Wall Street Journal (October 15)
“Murky data” are adding “to China’s housing headache.” The housing glut has eased in China, moving down from 25.2 months’ worth of supply in March to 16.5. But the “glut in China’s property market is worse than official data show,” as data excludes many partially completed or not yet for sale homes.
Bloomberg (August 25)
Despite China’s promising long-term fundamentals, global automakers are facing “an oversupply time bomb” as China’s economy cools. Already, some import car dealers are holding nearly 150 days of supply. “If cutthroat competition for volume sales persists, exacerbated by weakness in the other once-promising BRICS markets, automakers could be headed toward a massive pileup in China.”
Tags: Automakers, BRICS, China, Competition, Economy, Fundamentals, Oversupply, Supply
Wall Street Journal (December 4)
With rising production and falling prices, the ‘Peak Oil’ theory has again been debunked. The world routinely panics, then “relearns that supply responds to necessity and price.” The Malthusian hysteria has not been restricted to oil. There have “been regular warnings that the world is running out of soybeans, helium, chocolate, tunsgsten, you name it—and that population growth has become unsustainable. The warnings create a political or social panic for a while, only to be proved wrong.”
Tags: Chocolate, Debunked, helium, Malthus, Necessity, Panic, Peak Oil, Population growth, Price, Production, Soybeans, Supply, Tunsgsten
Global Investor (February Issue)
“Initial public offerings (IPOs) in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region are gathering momentum, with a burgeoning pipeline of deals and renewed optimism of further supply stretching into the future.” Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul Exchange is predicted to be the region’s most active, followed by the Dubai Financial Market, Qatar Exchange and the Abu Dhabi Exchange. “However, some of these companies could look to the London Stock Exchange due to its wider access to international investors. The dearth of liquidity in regional compared with global exchanges remains a challenge for local IPOs.”
Tags: Abu Dhabi Exchange, Dubai Financial Market, Exchanges, Global, Investors, IPOs, Liquidity, LSE, Middle East, Momentum, North Africa, Pipeline, Qatar Exchange, Regional, Saudi Arabia, Supply, Tadawul Exchange
Investments & Pensions Europe (November Issue)
“UN analysis suggests that if present trends persist, demand for fresh water will outstrip supply by 40% by 2030. By 2050, four billion people will be living in areas facing severe water stress. Add that almost 800m people worldwide do not have access to clean water, while 2.5bn lack basic sanitation, and a worrying picture emerges.” For some investors, however, this suggests opportunities as they begin targeting businesses with water-related growth and avoiding those with unaddressed water-related risk.
Tags: Clean water, Demand, Fresh water, Investors, Opportunities, Risk, Sanitation, Supply, UN, Water stress, Water-related growth
Wall Street Journal (November 4)
By year end, the U.S. is likely to unseat Russia and become the second largest global producer of liquid fuels. The U.S. is now well positioned to escape the capricious yoke of OPEC and “even could surpass Saudi Arabia to become the leading global producer within the next decade.” Former Secretary of State George Schultz and FedEx CEO Fred Smith write, the nation’s leaders should “embrace both the supply revolution now well under way and the emerging demand revolution in oil-displacement technology that, together, promise a more secure and prosperous future.”
Tags: Demand, Energy security, FedEx, Fred Smith, Fuel, Future, George Schultz, Oil-displacement, OPEC, Producer, Revolution, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Supply, Technology, U.S.
Washington Post (February 15)
“The United States sits atop seas of natural gas, a fuel that drives electric turbines, warms homes, heats water and even powers some big trucks. Much of this gas is in unconventional deposits that drillers have only begun to tap. Now that they have, the price of the fuel has plummeted and the United States has gone from a gas importer to a potential exporter, with decades of supply left…. The country can’t use natural gas forever, because it still produces some carbon dioxide. But gas can, for a time, serve as a low-cost alternative to dirtier fossil fuels in a program to steadily green the economy.”
Tags: CO2, Economy, Environment, Fossil fuels, Green, Natural gas, Supply, U.S.
The Economist (June 2)
Fracking has resulted in a shale gas revolution. “At current production rates, America has over a century’s supply of gas, half of it stored in shale and other ‘unconventional’ formations. It should also spread, to China, Australia, Argentina and Europe. Global gas production could increase by 50% between 2010 and 2035, with unconventional sources supplying two-thirds of the growth.”
Fracking has resulted in a shale gas revolution. “At current production rates, America has over a century’s supply of gas, half of it stored in shale and other ‘unconventional’ formations. It should also spread, to China, Australia, Argentina and Europe. Global gas production could increase by 50% between 2010 and 2035, with unconventional sources supplying two-thirds of the growth.”
