another reminder of how people can interpret the same fundamentals very differently.
  • Source.

Hoisington Reading

  • Hoisington AM, as long duration bond fund managers, practice sound economic thinking.
  • Hence, especially in the current situation, it is always worth reading their quarterly letters.
  • Q1 letter covers why they think US monetary policy has been a disaster, causing a cost of living crisis. In terms of outlook, they rattle off a huge list of recessionary indicators flashing red but place the outturn firmly at the command of the Fed.
  • Q2 letter discusses the damaging effects of rapid monetary policy acceleration and deceleration. It also prints another list of already present recession indicators.
  • The key balance point remains – recession is in the works which pushes inflation/growth/yields down. However, if the Fed falters, returning to a pandemic type response next year – then we have another cost of living crisis to contend with.

Clean Energy and Financial Engineering

  • Oversimplifying monstrously, clean energy technology requires big CapEx outlays today for low or next-to-no OpEx for decades.
  • This is why finance is so important to clean energy—it’s the way we teleport those future OpEx savings through time and space to cover those higher upfront costs.
  • So argues this interesting article, exploring clean energy.
  • This chart summarises the idea nicely (excludes things like biomass which are an exception).

What was the effect of Brexit

  • On the 23rd of June 2016 the UK decided to, by a slim majority (51.9%), to leave the EU.
  • Some six years later this comprehensive report looks back to analyse the impact.
  • The hit to business investment, as seen in this chart, is clear – “UK business investment fell by 0.1 per cent a quarter on average in the three years post-referendum, compared to growth of 1.7 per cent a quarter on average growth in the previous three years, and ongoing growth in other G7 countries.
  • However, the universally held belief that trade with the EU would suffer, didn’t materialise. “The UK has now been trading under the terms of the TCA [Trade and Cooperation Agreement] for 18 months, and, although UK imports to the EU have fallen relative to the rest of the world, the share of goods exports to the EU remains at its pre-Brexit levels.
  • Lots more analysis and data inside.

Rhine River Water Level

  • Worrying development as the water level in the River Rhine drops to critical levels.
  • The river is vital, in that 80% of German inland water way goods transport relies on it.
  • This is especially important for bulk commodities and disruption could cause a 1% hit to German industrial production (at the worst point).
  • h/t Daily Shot.

US College Enrolment

  • We are seeing a third year of declining undergraduate enrolment into colleges in the US.
  • Although the rate of decline is smaller, it is still a lot worse than many predicted by this point.
  • There are, however, some green shoots in spring application data (here and here).
  • Useful for followers of the Education sector.

What if reading is bad?

  • You are reading text right now. It engulfs our lives.
  • Between 1900 and 1990, the amount of time the average American spent reading and writing remained broadly consistent: somewhere between one and two hours a day.” 
  • With the advent of the internet and text messaging – this more than doubled to four to five hours.
  • It is estimated the average internet user sees 490,000 words per day (more than War and Peace!).
  • As this wonderful contrarian article argues – this might not, as many argue, be all good.
  • Every time we read, we inevitably conceptualize the world, in perhaps an ever-increasingly abstract way. And it’s conceivable that we may reach a point where those abstracting effects go too far.
  • Article sourced from The Browser – a brilliant resource.

Coatue Deck

  • This deck has been doing the rounds the past few weeks.
  • It is actually a good description of market downturns and how they work.
  • Especially recommend looking from page 10 onwards – to understand the various stages (P/E reset, earnings revision) and slide 23 – what capitulation looks like.
  • Based on this feels we are still not there yet.
  • Interestingly they are also raising a structured equity fund.

Are things getting better?

  • This collection of charts tries to present some cheerful evidence that things in the US have gotten better.
  • For example, this chart shows that “people in every age group are less likely to die of heart disease, in any given year, than they were in 1990.
  • Interestingly, the all-age death rate has improved more slowly. Why? Because we are living longer (pushing the proportion of the 70yrs+ bracket up).
  • The question, on whether humanity’s best days lie ahead, is fascinating.
  • One of the best discussions on this topic was this debate – between Pinker, Gladwell, Ridley, de Botton.
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