The next wave of the virus is starting to hit the northern hemisphere. While the world is better prepared, the infection levels are likely to be greater than during the earlier wave. Please see the charts of projections of deaths and infections from the respected (and to date accurate forecasters) at the University of Washington at Seattle. For long only investors, it’s a good time to go to cash - particularly with the major indices trading around all tIme highs. Overall, investors and the...

Actionable Ideas: Keep a sharp eye on the RMB, the Korean won, the Taiwanese dollar, the Philippine peso, and the Malaysian ringgit. Similarly, monitor the large non-bloc nations of India, Japan, Indonesia, and Australia. Pay close attention to statements from China seeking to tighten the bloc and harm non-bloc states like China’s threat today that it would not buy coal from Australia. www.macroesg.com #macroesg @gregbeier --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/macro-esg/message

Goldman’s US dollar view is wrong on a Joe Biden win and the vaccine. Why? The US dollar weakened under Trump’s divisive leadership. Logic suggests it would therefore rally on the US coming together. Biden’s decades of bipartisan experience and bipartisan support would translate to a stronger dollar (barring, of course, more civil disturbances from police shootings). Dr. Anthony Fauci says that broad availability of a vaccine may not be possible until the 2nd quarter of next year - at the...

In areas of high Trump support, I’ve noticed substantially higher disregard for wearing masks in enclosed public areas. This combined with higher obesity rates as well as weaker public health care systems are creating a perfect storm for an acceleration of the pandemic in these areas. If infections rise in Trump areas before the election, this could push the market lower and push the Republicans to the table to meet Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A US stimulus deal would be bullish for global...

The recent rise in US government bond yields on the longer end (7 to 30 years) indicates investors are already buying into the Biden win and $2+ trillion of green infrastructure spend (I was completely wrong here, expecting the Long Bond to fall to a zero yield {pls see Trump Leads the US to a New Low in Global Norms} in a rush to safety during a highly contested election that looks less likely) which has also brought a firming of the USD too. As the House of Representatives prepares to take...

Following the Dictator’s Handbook, to show strength, President Trump made a big return to the White House last night in a last-ditch effort to garner media attention. Equities and oil are a short as Trump seeks to motivate his base to get out the vote through fomenting fear and bad news via declaring that the stimulus deal is off until after he wins the election. If the market falls out of bed, Trump will hit the breaks through declaring the stimulus talks are back on. As this is a weak,...

The IMF today threw off the shackles of caution and encouraged governments to take on debt and pursue green infrastructure development. Green bonds are going to become core institutional holdings to fund this leap. The hydrocarbon business is about to collapse - transfer payments are going to be essential to ensure that these workers can transition to the new world, lest political and social problems arise. The era of Collective Action Clauses (“CAC’s”) that tie-up restructurings are on the...

If Donald Trump becomes intubated or dies from COVID-19, then it is likely that: Trump’s underlings and the Republican Party will quickly abandon him and his party of one ethos. The election: Republican Senators in weak seats will likely defect to the Democrats, and Seek to quickly approve a stimulus deal which would be very bullish for the the US stock market. www.macroesg.com @macroesg #macroesg --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/macro-esg/message

The US dollar will trade inversely to President Trump’s fortunes. If the election isn’t resolved through an overwhelming win for Biden on election night like I expect, get short the US dollar until the Supreme Court resolves the scenario. If Donald Trump starts to really slump in the polls, then look to get short the US dollar as he’ll likely engage in destabilizing activities to revive his flailing bid. If Donald Trump is unable to carry on the election because of the coronavirus, then...

I just spent a month using a Bloomberg intensively to see if it could do the trick to help with Macro ESG. And it didn’t work. Why? Specifically, the data sets that are required to think about Macro ESG are varied and intense. For example, I was doing an analysis of Angela Merkel’s refugee policy decisions which - inevitably - leads one to study German demographics. While the Bloomberg had each country’s population, it did not have fertility data (this to be published soon - I’ve legal...

Summary: Republicans and Democrats are each stalling fiscal stimulus to either support or hurt Donald Trump in different ways and influence the result of the election. President Trump attempted to protect himself politically with an executive order to supplement unemployment insurance and win support with the electorate. The US stimulus political battle darkens the prospects for the dollar. America’s macro ESG “S” and “G” ratings will decline, exacerbating the dollar’s...

Summary: China is likely preparing the RMB to rally along with the stock market. Perhaps China is doing a deal with the non-China SWF’s – which would make sense. Governments talking to governments – building strategic alliances of capital and trade – new blood brothers. These new alliances of “mutually assured growth and political control” will have a big impact on the evolution of global development. Unless the advanced economies respond forcefully, the world is entering a dark...

