Emerging Markets

Highlights The Chinese authorities have progressively tightened capital account control regulations to staunch capital outflows, which will likely slow the drawdown of the country's official reserves in the near term. Rising yields in China are largely reflective rather than restrictive. Monetary easing through interest rate cuts has likely run its course, but it is highly unlikely that the PBoC will raise rates to protect the RMB. The Shenzhen-Hong Kong connect program is yet another step towards China's capital account liberalization. In the near term it could give a boost to Hong Kong-listed shares due to the large valuation gap. The direct impact on the RMB is marginal. Feature The mighty U.S. dollar occupied the cover of this week's Economist magazine - it has also clearly occupied the top spot on our clients' 'worry lists'. We were in China last week talking to clients and conducting some "field research", and the yuan's depreciation was a key focal point of the discussions. Historically, Economist magazine cover stories have mostly turned out to be perfect contrarian signals, and it remains to be seen whether this one will be a blessing or curse for the greenback. What's more certain is that there is a clear consensus among Chinese investors on the one-way descent of the RMB against the dollar going forward, and the People's Bank of China (PBoC) is facing an uphill battle in containing domestic capital outflows. The latest program linking Chinese equities and the overseas market is the Shenzhen-Hong Kong connect program, which debuted early this week. This suggests the Chinese authorities are still committed to capital account deregulation. In the near term, however, capital control measures have been tightened progressively to preserves official reserves and maintain domestic liquidity. Full-Court Press Heightened concerns over the CNY/USD cross rate of late have ignored the fact that the RMB has remained one of the stronger currencies among a synchronized plunge against the seemingly unstoppable dollar. The trade-weighted RMB has picked up notably in recent weeks, even though it has depreciated against the greenback (Chart 1). Nonetheless, Chinese investors' perception of the currency matters greatly, as it could potentially create a self-fulfilling downward spiral between capital outflows and exchange rate depreciation. It is both naïve and highly risky to expect the RMB to settle down at a "market clearing" level against the dollar without a chaotic undershoot. The "Impossible Trinity" theory in international finance dictates that a country cannot simultaneously control its exchange rate with independent monetary policy and free flow of capital. Among these conditions, free flow of capital has been the least expensive sacrifice for the Chinese authorities.1 In basketball, full-court press refers to a defensive tactic in which members of a team cover their opponents throughout the court, and not just near their own basket. This is what the Chinese authorities appear to be doing in terms of their efforts at staunching capital outflows. Cracking down on underground money smugglers facilitating RMB conversions with other currencies, particularly in regions neighboring Hong Kong. Anecdotal evidence suggests a sharp slowdown in illegal money transfers. Tightening scrutiny on trade invoicing verifications to crack down on "fake" international trades. Chinese imports from Hong Kong, sky-high last year as Chinese local firms fabricated import businesses to move money offshore, have tumbled to a fraction of last year's peak level (Chart 2). Restricting Chinese nationals from purchasing insurance policies issued by Hong Kong insurance firms. The massive boom of Hong Kong insurance sales to mainland residents in recent years will likely see a significant setback (Chart 3). Chart 1The RMB's Depreciation In Perspective Chart 2Blocking Capital Leakage In Trade... Chart 3...Services... These restrictive measures have been either targeting illegal channels or activities that are of minor importance to the economy as a whole. More recently, the authorities have also begun tightening rules on direct overseas investment by Chinese firms. Projects over US$10 billion and investments in "non-core" businesses are being tightly scrutinized. As companies' overseas expansion efforts are largely strategic in nature and tend to be long term, policymakers are potentially sacrificing long-term economic interests for a near-term fix of capital leakage. This underscores the authorities' increasing anxiety over capital outflows. Chart 4 shows net FDI outflows have become a major source of China's capital outflows in recent quarters, while Chinese firms paying off foreign liabilities was previously the main reason.2 Moreover, there has been a rush to acquire foreign assets among large Chinese firms this year, which is probably partially motivated by avoiding exchange rate losses (Chart 5). Chinese overseas investment activity will likely slow down significantly in the near term. Chart 4...And Outward Direct Investment Chart 5Overseas M&A Under Scrutiny Yesterday's data release show Chinese official reserves dropped to USD 3.05 trillion in November, down USD 69 billion from October. On surface, this is a marked deterioration from previous months. Underneath, however, our calculation shows that the decline in the headline official reserve number is more than explained by the mark-to-market paper losses from both a strengthening dollar and rising interest rates in the U.S. in the past month. Non-dollar assets account for about half of Chinese official reserves, and the 5% surge in the U.S. dollar index last month alone should have led to about $75 billion paper losses in the dollar value of Chinese reserves. Meanwhile, Chinese holdings of U.S. treasuries and agency bonds amount to about USD 1.4 trillion, and the sharp spike in U.S. risk free rates last month should have shaved off at least USD 30 billion in value. Taken together, the mark-to-market losses of Chinese reserve holdings are should be substantially higher than the decline in reserves last month. This may suggest that China's all-out efforts to stabilize capital outflows have been effective and should further reduce the drawdown of the country's official reserves. P.S. Over the years, we have been running a series of Special Reports tracking the composition and evolvement of China's foreign reserves. This year's update will be published next week. Stay tuned. Chart 6Interest Rate Vs Exchange Rate Will Interest Rates Be The Next Shoe To Drop? Chinese interest rates have also begun to pick up in recent weeks, as the RMB has continued to depreciate against the dollar (Chart 6). The increase in interest rates so far has been much milder compared with mid-2015, when RMB/USD depreciation sparked widespread financial volatility. Some have attributed China's higher interest rates to a weakening currency - as a sign that the country's monetary policy independence has been undermined. Recently, a senior PBoC official hinted that the central bank can raise interest rates if necessary to counter the downward pressure of the RMB, which further reinforces this view. Raising interest rates has been a typical policy response, especially among emerging countries look to defend their exchange rates, but it has rarely been proven successful. Hiking rates at a time of currency weakness further weakens domestic growth, which can in turn reinforce additional downward pressure on the exchange rate. The PBoC could certainly raise its benchmark rate, but we doubt the central bank is at all considering this option. In our view, the recent rise in Chinese interest rates may be attributable to both domestic and global factors: Globally, the synchronized selloff of bonds in major countries may have also pushed up Chinese interest rates. Chinese 10-year government bond yields have increased by 45 basis points since their August lows, not extraordinary considering the 102-basis-point selloff in U.S. Treasurys (Chart 7). Domestically, stronger growth numbers reported of late are providing additional evidence of growth improvement, which may have led to an adjustment in Chinese interest rate expectations (Chart 8). The latest PMI numbers point to further acceleration in both manufacturing and service industries, while the growth "surprise index" has been gradually improving and the yield curve has been steepening. Chart 7Higher Chinese Yields Reflect Global Factors... Chart 8... And Growth Improvement In short, we view rising yields in China as largely reflective rather than restrictive. As such, the PBoC is unlikely to rush in to push yields down just yet. In terms of monetary policy, we maintain the view that China's monetary easing through interest rate cuts has likely run its course, at least in the near term. Nonetheless, raising interest rates to protect the RMB would be a major policy mistake that would further undermine the exchange rate. Chart 9Cheaper Hong Kong Valuation Attracts ##br##Chinese Domestic Capital The Shenzhen-Hong Kong Connect Compared with the Shanghai-Hong Kong program that started over two years ago, the Shenzhen-Hong Kong connect program that debuted early this week has been received with much less enthusiasm from investors on both sides. The muted response in the marketplace likely reflects generally depressed sentiment within both Chinese and Hong Kong bourses. Given the large gap between Chinese domestic A shares and Hong Kong-listed stocks and well-entrenched expectorations of further RMB weakness, Chinese investors' purchases of Hong Kong-listed shares, or southbound purchases, will likely continue to increase (Chart 9). The establishment of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong connect program is also another step in liberalizing China's capital account controls. While