Standard Chartered

All you need to read.

Why would Mary and her friends lie?

With the G20 meeting in Paris such an epic dud there is nothing even the permaspin media can write about (there was no news of a bailout. Nothing), it is time for some paywalled publications to recycle the gibberish about China bailing out Europe all over again. Sorry, it's too late. Courtesy of last week we now know that China is much more focused on bailing out its own largely underwater banking system (first facts, then analysis), than worrying about buying the 17th Community Bank of Thessaloniki. Yet we can keep repeating this so very simple fact until we are blue in the face. So we will leave it Stephen Green, head of Greater China research at Standard Chartered Bank.

Since there is no point anymore in doing any analysis or wasting time thinking, here is the copy and paste of the relevant section from a just released piece in Bloomberg. "Greek Default, Euro Exit Inevitable, Std Chartered CEO Tells Sky. Default, euro exit won’t “necessarily” occur in next 1 or 2 mos., but “quite likely at some stage,” Standard Chartered CEO Gerard Lyons tells Sky News. Greece “not going to pull down Europe” or cause world recession." Actually, the last bit may be a rumor, at least if one remembers what happened to global banking after Lehman was taken down in a "controlled" Chapter 7. Anyway, Johnny 5: take it away.

Following less than parabolic moves higher in the precious metals complex over the past several weeks has extinguished some of the fervor in the space, which of course is welcome: a slow, gradual increase which does not provoke the CME's attention is far better for the boiling free than a sudden surge in prices. Yet the recent period of stability may soon be over. Standard Chartered has just released a report which looks at actual gold breakeven prices, production bottlenecks, central bank interest, and Chinese and Indian buying, and comes to the conclusion that $5,000 gold may just be a matter of time. To wit: "The limited supply comes at a time when central banks have completely changed their tune on selling down their gold stocks and now appear likely to accelerate their net buying programmes. China is way behind the curve. Currently, only 1.8% of China’s foreign exchange reserves is in gold; if the country were to bring this proportion in line with the  global average of 11%, it would have to buy 6,000 more tonnes of gold, equivalent to more than 2 years of gold production. We believe that these factors – limited gold production, buying by central banks and increasing demand from India and China – can potentially drive the  gold price to US$5,000/oz, as highlighted in our commodity team’s earlier report." And what according to Std. Chartered is the best way to capitalize on this undervaluation: "We believe the best ways to invest in the gold cycle are buying physical gold (a safe asset) or investing in junior gold miners (highest leverage to the gold price) that are 1-2 years away from production." Perhaps the current price 66% lower is therefore not a bad entry point...

Every now and then, Standard Chartered has a knack for coming up with that one report that is miles ahead of the competition and promptly becomes the definitive guidebook for the industry. Its most recent one: "Inflation: illusionary, inflammatory" is arguably one of the most detailed and comprehensive reports to come out from an institutional entity in a long time, dealing with the ever so sensitive topic of, you guessed it, inflation. And while it is guaranteed that the Fed will read neither this report, nor today's earlier announcement that food prices hit another all time high in January, we urge all readers to at least familiarize themselves with the contents herein. In addition to providing a case by case geographic atlas of which the next riskiest Tunisia-like countries are, the report includes a unifying thematic overview that explains not only why the global liquidity glut is long overdue to be pulled back, but what the next (and last) steps available to central bankers are before a wave of global unrest undoes 100 years of failed Federal Reserve policies. An absolute must read.

In pursuing an answer to the most elusive question around these days, namely just what is going on in China's real estate market, Standard Chartered has conducted the first phase of an exhaustive survey analyzing precisely what the real estate trends in Beijing, Shangai, and other Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities. The survey attempts to answer such key questions as: "What is really going on in China’s real-estate sector? Are prices falling – and if not, will they? Are developers’ finances
getting tight, and if so, will they be forced to cut prices? Confronted with the State Council’s stringent cooling policies, are developers postponing project starts and stopping construction? And if they do stop building, will this derail the economy and thus force the State Council to loosen policy?" For all curious to learn more about the truth behind the hype regarding China's real estate, which has more polarizing opinions than pretty much any other issue, this is the presentation for you.

The bank that got its ass kicked first in the subprime collapse in 2007 may be the first one again to get the KY treatment from the Dubai implosion.

Today’s avalanche of China data suggests that the economic recovery is solid, but that the momentum ebbed in July. What was a V-shaped recovery now seems to be experiencing a little gravitational pull. The slightly weaker-than-expected data means an even smaller chance of an imminent change in macro policy and lends weight to those who argue that it is too early to tighten. Having seen the data early, Premier Wen Jiabao restated at the weekend that the goal was to maintain a proactive fiscal policy and a moderately loose monetary policy.