17 Comments
User's avatar
David's avatar

Your understanding of China, is quite limited.

papas's avatar

the comunists will fall. he's right.

David's avatar

On this, good luck operating under this principle. Does modern China have anything to do communism?

Bob Bedford's avatar

Winnie the Grand Poobah might be falling as we speak

David's avatar

you read too much twitter and watch too much YouTube videos.

Noel Dunivant's avatar

Suggest that you do a corresponding post on your thesis for US investors who are likely very long dollars. Perhaps being overweight DM ex US and EM equities plus holding short-duration US bonds and gold as good fit to your thesis and becoming more so gradually as your thesis plays out over the next 6-24 mos.?

Bob Bedford's avatar

If this were a debasement trade, wouldn't bonds be in the toilet?

Michael Howell had an excellent piece this week saying "Fed liquidity floats bitcoin, Chinese liquidity floats PMs"... With China pumping, and doing even more so this year, and with the US/ Western economies reaccelerating (liquidity drain) it does kinda check to me.

Alexander Campbell's avatar

that's my point

so rather than sell dollars, sell assets denominated in dollars

Kahn's avatar

As you said "none of that is happening yet". Can the dollar fall much more while those fundamental flows remain dormant? Seems like a good place to buy from a r/r perspective. Thoughts?

Blue Jay's avatar

Thank you for the article Alex. Great as usual. On the dollar debasement though, if you plot treasury interest payment to annual fed tax receipts or budget, the % is looking alarming again on a multi-decade context. To me, this is what could drive financial repression in the US, which can probably arm twist other countries into accepting a weaker usd relative to other currencies, thereby inflating away the debt? (Granted I’ve not looked at int pmt vs tax receipts for other countries yet)

Jay's avatar
1dEdited

“Foreigners hold ~$20t of US stocks and $15t of US debt.” - doesn’t line up with chart, possibly flipped?

Simple and fairly clear piece, agree with the importance of connecting narrative to the right trade expression ie SPX/USTs (asw imho) and not DXY. This has been the biggest source of my alpha over the years.

Disagree re healthcare / defence meme, kind of a nonsense statement as these are not mutually exclusive budget lines. Health isn’t free in EU, the insurance cost is somewhat socialised and more realistic; just look at national health outcomes & health spending per capita. On the defense side, sort of agree on the underspend, but it’s plagued with poor outcomes if not outright petty corruption, plus the (partial) reality that 21st C war is not really kinetic, it’s mostly cyber / tech / econ.

Chase Roberts's avatar

Really looking forward to your post on AI agent framework

Golden Helm Securities's avatar

Good luck with that lol

Jorissen's avatar

Thought of the possibility the dollar is weaponized to pressure RMB and Chinese economy and facilitate reshoring and polishing balance sheet?

In the pre-kinetic war phase - seems like the US is already in economic warfare modus and "shaping the board" before any action happens

Alexander Campbell's avatar

what do you mean by 'facilitating' reshoring? It's not like China is blocking it.

weaponizing the dollar is nuclear option if they go hot on Taiwan imho

Jorissen's avatar

Giving more incentives to do the manufacturing investment in the US. Better business case with the combination of tarrifs and lower dollar to export excess plant capacity to offset the higher input costs

In this situation I was not thinking at the nuclear option, just adding pressure yuan and pboc

Wissam's avatar

Is the demand for US financial assets a function of reserve currency or a function of financial returns?