in the near term this contradicts the authorities' recent efforts to block capital outflows, the new stock connect channel is subject to daily quotas, and capital movement is under close scrutiny. Meanwhile, capital flows through the stock exchanges are tiny compared with economic activity. In the past two years, Chinese domestic investors' cumulative "southbound" net purchases of Hong Kong-listed stocks only amounted to RMB 200 billion, or US$30 billion, a fraction of the country's capital movement and foreign reserve holdings. As far as investors are concerned, a major difference between the two Chinese domestic exchanges is their sectoral composition. The Shanghai Stock Exchange is heavily concentrated in the financial sector and state-controlled enterprises (Table 1). The Shenzhen Stock Exchange, on the other hand, is more tech-heavy with larger representation of private firms, and therefore has been more dynamic, which is also reflected in its stock prices. The Shenzhen stock index has outperformed that of Shanghai massively in recent years (Chart 10). In this vein, opening Shenzhen stocks directly gives overseas investors another option to tap into some of China's fastest growing sectors. This could also increase the odds that MSCI Inc. may include Chinese domestic stocks in its widely followed EM and global indices in its next review. Table 1Sectoral Components Of Shanghai And ##br##Shenzhen Exchanges Chart 10Shenzhen Market's Secular Outperformance##br## Against Shanghai The bottom line is that the Shenzhen-Hong Kong connect program is yet another step towards China's capital account liberalization, allowing freer access between Chinese and overseas investors to each other's financial assets. In the near term it could give a boost to Hong Kong-listed shares due to the large valuation gap. The direct impact on the RMB is marginal. Yan Wang, Senior Vice President China Investment Strategy yanw@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see China Investment Strategy Weekly Report, "The RMB's Near-Term Dilemma And Long-Term Ambition", dated October 20, 2016, available at cis.bcaresearch.com 2 Please see China Investment Strategy Special Report, "Mapping China's Capital Outflows: A Balance Of Payment Perspective", dated February 3, 2016, available at cis.bcaresearch.com Cyclical Investment Stance Equity Sector Recommendations

Special Report

Highlights There are rising odds that Turkey will undertake military action in the Middle East. When and if this occurs, it will severely undermine already fragile investor confidence, and foreign capital inflows will evaporate. Feature As foreign capital inflows dry up, the lira will continue to plunge, pushing up borrowing costs. Yet the authorities' tolerance for higher interest rates is extremely low. The only way to gain control over interest rates and prevent them from shooting up when the currency plunges will be to impose capital controls. The imposition of capital controls would be a political decision, and hence it is impossible to forecast its form or timing with any precision. That said, investors should be mindful of growing odds of capital controls being imposed, and incorporate it into their strategic decision-making. Rising risks of capital controls entail not only closing long positions and taking capital out of the country but also closing short positions because, capital controls, if enacted, mean any capital will be stuck in liras, which will likely depreciate a lot. Turkey's "Two-Level Game" BCA's Geopolitical Strategy's main geopolitical theme since 2012 has been American hegemonic deleveraging.1 This process ushered in an era of multipolarity, a distribution of power where more than one or two countries can pursue their national interests independently. We know from history and formal modeling in political science that a multipolar context is the one most likely to produce military conflict.2 Turkey is today a perfect example of why multipolarity is volatile. Once a staunch U.S. ally and model democracy for the region, Turkey largely toed the American line for the post-World War II era. Over the past five years, however, Turkish policymakers have experienced both the risks and rewards of multipolarity. On the one hand, multipolarity means that Turkey can finally pursue its own interests in the Middle East. On the other, it means that it cannot rely on the U.S. for protection when it does so. Turkey is today the most unpredictable major power. With its foreign policy outsourced to the U.S. for so many decades, Ankara is going through a trial-and-error process of what it can and cannot do on its own. This process is fraught with political risks. Complicating the situation further, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is playing a "two-level game" between international and domestic policy. Since the anti-government protests in 2013, Erdogan has exploited domestic and international crises to rally the people "around the flag" and increase support for his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its planned constitutional reforms. Geopolitical Risks In February 2016, BCA's Geopolitical Strategy noted that direct Turkish involvement in Iraq and Syria could be one of the five "Black Swans" of the year.3 It was clear to us that the days of the Islamic State's pseudo-Caliphate were numbered, and that both Syrian Kurds and Iraqi Kurds stood to gain the most from the terrorist group's defeat. This was unacceptable to Turkey, which therefore intervened militarily to counter Kurdish gains, and may intervene further in the near future. We are particularly concerned about three potential dynamics: Direct intervention in Syria and Iraq: The Turkish military entered Syria in August, launching operation "Euphrates Shield." Turkey also reinforced a small military base in Bashiqa, Iraq, only 15 kilometers north of Mosul. Both operations were ostensibly undertaken against the Islamic State, but the real intention is to limit the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, who benefit from the collapse of the Islamic State. Map I-1 shows the extent to which Kurds have expanded their control in Syria and Iraq. In Syria, Turkish forces are attempting to prevent Syrian Kurds from connecting their territory in the north of the country, which would create a Kurdish mini-state right next to the Turkish border. In Iraq, it is unclear what Turkish intentions are. Map I-1Kurdish Gains In Syria & Iraq Conflict with Russia and Iran: Syrian and Iraqi Kurds are staunch American allies. As such, Turkey's direct military intervention in both states will anger Washington. However, the real risk to Turkey is not from its NATO ally, but rather from Russia and Iran. Consider that in Syria, Erdogan's stated objective is to remove President Bashar al-Assad from power.4 Yet Russia and Iran are both involved militarily in the country - the latter with its regular ground troops - to keep Assad in power. True, Russia and Turkey cooled tensions recently. Yet the Turkish ground incursion into Syria increases the probability that tensions will re-emerge. Meanwhile, in Iraq, Erdogan has cast himself as a defender of Sunni Arabs and has suggested that Turkey still has a territorial claim to northern Iraq. This stance would put Ankara in direct confrontation with the Shia-dominated Iraqi government, allied with Iran. Turkey-NATO/EU tensions: Turkey is a member of NATO, a collective self-defense alliance. However, the cornerstone Article 5 of the NATO Treaty specifically limits the alliance to attacks that occur in Europe or North America. As such, Turkey would have no recourse to the Treaty's self-defense clause if it were to get into a war with Russia and Iran in the Middle East.5 Furthermore, tensions have increased between Turkey and the EU over the migration deal they signed in March 2016. Turkey claims that the deal has stemmed the flow of migrants to Europe, which is dubious given that the flow abated well before the deal was struck (Chart I-1). Since then, Turkey has threatened to open the spigot and let millions of Syrian refugees into Europe. This is likely a bluff as Turkey depends on European tourists, import demand, and FDI for hard currency (more on Turkey's foreign capital dependence in the sections below) (Chart I-2). If Erdogan acted on his threat and unleashed Syrian refugees into Europe, the EU could abrogate the 1995 EU-Turkey customs union agreement and impose economic sanctions. Chart I-1Turkey's Migration Threat Is Not Credible Chart I-2Turkey Is Heavily Dependent On The EU The Turkish foray into the Middle East poses the chief risk of a "shooting war" that could impact global investors in 2017. While there are much greater geopolitical games afoot - such as increasing Sino-American tensions6 - this one is the most likely to produce military conflict between serious powers. It would be disastrous for Turkey. First, it is not clear what state the Turkish military is in. President Erdogan has purged the military of hundreds of generals and thousands of lower level officers since the July 2016 coup d'état. Second, Turkey would be directly challenging Russia and Iran when both have prepositioned troops and air assets in the Middle East. Third, any Turkish military aggression will further distance Ankara from its Western allies. The U.S. and Europe could impose an arms embargo on Turkey, which would severely limit its ability to prosecute a long military campaign (given its reliance on NATO-compliant armament). Bottom Line: Turkey's increasing involvement in the geopolitical morass that is the Middle East is a clear and definite risk. It has no upside. So why is President Erdogan contemplating it? Domestic Political Risk President Erdogan has used geopolitical and security crises to bolster his popularity and hold on power. We therefore see Erdogan's