Sustainable Future Outlook: But there is a risk to thinking that China will seriously act at all in any time in the near future on climate change. As China is likely to build itself up strategically through creating a “hard” currency by recycling its energy spending with its energy suppliers into rising RMB against the dollar and a rising equity market, it will be unlikely that China will make any meaningful progress on the climate change front. Therefore – Macro ESG’s assessment from...

Summary: As I pointed out in #1 of 6:    Dollar Hinges on Election Post Stimulus Self Destruction, the US dollar will trade entirely based on policy and that will be determined by the election. An examination of Foreign Exchange Holdings (“FXH”) of US dollars as reserve currency data from the IMF from the perspective of US political parties and presidential administrations yields interesting insights. Republicans have hurt the US dollar as a reserve currency while Democrats have been...

Summary: Advanced economies typically led major changes in the US dollar versus emerging economies, when compared from the starting point of freely trading fiat currencies in 1971. For the first time since the dollar went off of the gold standard, advanced economies are losing their power to lead the value of the USD. Now the future of the dollar is equally tied to emerging  and advanced nations, signifying the end of G7 power and the rise of G20 power. China’s plan is to conquer the...

In this sixth piece of the series, I attempt to put all of the pieces together. This is a game for the US to lose. If American politics – the “G” of macro ESG fails in a stimulus spending appropriations failure – then then US markets could take a deep hit. American elites might find themselves pushed into a corner so America may respond with inciting political instability in China through starting border skirmishes. If the US is capable of building a coalition of the leading...

Introduction: This strategic investment piece is an overview of a collection of ideas which will be broken out into a series of long-form pieces with more data and sources to explore and flesh out the theses presented here. While not yet polished, I hope that these points here will be helpful to you. Why Did China Fail to Evolve? Crude Oil and Market Fundamentalism are Finished Authoritarianism and Chinese Companies Delisting From the US Is China Apple’s Achilles Heel? Macro ESG Trumps...

The Macro ESG forecast on June 14th in “Global Investing Post Trump” was that Joe Biden would win the presidency, “oil would become a stranded asset,” and the “move to renewable energy becomes a global goal.” The Financial Times reports today in The Big Read article “Biden gambles on placing climate change at heart of US energy policy” that Biden is delivering on this promise to go big on climate change with a plan to decarbonize the US electrical grid by 2035. Clearly, Joe Biden is going...

Belarus’s recent instability is a product of international oil politics and the poor public health response of the European and American democracies to the pandemic combined with an aging autocrat that didn’t deliver much in the way of benefits to his people. This is a prime example of global power dynamics at work and the events in Belarus are a byproduct of these primary changes. That isn’t to say that Belarus wasn’t ripe for a change (it likely was) - but it shows just how interconnected...

The similarities between what happened in Beirut and what is happening with climate change and biodiversity collapse are striking. Like Beirut, the world has a bomb of climate change and biodiversity collapse risk metaphorically sitting in a warehouse by the port too and, literally, nobody wants to deal with it. Many complaints have been filed with governments by scientists, activists, and the public about this huge risk and yet it is still there, many years on. The world, like Beirut, is...

Short Russia Trade US Stimulus Trade Chinese Cyber Retaliation Go Long - Short the Supply Chain Slow Down / Break Down www.macroesg.com @macroesg --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/macro-esg/message

China will strike back. There is no doubt about it. President Xi’s power rests on his aggressive call to action to the Party’s cadres to be bold. He can’t back down from any challenge to his authority - foreign or domestic. He can - however - bide his time so long as his supporters are confident that he will act, then he is safe. But the gloves are officially off. This morning, in Hong Kong, media mogul Jimmy Lai and his two sons were arrested on suspicion of foreign collusion and uttering...

President Trump just this evening ordered that US firms stop doing business with TikTok and WeChat in 45 days. This is not a surprising development. As Macro ESG has been writing this week, US mega tech (as there really isn’t a comparable entity in the EU or developed Asia) are going to become the interlocutor and guarantor of Chinese tech and media operating outside of China, particularly with respect to users’ privacy and data. Moreover, this fits with the earlier piece on reciprocity...

US mega tech only gets stronger from mediating the China - US technology fight. Chinese bonds are going to drive capital flows to China - a win in the beginning. Privacy and data issues are going to become even more seriously regulated because of the China affair. Www.macroesg.com @macroesg --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/macro-esg/message

The Microsoft purchase of TikTok could be the new detente model for Chinese tech expansion while Trump bungles the global PR win with a colossal gaffe threatening global capitalism. Russia at risk of becoming a massive short on snake oil vaccination program. Treasuries on their way to zero yield. #macroesg www.macroesg.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/macro-esg/message