After the clipping of Mario Draghi’s wings, and the European Central Bank is gaining support after losing it last week.
Writing for investorsintelligence.com, C. Dochio sums it up:
“The ECB’s surprise rate cut and other stimulus measures initially resulted in weakness for the Euro. However, that slide was turned around in a dramatic fashion. Against the US Dollar, for instance, firm intraday support was encountered at $1.0822; close to the lows of the December/early-February trading band, with the rate jumping back up towards last month’s high at $1.1376.
“However, volatility is continuing into Friday, with the single European currency trading at $1.1109 a short time ago. We would stand aside until the dust settles; also noting the lack of activity following the last upward dynamic by the Euro on 3 December. “ (We trade ideas with investorsintelligence, a British daily financial blog.)
Boosting stocks last week was the latest somewhat ambiguous word form the International Energy Authority in Paris. The IEA noted that oil prices have “recovered remarkably” and said there are “signs that crude prices have bottomed out” like “possible action by oil producers to control output; supply outages in Iran, Nigeria, and the Emirates, and US$ weakness.” But it doesn’t expect a new supply-demand balance before the end of this year.
Perhaps more importantly, Goldman Sachs put out a bullish report on oil prices giving a target price per barrel for Q2 of $25-45. Last week, the London price was $38.85/barrel. Also boosting oil price is the mano-a-mano against the US Administration’s methane emissions rules on existing oil and gas wells by the American Petroleum Institute. Cleaning up the gas would discourage the shale revolution which has lowered energy costs and increased US energy independence, the API charges. This is separate from the lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management regs on fracking. The oil industry is fighting against measures to reduce environmental damage from fracking, but they will ultimately increase the price of oil and natural gas.
The Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong took down social media on the websites of South China Morning Post and Caixin. Both were suffering blockages and deletions of negative articles about Chinese policy as the Chinese Communist Party holds its national congress.
Rumor has it that other global websites, of The Financial Times, Bloomberg, and Reuters were also taken off-line in Hong Kong.
When I last was in China, in 2008, I used Deutsche Welle and NZZ (in German) to keep up with news from the real world. After we returned to Hong Kong the normal internet was available. Now China is changing course and Hong Kong’s free-wheeling press and netizens are a target.
Beijings Cyberspace Administration says internet service providers are responsible for “removing accounts which break the law or are harmful”. Both blocked sites have reported on the disappearance of 5 Hong Kong bookstore owners who sold books critical of Beijing. SCMP was long a champion of Chinese dissidents starting with the 1989 Tienanmin Square uprising which it commemorates on every anniversary.
However Alibaba (BABA) is now in the process of buying control of the SCMP, whose shareholders will vote on the issue next week. BABA controls Weibo, one of the Chinese sites where blockages are occurring. Its stock is listed in the US.
Under the rules for its takeover of Hong Kong with Margaret Thatcher, China agreed not to interfere with Hong Kong politics. But the present regime is not respecting international accords as it clings to power in a declining economy.
The other internet blockages are on WeChat which belongs to Tencent, HK-700, which we recommend. TCTZF in turn is 34% owned by South Africa’s Naspers, NPSNY, which we also tip. They were up strongly last week, on the assumption that the Chinese regime will have to pay handsomely to get control. Tencent also has huge global bond debts which can suffer from Chinese pressures to self-censor.
*Nokia‘s (NOK) future is not exclusively tied to the spread of 4G and 5G to Chinese and Japanese cellphone users whose markets are hard to win. However, other countries where telephone exchange markets are growing range from India to Nigeria, from The Philippines to Thailand.