geopolitical assertiveness as a reflection of his domestic political insecurity. This insecurity began with the mid-2013 Gezi Park protests, which came as a shock to Erdogan. We noted at the time that political volatility has been the norm for Turkey since the Second World War. The anomaly was the decade of tranquility under the AKP rule.7 The anti-government protests came amidst a slumping economy and as Erdogan was trying to enact multiple constitutional changes. The first change was to turn the presidency into a democratically elected position, which Erdogan subsequently contested and won in August 2014 (albeit with only 52% of the vote). The second change, to turn Turkey into a presidential republic and give Erdogan sweeping powers at the expense of the parliament, required a two-thirds majority in the legislature and thus a big win at the scheduled 2015 elections. From that critical moment in mid-2013, Erdogan faced multiple setbacks on the domestic front that stalled his constitutional reforms: December 2013: A corruption scandal embroiled several key members of government, including family members of ministers. June 2015: The ruling AKP failed to win a majority in parliamentary elections, with the pro-Kurdish and liberal People's Democratic Party (HDP) winning an extraordinary 80 seats. July 2015: June elections were immediately followed with renewed violence between Turkish armed forces and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Kurdish militant group based in Turkey. November 2015: Erdogan campaigned on a law and order platform, charging pro-Kurdish HDP with responsibility for renewed violence. The incumbent AKP won a majority, but fell short of the two-thirds needed to turn the country into a presidential republic. We expect Erdogan to call a constitutional referendum in the spring of 2017, given that his AKP, plus nationalists in parliament, have 60% of the seats needed to call for one. Polls are unreliable, but if we combine public support for AKP and nationalists in the November 2015 election as a proxy for support for a presidential republic, it suggests Erdogan will win the plebiscite. To gain support from nationalists for constitutional amendment, Erdogan will have to agree to their demands that the constitution reaffirm Turkish ethnic identity as the basis for citizenship, as well other anti-Kurdish demands. The referendum could therefore rekindle tensions between the government and Kurds, a conflict that could gain an international dimension with the Kurds in Syria and Iraq ascendant. Erdogan may continue to use geopolitical crises to rally support. Domestic politics is messy in Turkey as the country has competitive and largely free elections. If the liberal, coastal opposition were to unite with the Kurdish population behind a single candidate, Erdogan could conceivably be defeated in a future election. As such, external and internal geopolitical and security crises are useful as they give a popular boost to the president while giving the security apparatus a reason to target political opponents. Unfortunately, this dynamic is likely to increase domestic political risk and encourage Erdogan to sacrifice Turkey's political and economic institutions - including the country's adherence to the principals of the free market - for short-term political gain. It is highly unlikely that this political and geopolitical context will create an environment conducive to difficult, pro-market, choices. Instead, we expect the government to double down on populist policies that boost wages, increase liquidity in the banking system, and erode central bank independence. Bottom Line: President Erdogan is playing a "two-level game," with domestic political insecurity motivating geopolitical assertiveness. This is dangerous as the game could get out of hand. Populist policies will continue. Financial And Economic Constraints Foreign financing has been and remains a major constraint. Turkey is dependent on foreign capital flows to finance its still-large current account deficit of $32 billion, or 4% of GDP (Chart I-3). Therefore Turkish policymakers should, in theory, conduct credible monetary and fiscal policies, as well as provide an investor-friendly political and economic backdrop to attract foreign capital. Yet, in reality, the exact opposite is happening. Macro policies, and monetary policy in particular, have been completely unorthodox. On the one hand, the central bank has been intervening in the foreign exchange market, depleting its already extremely low level of foreign exchange reserves. On the other, it has been injecting liquidity into the financial system via lending to banks and other means (Chart I-4). The central bank's overnight lending to commercial banks has surged (Chart I-4, bottom panel). Chart I-3Turkey: Large Current Account Deficit = ##br##Reliance On Foreign Capital Chart I-4The Central Bank Is Injecting Enormous ##br##Liquidity Into The System In short, the Central Bank of Turkey (CBT) has been conducting "reverse sterilization" by injecting liras into circulation. It is doing so to avoid a rise in market-based interest rates, since rates typically rise when a central bank sells foreign currency and buys (i.e. withdraws) local currency from the system. In addition, the CBT cut interest rates 6 times from March to September. Remarkably, this combination of liquidity expansion and rate cuts has taken place while wages have been skyrocketing - 20% in nominal terms and 10% in real (inflation-adjusted) terms (Chart I-5). Money and credit growth have also boomed at 15-20% (Chart I-6). Wages and unit labor costs are the most critical factors in generating genuine inflation in any economy. We can very confidently state that in recent years Turkey had extremely high inflation. Chart I-5Turkish Wage Inflation Is Explosive Chart I-6Turkey: Money Supply Is Booming In a country where inflationary forces are genuine and intense and the central bank is running very loose monetary policy - i.e. well behind the curve - the currency typically depreciates a lot. Chart I-7Turkey's Net Foreign ##br##Reserves Are Running Low Hence, it is not surprising that the lira has plunged. In fact, without central bank intervention through foreign currency sales, the lira would have plunged much more. The CBT's net international reserves have dropped to a mere $20 billion from $46 billion in 2010 (Chart I-7). Net foreign exchange reserves exclude commercial banks' deposits at the central bank. The often-quoted number by the central bank of $100 billion is gross foreign exchange reserves, which includes commercial banks' foreign currency deposits at the central bank. These are liabilities of the central bank, and they do not belong to the monetary authorities. Net foreign currency reserves are currently equal to only one month of imports, and odds are that the CBT will run out of its own foreign exchange reserves very soon. In such a case, the monetary authorities could choose to use banks' foreign currency deposits to defend the lira, but the CBT would then become liable to commercial banks. Since the government owns the central bank, this would ultimately become the government's liability. Although the monetary authorities could use commercial banks' foreign exchange reserves deposited at the CBT, the act of doing so would further undermine investor confidence, and foreign capital inflows would dry up and probably turn negative. This would also remove the buffer that prevents bank runs on foreign currency deposits from occurring. Furthermore, Table I-1 illustrates the current profile of Turkey's external debt. The high level of external and foreign exchange-denominated debt, as well as elevated foreign funding requirements - $150 billion or 21% of GDP over the next 12 months - mean that debtors and the overall economy have limited tolerance for further currency depreciation. Yet the only credible way to stem the currency's plunge is to hike interest rates. That, in turn, would produce a full-blown credit downturn, pushing the economy into recession. Hiking interest rates is precisely what Turkey did many times in the past when faced with unsustainable exchange-rate levels. However, that was back when the credit-to-GDP ratio was low (Chart I-8) and policymakers were more orthodox and followed IMF prescriptions. Table I-1Turkish External Debt By Sector Chart I-8Turkey's Credit-To-GDP ##br##Ratio Has Risen Considerably At the moment, President Erdogan is not only bashing orthodox monetary policies and blaming foreign speculators for his country's troubles,8 but also pursuing a geopolitical strategy that contradicts that of both the U.S. and the EU, as outlined above. Overall, having no appetite for higher interest rates and a recession, the Turkish authorities will ultimately have no choice but to opt for capital controls to diminish the lira's decline. Bottom Line: To prevent currency depreciation from causing a surge in interest rates and an economic implosion, policymakers will likely end up introducing capital controls. Is The Lira Cheap? Although the nominal exchange rate has depreciated a lot, the lira is not yet very cheap. This is because wages have been skyrocketing in local currency terms, while productivity has been stagnant (Chart I-9). This means Turkey's unit labor costs have swelled (Chart I-9, bottom panel). Consequently, the lira's real effective exchange rate is not yet very cheap (Chart I-10). When expressed in euros, unit labor costs in Turkey have not declined at all, and have not yet improved compared to those of central European countries (Chart I-11). Chart I-9Turkey: Low Productivity, ##br##High Unit Labor Costs Chart I-10Lira Is Not Cheap Chart I-11Turkish Manufacturing ##br##Is Not Competitive... Consistently, Turkey has lagged central European countries in penetrating European markets. Since 2006, Turkey's