Running up that hill - but then?

20 giu 2022

INVESTMENT CONTEXT

• Analysts sharply raised the probability of a recession, while the Fed announced its support to yet another 75bps rate hike in July
  
• A worldwide measure of people’s inflation expectations over the next year was more than 4% in May, up from 2.3% a year ago
  
• Russia cut 60% of natural gas supply to Europe via Nord Stream 1 pipeline; cuts are now estimated to have reached 50% to Austria and Germany and 45% to Italy
  
• Germany announced it would take emergency measures, including restarting coal-fired power plants, to cushion the impact of lower gas supplies from Russia
  
• Turkey offered its support to extending safe grain export corridors from Ukrainian ports
  
• A delegation from the IMF arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, to discuss a rescue package after the country declared default on its international debt
  
• Three Arrows Capital failed to meet demands to provide extra collateral to meet margin calls on digital currency positions
  

PROFZERO'S TAKE

• Carefully monitoring equities after last week's collapse - not even energy stocks, the clear overperformers of the first 150 days of the year, were spared by the rush to sell. Balancing now Value with Growth may become the major challenge for investors as we head into recession - where the winners of the next decade are dictated
  
• Ireland's Finance Minster Paschal Donohoe expressed positive views on the Eurozone, asserting that the balance sheets of the continent's States are in much better shapes then 10 years back, when the contagion of Greece's debt crisis was feared to spill over to Italy and Spain, triggering a spiraling domino effect of defaults. ProfZero unfortunately does not share Mr. Donohoe's optimism. Countries like Italy deeply enjoyed the not-so-implicit backing of the ECB when it came to rolling over government debt in the open market after the investor confidence meltdown in November 2011 - yet no tangible reforms revived the nation's growth and productivity statistics, while public spending rather than targeting infrastructural changes was aimed at winning political approval in the form of heftier unemployment cheques. Taken together, Italy's debt-to-GDP ratio in fact ballooned from 126.5% in 2012 to 150.8% in 2021; inflation may definitely play a role smoothing the nominal debt load, but interest rates are already guiding fixed income traders to bet against the country's solvency, to the point that the ECB had to backtrack on its announcement regarding the end of the EUR 20bn monthly bond-buying program. ProfZero recently reiterated that from an inflation crisis this could easily spiral into a credit downfall; China already had its Evergrande moment. Let's hope the world will suffer a little more piccolo
  
• ProfZero often gets asked "Is it the right time to buy?" - The right question would rather be: "Why and what am I buying?" Until we flip our mindset to that, we'll be just chasing trends, ending up being eaten by the sharks
  

PROFONE'S TAKE

• Following the considerations about the energy of future, ProfOne’s eyes are set on green hydrogen, a promising alternative fuel facing ever-growing demand. Hydrogen has been demonstrated to enjoy potential to replace natural gas in power-hungry industries like cement, steel, ceramics and fertilizers. In the context of de-carbonisation and energy security, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, governments and energy companies upped their investments in green hydrogen: BP (BP) has taken a 40.5% stake in a USD 30bn green hydrogen production project in Australia, while Spain is bidding to become the first green hydrogen hub in Europe. Amidst growing enthusiasm, ProfOne is curious how producers will deal with the challenges of storage and transportation, other than the extremely high production costs. Today's green hydrogen is based on clean electricity from renewable energy; as such, it is ca. 5x more expensive than grey hydrogen (actually the most common, coming from natural gas without emissions recapture). The energy equation has 3 variables: security, reliability and affordability. To date, all known sources can satisfy but 2 at a time - green hydrogen included