When it comes to geopolitics, all anyone wants to talk about is Syria. And understandably so.
When it comes to financial markets, all anyone wants to talk about is China – an equally understandable fixation.
To be sure, China was already a big driver of risk on/ risk off sentiment going into August of 2015. The “is it a hard landing or is it not” question very often dominated global macro discussions among those who enjoy debating such things.
But when Beijing moved to a new FX regime on August 11, China was thrust into the spotlight. The “surprise” devaluation of the yuan plunged global markets into chaos, triggering “Black Monday” on August 24th and precipitating a massive drawdown of the country’s FX reserves which accelerated the global trend towards “quantitative tightening” (to quote Deutsche Bank).
In the new year, developments in China are unquestionably driving markets. A comically absurd attempt to implement a stock market circuit breaker triggered a series of harrowing declines early last month that set the tone for what turned out to be one of the worst Januarys in market history.
Meanwhile, nearly everyone suspects that a much larger yuan devaluation is in the cards. Kyle Bass, for instance, sees the RMB depreciating by 30-40% as Beijing struggles to recap a banking sector that’s soon to find itseld beset with NPLs.
George Soros shares this view. At Davos, the aging billionaire said his money is on a Chinese hard landing and as such, he’s betting against Asian currencies.
That declaration set off a wave of hilariously absurd Op-Ed’s from the captive Chinese media which the Politburo uses to deflect criticism and lambast foreign “speculators.”
On Sunday, we got the latest “opinion” piece out of China, this time from Xinhua which wants you to know that when it comes to finding a scapegoat for market turmoil, you shouldn’t look east.
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