market share in non-energy European imports has been mostly flat, while it has significantly increased for central European countries (Chart I-12). Even though the rising export penetration of central European countries can also be attributable to factors beyond currency competitiveness, the point remains that Turkey needs further currency depreciation to boost exports. Consistent with the fact that the lira is not yet very cheap, Turkish manufacturing is struggling (Chart I-13) and the country's current account balance, excluding oil, has been deteriorating. Chart I-12...And Is Losing EU Market Share Chart I-13Turkish Industry Needs ##br##A Much Weaker Currency Bottom Line: The lira is not very cheap. It has to depreciate more to boost Turkey's competitiveness and ameliorate the current account deficit. Investment Recommendations Chart I-14Stay Underweight Turkish ##br##Stocks Versus The EM Benchmark Over the past several years, we have been recommending shorting/underweight Turkish assets on the grounds of a dire economic and financial outlook as well as uneasy geopolitics. We have repeatedly warned that the Turkish central bank cannot defy the Impossible Trinity - trying to control the exchange rate and interest rates simultaneously when the country has an open capital account. It seems a final showdown in policymakers' fight to control both the exchange rate and interest rates is looming: the odds of some sort of capital controls being implemented are rising. Dedicated EM equity and fixed-income portfolios (both credit and local-currency bonds) should continue underweighting Turkey (Chart I-14). Absolute-return and non-dedicated EM investors should limit their investments in Turkish financial markets. BCA's Emerging Markets Strategy service's trade of shorting the TRY versus the USD remains intact. However, we recommend investors book profits as the exchange rate approaches USD/TRY 3.9. Similarly, traders should take profits on our trade of shorting 2-year bonds and bank stocks when the lira's exchange rate gets closer to USD/TRY 3.9. Marko Papic, Senior Vice President Geopolitical Strategy marko@bcaresearch.com Stephan Gabillard, Research Analyst stephang@bcaresearch.com Arthur Budaghyan, Senior Vice President Emerging Markets Strategy arthurb@bcaresearch.com Indonesia: Beware Of Excessive Wage Inflation In the very near term, Indonesia, like other EM countries with current account deficits and high equity valuations, is vulnerable to rising U.S. bond yields, an associated relapse in EM currencies, and a simultaneous rise in local bond yields. Heading into 2017, Indonesian financial markets will likely come under pressure from a renewed decline in commodities prices and rising domestic inflation. While the country's structural fundamentals are much better than those of Turkey, South Africa, Brazil, and Malaysia, Indonesia's financial markets are quite vulnerable due to elevated valuations and foreign investor positioning. Indonesia has been one of the darlings of EM investors over the past several years, and any selloff in EM risk assets could trigger an exodus of capital. With foreigners holding some 40% of outstanding domestic bonds, Indonesia is vulnerable to capital outflows. Furthermore, the equity market has formed a major top and a breakdown is likely (Chart II-1). High Wage Inflation Is Bearish For The Rupiah And Local Rates The inflation outlook is deteriorating in Indonesia: Wages are rising briskly across most industries (Chart II-2). Even in recession-hit sectors such as mining, wages grew by a stunning 20% between February 2015 and February 2016. Given the general rise in commodities prices this year, labor will demand even higher wage growth in 2017. Chart II-1Indonesian Equities Formed A Major Top Chart II-2Indonesia's Wage Growth Is High The central government's October 2015 minimum wage regulation - which sets minimum wage increases at the level of nominal GDP growth - is unlikely to be successful in restraining wage growth. Labor unions are extremely powerful in Indonesia, and they are currently staging numerous protests demanding minimum wage increases on the order of 25% in 2017. We therefore believe average wage growth will continue to be higher than nominal GDP growth. Odds are that wage growth will be in the double digits, while nominal GDP is currently 8.4%. Please refer to Box II-1 for more details on the issue of unions and strikes. BOX II-1 Union Protests Against Wage Indexation Labor unions across the Indonesian archipelago are highly dissatisfied with the announced 2017 minimum wage level. As a result of the government's minimum wage reforms adopted last year, pushback by unions was inevitable. The new rules will tie minimum wages to nominal GDP instead of letting it be decided at the district level by unions, businesses, and local governments. Since the unions are now at risk of losing significant influence, they are staging protests: The North Sumatran administration announced an 8.3% increase in 2017 minimum wages, but the region's labor union fiercely objected to it. The latter is now planning major protests and threatening to paralyze the industrial sector if the authorities do not comply. The region is Indonesia's fourth-most populated. Similarly, in East Java, Indonesia's second-most populous province, labor unions are not satisfied by the announced wage rise and are demanding revisions. Meanwhile, the administration in South Sulawesi raised minimum wages for 2017 by 11.1% - above the central government's assigned level - and the business community has voiced major concerns. The provincial administration has nevertheless publicly denied it has violated the central government's policy. The Confederation of Indonesian Workers Unions (KSPI) has grown dissatisfied with the announced increase in Jakarta's minimum wage (8.25%). As a result, the KSPI decided to latch on to Islamist-led protests on December 2, demanding the ousting of Jakarta's Governor "Ahok" (Basuki Tjahaja Purnama). This highlights that labor unions are willing to tap into growing religious tensions in order to make their demands more potent. This could end up being a serious issue, requiring the central government to negotiate a compromise that waters down efforts to reform minimum wages. Strong wage growth has outpaced productivity gains, and will continue to do so. While strong wage gains are good for consumption, mushrooming unit labor costs (Chart II-3) are compressing corporate profit margins and damaging Indonesia's competitiveness. Companies faced with rising wages/labor costs will have to either hike prices or squeeze margins. Both scenarios are bearish for share prices. The central bank has been extremely dovish and has, so far, disregarded rampant wage growth. Odds are that it will be late in addressing rising inflationary pressures. Typically, the exchange rate of a country where its central bank is behind the inflation curve depreciates. We expect the Indonesian rupiah to weaken significantly as Bank Indonesia (BI) will be late to raise interest rates. Although the policy rate and domestic bonds yields appear attractive when compared with the inflation rate,9 interest rates are very low compared with wage growth. We believe wages, and more specifically unit labor costs, are more genuine indicators of underlying inflation dynamics than food or energy prices - even though the latter have large weights in Indonesia's consumer price index basket. In short, interest rates are too low when compared to wage growth. Notably, over the past year or so households and businesses shifted their deposits away from foreign currency and into local currency. It seems the trend is now reversing (Chart II-4). Growing demand for U.S. dollars from residents will also weigh on the rupiah. Chart II-3Unit-Labor Costs Are Soaring Chart II-4Indonesian Residents Will Start Buying Dollars A weaker currency will push up interest rates. Higher interest rates in turn will curtail credit growth. Chart II-5 shows that the local-currency loan impulse is already rolling over and will drag economic growth lower. Indonesian commercial banks are saddled with rising non-performing loans (NPLs). Banks will be forced to increase provisioning for bad assets, leading to slower profit and loan growth. For a detailed analysis on Indonesian banks, please refer to our May 18 Weekly Report.10 Finally, narrow (M1) money growth has rolled over decisively. Historically, this has coincided with a relapse in share prices (Chart II-6). Higher interest rates will ensure a further slowdown in M1, escalating downside risks in share prices. Chart II-5Indonesia: Loan Impulse Is Turning Chart II-6M1 Money Impulse: ##br##A Worrying Signal For Stocks External Vulnerability Next year, we expect commodities prices (especially, industrial metals and coal prices) to decline due to renewed weakness in Chinese demand. This negative terms-of-trade shock will further depress the rupiah, push up interest rates, and extend the equity market selloff. Chart II-7 shows that China's imports of coal from Indonesia have surged. There has been some improvement in final demand for coal and other commodities, but supply cutbacks in China as well as financial demand (investor speculation) explain most of the exponential rise in prices. This vertical move is unsustainable, and prices will drop next year. Importantly, Chinese demand will likely weaken. China's fiscal spending and credit impulses have rolled over, warranting less industrial demand for electricity (Chart II-8). Besides, property construction will contract anew following policy tightening, high leverage among developers and hidden inventories (Chart II-8, second panel). Coal and base metals account for about 15% of Indonesia's total exports. Palm oil makes up another 9%. Given that Indonesia is running both current account and fiscal deficits (Chart II-9), lower commodities prices will weigh on the exchange rate. Chart II-7Positive Terms Of Trade##br## Boost Unsustainable Chart II-8China Growth Relapse In 2017? Chart II-9Indonesia's Twin Deficits Bottom Line: Indonesian share prices and domestic bonds are expensive and over-owned by EM investors. We recommend underweighting/shorting Indonesia relative to EM equity, local bond and sovereign credit benchmarks, respectively. We are also maintaining short positions in the IDR versus the U.S. dollar and the HUF. Ayman Kawtharani, Research Analyst aymank@bcaresearch.com Arthur Budaghyan, Senior Vice President Emerging Markets Strategy arthurb@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see BCA Special Report, "Geopolitical Strategic Outlook 2012," dated January 27, 2012, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 2 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Monthly Report, "Multipolarity And Investing," dated April 9, 2014, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 3 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Special Report, "Scared Yet? Five Black Swans For 2016," dated February 10, 2016, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 4 President Erdogan, speaking at the first Inter-Parliamentary Jerusalem Platform Symposium in Istanbul in November 2016, said that Turkey "entered [Syria] to end the rule of the tyrant al-Assad who terrorizes with state terror... We do not have an eye on Syrian soil. The issue is to provide lands to their real owners. That is to say we are there for the establishment of justice." 5 A risk does exist, however, of Russia retaliating against Turkish actions in the Middle East by attacking Turkey itself. At that point, it would be a legal question whether Article 5 still applied. We are certain that Europe and the U.S. would not come to Turkey's aid, particularly if Turkey was the aggressor in Syria or Iraq. 6 Please see BCA Global Investment Strategy and Geopolitical Strategy Special Report, "The Geopolitics Of Trump," dated December 2, 2016, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 7 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Monthly Report, "Turkey: Canary In The EM Coal Mine?" in "The Coming Political Recapitalization Rally," dated June 13, 2013, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 8 President Erdogan, speaking at a Borsa Istanbul ceremony on November 23, said "We are heirs to the Ottoman Empire, which had been exploited since 1854 when it took its first external loan by banks, bankers and loan sharks. Some years tax revenues could not cover the interest payment. However, I can't consent to wasting what rightfully belongs to my people through high real interest rate." 9 This is why Indonesia scores as one of the most attractive EM local bond markets in our analysis published in last week. Please refer to our Emerging Markets Strategy Weekly Report, titled "Will The Carnage In EM Local Bonds Persist?" dated November 30, 2016; the link to the report is available on page 23. 10 Please see Emerging Markets Strategy Weekly Report, titled "EM Bonds: Unloved And Under-Owned?" dated May 18, 2016; available at ems.bcaresearch.com. Equity Recommendations Fixed-Income, Credit And Currency Recommendations

Special Report

Highlights We update the long-term structural themes that we expect will be key drivers of financial market performance over the next one to five years, drawing investment conclusions from each. Debt Supercycle. The final stage of a debt supercycle is often marked by an increase in public debt, which we may now see in the U.S. Meanwhile, the eurozone and emerging markets are still at an early stage of post-debt deleveraging. Technological Disruption. The IT revolution has reached the mature phase, and behind it is a new wave of technologies including artificial intelligence and biotech. The first and last stages of tech waves are the only times where investors typically make profits. Emerging Market Deleveraging. EM assets will continue to underperform until these countries complete structural reforms and deal with the consequences of a decade of credit excesses. Multipolar Geopolitics. The end of American hegemony raises the risk of military conflicts and will make the world less globalized. End Of The Bond Bull Market. Interest rates have been in structural decline since the early 1980s. With a rotation to fiscal policy and (eventually) higher inflation, the path of least resistance for yields is upwards. Subpar Long-Run Returns. With bond yields low and equities expensive, investors will find it hard to achieve the returns they have become accustomed to over the past 30 years. Substantially more risk will be required to achieve the same level of return. Bear Market In Commodities. Weak demand growth (as China reengineers its economy), excess resource capacity, and an appreciating dollar make this a very different environment to the 2000s. Mal-Distribution Of Income. The backlash from stagnant incomes in Anglo-Saxon economies will continue. Populism is likely to cause the labor share of GDP to rise, hurting profits and lowering investment returns. Feature I. Introduction Chart 1Major Market Cycles The key views in Global Asset Allocation (GAA), as in other BCA services, center on the cyclical time-horizon, six to 12 months. This means analyzing principally where we are in the business cycle, the impact of liquidity and monetary conditions, and the current outlook for economic and earnings growth. But it is also important to understand the long-term picture: the structural trends in asset prices, debt, demographics, technology, and other "long wave" factors that have profound and protracted impacts on investment performance. Specifically, investors need to get right long-term shifts in things such as economic growth, the U.S. dollar, commodity prices, interest rates, and the relative performance of stocks and bonds (Chart 1). Such long-term themes, therefore, represent the road-map around which GAA develops its cyclical views. Ever since the service began in 2011 (and indeed in its predecessor, the BCA Premium Service), we have published a list of Major Themes, that "should be key drivers of financial market performance over the next 1-5 years." This Special Report updates and fleshes out these major themes. We have retained five of our current themes: The End of The Debt Supercycle The End of The 35-Year Global Bond Bull Market Subpar Long-Run Returns Bear Market in Commodities The Mal-Distribution of Income &Social Unrest And have added three new themes: Technological Disruption EM in A Multi-Year Deleveraging Multipolar Geopolitics In the report we describe each of these themes and draw investment conclusions from them. The descriptions are relatively brief (since most of these themes will be familiar to BCA clients), but we spend more time on analyzing the new themes and on the Debt Supercycle, which is central to our world view. We have dropped two of our earlier themes: Financial Sector Re-Regulation: Bank regulation has indeed been drastically tightened in the years since the Global Financial Crisis. As a result, banks have deleveraged significantly in most regions (Chart 2), their profitability has declined (Chart 3), and share price performance has been poor. But this phase may be over. Bank loan growth has recovered in the U.S. and the new Trump administration may both boost demand for borrowing and ease regulation. In Europe and Japan, bank stock performance will henceforth be driven more by shifts in loan demand and the shape of the yield curve than by regulation. Chart 2Banks Have Deleveraged... Chart 3... And Become Much Less Profitable Chart 4The Lowest Interest Rates Ever A Generational Shift: Our concept was that Millennials (usually defined as those who came of age after 2000 - so born between 1977 and 1994) would behave differently: they would own less (preferring to Uber and couch-surf), depend on social media, and be less focused on their careers. Arguably, this has not been the case. Like previous generations, Millennials have started to acquire possessions. In the U.S. last year, one-half of homebuyers were under 36; Millennials bought 4 million cars (making them the second largest group of purchasers behind baby-boomers). Moreover, this is a hard theme to draw investment conclusions from. Every generation is slightly different - but how concretely does this affect asset prices? One final thought. A common thread running through our themes is that there is little new under the sun. Most phenomena in economics and markets are cyclical. Many of the charts in this report show that the same environment comes round time and again, after five, 10 or 50 years. Much analysis in investment theory is based on this (think of Kontratiev waves, "the fourth turning," Dow Theory etc.) But what is fascinating about today's world is that there are trends we are experiencing for the first time in history: Zero or negative interest rates: never in history have governments, companies, and individuals been able to borrow so cheaply (Chart 4), sometimes even being paid for the privilege. Demographics: The world population has grown continuously since the Black Death in 1350. Indeed the fastest population growth on record was as recent as the 1960s (Chart 5). But growth has slowed sharply since, and is expected to be only 0.1% a year by the end of the century. As a result, we are seeing an unprecedented slowdown - and even decline - in the size of the workforce in many countries (Chart 6). Chart 5Population Growth Has Slowed Drastically Chart 6The Workforce In Some Countries Is Shrinking The impacts of these two trends will be profound - but they won't be found by looking at historical precedents. II. Debt Supercycles One of the key ways in which BCA has long looked at the world is through the