New York Times (May 24)
Americans may be blind to “the war-driven supply shock already roiling manufacturing in Asia” which is especially “disrupting manufacturing and retail goods in Japan and South Korea” due to disrupted naphtha supply. “Because it serves as the building block for so many chemical products, naphtha is often called the ‘flour’ or ‘rice’ of industry.” So when the Iran War essentially “choked off” Persian Gulf shipping lanes, “more than 80 percent of Japan’s traditional supply lines for finished naphtha products” were “abruptly severed.” By some accounts, Japan and South Korea are consequently “the countries most exposed to the current supply disruptions.”
Tags: Asia, Blind, Exposed, Iran war, Japan, Manufacturing, Naphtha, Persian Gulf, Retail goods, Roiling, Shipping lanes, Shock, South Korea, U.S.
OilPrice.com (March 11)
“The world’s top crude oil and LNG importer, China, is not as exposed and vulnerable to energy deliveries from the Middle East as one might think. China has been amassing crude volumes in storage for months, it has been working for years to diversify oil and gas supply sources and routes, and has boosted the share of transport electrification, which has reduced demand for road transportation fuels.”
Tags: China, Crude oil, Demand, Electrification, Energy, Exposed, Gas, Importer, LNG, Middle East, Storage. Diversify, Supply sources, Transport, Vulnerable
Reuters (July 3)
“Big investors are mobilising to trade through weeks packed with wild-card events that may shatter the calm in stock markets and drive big swings for assets they see as exposed to both positive or negative surprises, from gold to corporate credit.”
Tags: Assets, Big swings, Calm, Corporate credit, Exposed, Gold, Investors, Negative, Positive, Shatter, Stock markets, Surprises, Trade, Wild-card events
Wall Street Journal (March 13)
“For the second time in 15 years (excluding the brief Covid-caused panic), regulators will have encouraged a credit mania, and then failed to foresee the financial panic when the easy money stopped.” Other banks may be exposed to the duration risk that brought down Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), “as last week’s selloff in regional bank stocks shows…. Something like 85% to 90% of SVB’s deposits are uninsured. The worry is that depositors in other banks will now flee.”
Tags: 15 years, Banks, Covid, Credit mania, Deposits, Duration risk, Easy money, Exposed, Financial panic, Regulators, Selloff, Silicon Valley Bank, Uninsured
Washington Post (January 6)
“The Republican Party’s troubles are severe” and it’s “having a nervous breakdown in full public view…. But it is not alone. In many countries around the world, populists are flailing.” They have emerged “as an opposition movement,” but the “shallowness of its policy proposals” is being exposed. “The world’s complicated problems will always allow for someone who proposes answers that are simple, seductive and wrong. But let us hope that 2023 will see populism exposed for the sham that it is.”
Tags: 2023, Exposed, Flailing, Nervous breakdown, Opposition movement, Populists, Republican Party, Seductive, Severe, Shallowness, Sham, Simple, Troubles, Wrong
Barron’s (December 10)
As it attempts to address inflation without derailing the recovery (or worse), the Fed will be walking a tight rope. On the upside, “the banking system is now both better capitalized and less exposed to illiquidity risk than in the past.” Moreover, “both households and firms are in better shape to weather higher interest costs now than they were in 1981 or, indeed, other episodes of monetary tightening.”
Tags: Banking system, Capitalized, Derailing, Exposed, Fed, Firms, Households, Illiquidity, Inflation, Interest costs, Recovery, Risk
The Guardian (October 10)
“The latest revelations mark the beginning of the end for the House of Zuckerberg. The Observer’s investigations into Facebook in 2018 exposed a toxic culture. But still the business thrived.” This may seem like déjà vu, but the outcome looks set to drastically differ from the last slap on the wrist, especially if a new legal suit succeeds in proving Facebook “lied to investors.”
Tags: Déjà vu, Exposed, Facebook, Investigations, Investors, Legal suit, Lied, Outcome, Revelations, Toxic culture, Zuckerberg
The Economist (December 5)
“Europe and America have shown that King Coal can be dethroned.” Next Asia must step up to “topple coal.” Fortunately, this “is overwhelmingly in Asia’s interest to do so. Its people, infrastructure and agriculture are dangerously exposed to the droughts, flooding, storms and rising sea levels caused by climate change….. Coal’s days are numbered. The sooner it is consigned to museums and history books, the better.”
Tags: Agriculture, Asia, Coal, Dethroned, Droughts, Europe, Exposed, Flooding, Infrastructure, Sea levels, Storms, Topple, U.S.
Financial Times (May 5)
Brexit has “exposed the internal divisions within the established political parties and unearthed a diversity of views that is struggling to be contained inside two organisations. A more diverse political landscape would, arguably, be more representative of modern Britain. But making this transition will not be a quick process. Any break-up of the old political order is likely to be long, slow and painful.”
Tags: Break-up, Brexit, Diversity, Divisions, Exposed, Order, Parties, Political landscape, Slow, Struggling, Transition, UK
Time (January 22)
“Trump’s desperation for a North Korea deal may play into Kim’s hand.” An overeager Trump might sign a sweet sounding, but dangerous, peace agreement that leaves the region more war prone, especially if it removes the rationale for stationing U.S. troops nearby. “What does this mean for South Korea? Worst case scenario is that it’s left exposed and isolated by the U.S. with a fanatical foe just miles away.”
Tags: Dangerous, Deal, Desperation, Exposed, Isolated, Kim, North Korea, Overeager, Peace, South Korea, Troops, Trump, U.S., War