concept of debt supercycles. Our founder, Hamilton Bolton, wrote in 1967 of "the possibilities inherent in an intensive study of changes in bank credit as a major cyclical and supercyclical investment tool....History shows period after period of excessive bank credit inflation. It also shows a number of periods in which bank credit deflation has been allowed to erode the whole economic and investment structure."1 Simply put, when credit in the economy expands (and these days one needs to look more broadly than at just bank credit) it tends to boost growth, raise asset prices, and underpin the effectiveness of monetary policy. At some point, the level of credit becomes unsustainable and the subsequent deleveraging causes financial conservatism as borrowers focus on repairing their balance-sheets. This makes monetary policy relatively ineffective, and has negative effects on growth and asset prices. The two biggest debt supercycles over the past 50 years were in Japan from 1970 to 1990, and in the U.S. and parts of Europe starting in the early 1980s and culminating with the Global Financial Crisis in 2007 (Chart 7). The fallout from the end of Japan's debt supercycle has been stark: since 1990, Japanese nominal GDP has grown by only 0.4% a year (compared to 6% a year over the previous 10 years) and even today the Nikkei index is 55% below its peak. In the U.S., the early 1980s' financial deregulation and the fiscal policies of the Reagan government caused both private and government debt to begin to rise as a percentage of GDP (Chart 8). From the late 1990s, monetary policy was kept too easy, which culminated in the housing bubble of 2004-7. After that bubble burst, households reduced debt (partly through defaults) and government spending rose sharply for a few years to cushion the recession. Chart 7Debt Supercycles Everywhere Chart 8U.S. Debt Started To Rise From 1980 Since 2009, BCA has been talking about a "post debt supercycle" in the U.S.2 The household savings rate rose (Chart 9), as consumers became cautious, preferring to save rather than spend (Chart 10). This has meant that consumption growth has been lower than wage growth, whereas the opposite was the case up to 2007. Monetary policy also became ineffective since, in such a weak growth environment, companies were not inclined to spend on capital investment despite ultra-low interest rates (Chart 11). Chart 9Household Savings Rate Has Risen Since The Crisis Chart 10Consumers Prefer To Save Than Spend Chart 11Companies Not Spending Despite Low Rates There are two competing theories to explain the sub-trend growth of the current expansion. Larry Summers' theory of secular stagnation3 describes a world in which, even with ultra-low interest rates, desired levels of saving exceed desired levels of investment, leading to chronic shortfall in demand. BCA's debt supercycle explanation is closer to that of economists such as Kenneth Rogoff, who argues that once deleveraging and borrowing headwinds subside, growth trends might rise again.4But the two theories may not be so incompatible: secular factors, such as demographics, play a role in both. The final stage of a debt supercycle is often an increase in public debt. That has certainly been the case in Japan: while the private sector has deleveraged aggressively since 1990, government debt to GDP has risen from 67% to 250% - without having much discernible effect on boosting growth. In the U.S., government debt has stabilized as a percentage of GDP over the past two years, and the baseline projection made by the Congressional Budget Office in March this year forecasts it to increase by only 10 percentage points over the next decade. But the election of President Trump might change that. His campaign promised tax cuts and infrastructure spending amounting to about USD6 Trn which, all else being equal, would increase government debt/GDP by another 30 percentage points over a decade. There are two other regions where we see the debt supercycle being an important factor over the coming years: the Eurozone and emerging markets. In Europe, some of the most indebted countries, notably the U.K. and Spain, have made progress in deleveraging since the Global Financial Crisis - although the balance-sheet repair is likely to remain a drag on the economy for a while longer. But France and Italy have hardly delevered at all, and some smaller countries such as Belgium have seen a substantial increase in private debt/GDP (Chart 12). The Eurozone remains generally a very heavily bank-dependent economy, with total bank credit almost back to a historical peak (Chart 13). Germany, by contrast, has long had an aversion to debt: private sector debt/GDP has never been above 130% and is currently only around 100%. This unwillingness to borrow and spend by the world's fourth largest economy has been a drag on European growth. Chart 12Deleveraging In Europe Has Been Patchy Chart 13Eurozone Bank Loans Have Not Declined Emerging markets delevered after the Asian crisis in 1997-8 but the wave of global liquidity created in 2009-12 flowed into EMs, triggering excessively high credit growth. Private-sector EM debt has reached an average of 140% of GDP (Chart 14), and a higher percentage of global GDP than was U.S. debt at the peak of the housing bubble in 2006. Although the debt buildup is most extreme in China, where private-sector debt/GDP has risen by 70 percentage points over the past seven years, the same phenomenon is apparent in many other emerging markets, notably Brazil, Turkey, Russia and Malaysia (Chart 15). Chart 14The EM Debt Supercycle May Be Ending Chart 15And It's Not Just About China BCA's Emerging Markets Strategy has argued for a while that this is unsustainable and that a period of deleveraging will cause growth to slow in many emerging markets and that the strains from the excessive lending, such as rising NPL ratios, will become apparent.5 The deleveraging has already started to happen, with loan growth in Brazil, Malaysia and Turkey - but not yet China - slowing sharply (Charts 16 & 17). Chart 16EM Bank Lending Now Slowing... Chart 17...Almost Everywhere We draw a number of conclusions for long-term asset allocation from this analysis. The post debt supercycle is likely to remain a drag on global growth, and therefore on returns from risk assets, for some years to come. But the U.S. is likely to be less affected than the eurozone since the household sector there has already substantially deleveraged and the Trump administration is more likely to use government spending to fill the gap. Emerging markets will underperform for some years to come as they too go through a period of deleveraging. III. Disruptive Technology Technological change is a key driving force of economies and markets. As Joseph Schumpeter said, capitalism is a "process of industrial mutation...that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one." Nikolai Kondratiev described 45-60 year waves that were triggered by "the irruption of a technological revolution and the absorption of its effects." Understanding where we are in the technological cycle, then, is very important for investors wanting to catch deep trends. But it is particularly hard at the moment because, at the same time as the world is still seeing ramifications coming through from personal computing (which began as long ago as 1971, with Intel's announcement of the first microprocessor) and from the internet (which started as Arpanet in 1969), there is a new wave of revolutionary technologies still mainly on the drawing-board, including robotics, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering. The best framework for thinking about technological cycles is provided by economist Carlota Perez.6 She describes five "surges of development" starting with the Industrial Revolution, which she dates from the opening of Arkwright's cotton spinning mill in Cromford in 1771 (Table 1). Her key argument is that these revolutionary technologies have powerful and long drawn-out effects on the financial, social, institutional, and organizational framework and therefore tend to move through a similar pattern of four phases (Chart 18) lasting around 50 years in all. The fifth wave, Information Technology, for example, started in its installation phase with development of the microprocessor, PCs, and mobile phones in the 1970s and 1980s, reached frenzy in the 1990s, hit a turning-point (which often triggers a stock market crash) in 2000-2, before reaching the deployment phase in the 2000s, and may now be at maturity (growth in computers and smart phones is slowing). Table 1The Five Historic Technology ##br##'Surges Of Development' Chart 18The Four Stages Of Technology Waves But Perez wrote her book in 2002, and we could now be close to the beginning of the sixth wave. Think about the situation 30 years ago, in 1986. It would not have been hard to extrapolate how technology might develop over the coming years since some people already used PCs, mobile phones, and the internet but, as William Gibson said at the time, "the future is already, here - it's just not very evenly distributed." Today there are still a few further developments to come in these fifth-wave technologies (we've listed some in Table 2). But there is a whole further set of technologies (self-driving cars, graphene, distributed energy generation) which almost nobody uses now, but which could become important. Many of these build on the developments of the fifth wave (ubiquitous connectivity, cheap and powerful computing) in the same way that previous revolutions grew from their predecessors (cars wouldn't have been possible without steel, for example). Table 2Fifth And Sixth Wave Technologies Still To Come The implications of these new technologies are hard to predict, and many have undoubtedly been over-hyped. As Bill Gates said: "We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten." So how should investors deal with this? The macro implications are enormous. Every new wave of technologies has a large impact on employment, as jobs in dying industries disappear. U.S. farm workers, for example, fell from over half of the labor force in 1880 to only 12% by 1950 (Chart 19). But perhaps more relevant - given that self-driving vehicles may replace taxi, truck, and delivery drivers - is that the number of horses in the U.S. fell from 26 million to 4 million over the 50 years starting in 1915 (Chart 20). These jobs, of course, were replaced by new opportunities in manufacturing or services. And the number of drivers in the U.S. is only 3.8 million currently, or less than 3% of the workforce. Nonetheless, in the maturity phase of the technology wave (where we are now for the IT revolution), Perez points out, there is often popular unrest as "workers organize and demand...the benefits that have been promised and not delivered." Chart 19Farm Workers Were Disrupted ##br##In The Late 19th Century Chart 20...And So ##br##Were Horses Investing in new technologies is naturally appealing to investors, but often tricky to get right. Alastair Nairn7 identifies five similar phases for investing in technology but concludes that investors can usually make money only in the first stage, when initial skepticism reigns, and in the final stage, when the technology has matured and the surviving handful of leading players can now make good profit. Analysis by economists at the Atlanta Fed showed (Table 3) that, of the 24 U.S. PC manufacturers listed on the U.S. stock market between 1983 and 2006, only 10 made a positive return for shareholders.8 Of these, only five beat the overall index. The picture is similar for other technology waves, except perhaps for the nascent auto industry when 12 of 23 listed manufacturers outperformed the index in 1912-1928. Table 3Investments In New Technology Companies Rarely Beat The Market Nairn also argues that it is easier to spot losers than winners: "The winners take many years to emerge and...it is well-nigh impossible to identify them early. ...Conversely, the losers tend to be more obvious, and more obvious at an early stage." Think back to the early days of the internet. Investors would have struggled to pick the eventual winners (Apple, Amazon, Google - but many might have guessed Yahoo or even Pets.com) but should have understood that the media, travel, retailing, and film-camera industries would all be disrupted. Chart 21IT And Healthcare Sectors ##br##Are Likely To Continue To Outperform So how should investors apply these conclusions? If we are in the mature phase of the Fifth Wave and the skepticism phase of the Sixth, this is a time when investors can benefit from tilts towards sectors where technological changes are taking place, most notably IT and Healthcare, which are likely to continue to outperform over the long run (Chart 21). Exposure to what our colleague Peter Berezin calls BRAIN stocks - biotech, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotech - makes sense.9 This can be captured through venture capital funds. Potential losers might include energy companies and utilities, as improvements in solar energy lead to more distributed power. Even oil company BP reckons that renewables will provide 16% of power generation in 2035 - and 35% in the EU - up from 4% today, with the cost of solar power expected to fall by 40% over the time. Other sectors that could be disrupted include automakers, which could be challenged by developments in electric vehicles, and financial institutions, whose business model could be under threat from peer-to-peer lending, robo-advisers and other developments in fintech. IV. Emerging Markets In A Multi-Year Deleveraging BCA has recommended a structural underweight on emerging market (EM) equities relative to developed markets (DM) since 2010.10 This call worked well until the end of last year. So far this year, however, EM equities have outperformed DM by 5%, despite their sharp selloff (Chart 22) after the U.S. election. Our view is that emerging markets remain structurally challenged and that their long-run underperformance is likely to continue. We view the outperformance this year as simply a counter-trend move driven largely by two factors: a) the extreme relative undervaluation of EM vs. DM at the beginning of the year; and b) unconventional quantitative easing from the ECB and BoJ, and massive back-door liquidity injections (Chart 23) by EM central banks, such as in China and Turkey. Chart 22Counter-Trend Rally Largley Driven By... Chart 23QE / Massive Liquidity Injection By PBoC After the bounce, however, EM equities are no longer especially cheap relative to their DM counterparts, with the relative forward PE ratio now at its five-year average. Going forward, the poor profit outlook - due to persistent structural problems in the EM economies - will continue to weigh on the relative performance of EM assets. We maintain our structural underweight call on EM equities in a global portfolio. First, the factors that drove the massive outperformance of emerging markets in 2002-2010 have disappeared: the once-in-a-generation debt-fueled consumption binge in DM, and the investment-fueled double-digit growth in China which triggered a bull market in commodities (Chart 24). But EM countries did not take full advantage of these exogenous forces to reform their economies: to foster domestic demand, and optimize resource allocation and industrial structure. When China slowed and U.S. consumers went through a much-needed deleveraging after the Great Recession, exports to DM slowed and even contracted, and commodities prices declined sharply. As a result, the export-driven economic model of EM countries has broken down. The structural drivers of economic growth in the EM, both productivity and capital efficiency (Chart 25), have been in a downtrend, while debt (Chart 26) has continued to soar. Chart 24Regime Has Shifted Chart 25Structural Drivers Have Weakened Chart 26Debt Has Soared Structural problems require structural solutions. These solutions vary by country, but in general require less state intervention in the economy, flexible labor markets, and better incentive structures to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. But structural reforms are a painful process and take strong political will to implement. A case in point is China, which delayed its announced supply-side reforms and reverted to monetary and fiscal stimulus when growth slowed. Second, history shows that no credit boom can last forever. Chart 27 shows private non-financial credit-to-GDP ratios in major developed economies. They have experienced periods of deleveraging of various magnitudes and durations, even though these nations have deep and sophisticated banking, credit, and financial markets, and some have plenty of domestic savings. Similar patterns have been observed in EM economies, although their deleveraging episodes have tended to be more frequent and of larger magnitude (Chart 28). Chart 27No Credit Boom Lasts ##br##Forever In DM Economies Chart 28Asian Economies: Many Interruptions During Structural Leveraging Process The main reason for these boom-bust credit cycles is the burden of debt servicing. As the private credit-to-GDP ratio rises, if interest rates are held constant, a larger share of income needs to be allocated to paying interest. At some point, debt service eats too much into debtors' incomes, causing debtors to default and creditors to reduce credit provision. This causes the economy to slow, followed by a painful but necessary restructuring to work off the excess leverage before a new cycle can start. We see no reason see why EM countries, China in particular, can sustain their current high and rising leverage levels. Deleveraging is inevitable. Third, this deleveraging in EM is at a very early stage, since credit in most EM countries continues to grow faster than nominal GDP (Chart 29). After years of booming corporate and household debt, a period of consolidation is inevitable. Hence, credit growth is set to slow to at least the level of nominal GDP growth. The credit impulse - the change in the rate of credit growth - is a key factor influencing GDP and profit growth. Chart 30 shows that if credit growth converges to nominal GDP growth within the next 12-24 months, the credit impulse will turn negative, ensuring a slowdown in the EM economies and a further contraction in corporate earnings, thus putting downside pressure on asset prices. Chart 29A Break In LEveraging Cycle Is Overdue Chart 30Negative Credit Impulse Bodes Ill For Profit And Equities Prices Chart 31Dismal Return on Equity Bottom Line: EM economies are at a very early stage of a multi-year deleveraging to work off credit excesses. Despite their year-to-date outperformance, we expect EM equities will continue to underperform their DM counterparts over the long run until their return on equity (Chart 31) improves significantly. V. Geopolitical Multipolarity Since the end of the Cold War, geopolitics has mostly remained in the background for investors. This is because the collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in an era of American hegemony that lasted for roughly two decades. During this period, the global concentration of economic, trade, and military power increased as the U.S. became the only true superpower (Chart 32). The world entered a period of "hegemonic stability," an era during which regional powers dared not pursue an independent foreign policy for fear of U.S. retaliation and during which the "Washington consensus" of laissez-faire capitalism and free trade was adopted by policymakers in both developed and emerging markets. Chart 32The End Of American Hegemony A central thesis of BCA's Geopolitical Strategy is that the world has entered a multipolar phase.11 Multipolarity implies that the number of states powerful enough to pursue an independent and globally-relevant foreign policy is greater than one (unipolarity) or two (bipolarity). Today, multipolarity is the product of America's decaying unipolar moment. The U.S. remains, by far, the most powerful country in the absolute sense, but it is experiencing a relative decline as regional powers become more capable on both the economic and geopolitical fronts (Chart 33). Multipolarity is not a popular theme with investors. It augurs uncertainty, rising risk premia, and unanticipated "Black Swan" events. In addition, some of our clients take issue with the thesis that the U.S. is in "decline." Although we can measure hard power and illustrate the relative decline of the U.S. empirically, perhaps the greatest evidence of global multipolarity are recent events that were unimaginable just five or ten years ago: Russia's annexation of Crimea; China's military expansion in South China Sea; Turkey's disregard for U.S. interests in Syria; U.S.-Iran détente (with little evidence that Tehran has actually curbed its nuclear capabilities); Dramatic withdrawal of U.S. troops in the Middle East. The point of a multipolar world is not that Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, and other powers seek to challenge America's global reach, but rather that each is more than capable of pursuing an independent foreign policy within their own spheres of influence. As the number of "veto players" in the global "Great Game" increases, however, equilibrium becomes more difficult to achieve. Uncertainty rises and conflicts emerge where none were expected. So what does multipolarity mean for investors? First, we know from formal modeling in political science, and from history, that a multipolar world is unstable and more likely to produce military conflict (Chart 34).12 There are three reasons: Chart 33U.S. Experiencing Relative Decline Chart 34Geopolitical Risk Is The Outcome Of Global Multipolarity During periods of multipolarity, more states can effectively pursue foreign policies that lead to war, thus creating more potential "conflict dyads" in the parlance of International Relations theory. In fact, evidence shows that this has already happened (and continues to happen), with the number of international or internationalized conflicts rising since 2010 dramatically (Chart 35). Power imbalances between states are more likely if there are more states that matter geopolitically. And power imbalances invite conflict as they are more likely to produce a situation in which one country's rising capabilities threaten another. During the Cold War, it didn't matter that Iran was more powerful than Saudi Arabia because the U.S. was present in the Middle East and willing to balance against Tehran. In a multipolar world, the weaker states are on their own. The probability of miscalculation rises due to the number of relevant states making geopolitical decisions simultaneously. For example, last year's shooting down of a Russian jet by the Turkish air force over Syria is an example of an incident that is mathematically more likely in a multipolar world. During the Cold War, the chances that Turkey would independently make the decision to shoot down a Soviet jet was far smaller as its foreign policy was closely aligned with that of its NATO ally the U.S. Chart 35Multipolarity Increases ##br##The Frequency Of Conflict There are a number of derivatives from the multipolarity thesis that will be relevant for investors. For example, despite Brexit, a multipolar world will support European integration.13 With geopolitical uncertainty rising in Europe's neighborhood - particularly in the Middle East and with Russia reasserting itself - Europe's core countries will not follow down the "exit" path that the U.K. pursued. On the other hand, the geopolitical disequilibrium in East Asia is deepening, with China's pursuit of a sphere of influence in the South and East China Seas likely to continue to raise tensions in the region. But the overarching concern for investors should be how multipolarity impacts the global economy. Global macroeconomic imbalances - such as the current combination of insufficient demand and excessive capacity - can be overcome either by unilateral policy from the hegemon or through coordination among the major economic and political powers. A multipolar world, however, lacks such coordination. Globalization is therefore at risk from multipolarity.14 Not only are regional powers pursuing spheres of influence, which is by definition incompatible with a globalized world, but the world lacks the hegemon that normally provides the expensive, and hard to come by, global public goods: namely economic coordination and geopolitical stability. History teaches us that the ebb and flow of trade globalization has been closely associated in the past with the shifting global balance of power (Chart 36). Trade globalization collapsed right around 1880, when the rise of a unified Germany and the ascendant U.S. undermined the century-old Pax Britannica. This trend ushered in a rise of competitive tariffs as the laggards of industrialization attempted to catch up with the established powers. Trade globalization recovered and began to grown again in the early twentieth century and immediately after the First World War, but both attempts were aborted by the lack of a clear hegemon willing to undertake the coordinating role necessary for globalization to take root and persevere. Chart 36Back To The 1930's? The lack of a clear hegemon and the diffusion of geopolitical power amongst multiple states can act as a headwind to global coordination. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the U.K. was too weak to enforce global rules and norms, and the surging U.S. was unwilling to do so. Today, the U.S. is (relatively) too weak and unwilling to do the job of a hegemon, while China is understandably unwilling to coordinate its economic policy with a strategic rival. The investment implications of multipolarity center on three broad themes: Apex globalization: Going forward, the world is going to be less, not more, globalized. This will favor domestic over global sectors and consumer-oriented economies over the export-oriented ones. Globalization is also a major deflationary force, which would suggest that, on the margin, a world that is less globalized should be more inflationary. DM over EM: Multipolarity is more likely to produce a number of conflicts, some of which lay dormant throughout the Cold War and subsequent era of American hegemony. These conflicts tend to be in emerging or frontier markets. Safe Havens: With the frequency of geopolitical conflict on the rise, safe haven assets like the U.S. Treasurys, U.S. dollar, gold, and Swiss and Japanese government bonds, should continue to hold an important place in investors' asset allocation. VI. End Of The 35-Year Global Bond Bull Market Since the early 1980s, interest rates have been in a structural decline on the back of falling inflation expectations. Thirty-five years later, the global bond bull market has reached its end (Chart 37). Importantly, this is not to suggest that a secular bear market in bonds is beginning. The global economy is still suffering from significant spare capacity and markets usually go through a volatile bottoming process before a new secular trend is established. Nevertheless, the path of least resistance for yields is upwards. Chart 37Long-Term Yields Have Bottomed The most significant shift regarding sovereign yields is the global transition from monetary to fiscal stimulus. Over the next few years, central bank asset purchases will be negligible at best, with normalization in central bank balance sheets being far more likely, albeit at a muted pace. From the fiscal perspective, the rotation has already occurred in several regions, with the liberal government in Canada promising to increase infrastructure spending, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe postponing next year's planned VAT tax hike, and incoming U.S. President Donald Trump expected to ramp up fiscal spending. Sovereign bond yields have been weighed down by the rise in inequality. IMF studies found that this increase in inequality has had substantial negative effects on real GDP growth and therefore the real component. Populism is growing, as evidenced by the surprising outcome of the Brexit vote, the rise of anti-establishment parties in Europe, and the highly polarizing candidates in the U.S. elections. However, as populism continues to mount, policymakers will be further pressured to take on additional reflationary measures, inevitably leading to higher inflation. Anemic productivity growth has dampened aggregate demand and applied downward pressure to bond yields. Initially, weak productivity gains are deflationary as they reduce the incentive for firms to invest and consumers to reduce their spending. The longer term effect however, is that the supply side catches up, causing the economy to overheat and inflation to rise (Chart 38). This was the case in low productivity economies in Africa and Latin America. Chart 38A Decline In Productivity Growth Is Deflationary In The Short Run, But Inflationary In The Long Run Nevertheless, not all factors are pointing to higher yields. Demographic trends have been unfavorable, as working age population growth in the major countries has decelerated sharply since 2007. Conditions will likely worsen, with the UN forecasting growth to reach zero in the latter half of the next decade. The effect is further compression in the real component of bond yields as slower labor force growth reduces the incentive for firms to build new factories, shopping malls and office towers. Overall, while the global economy has been plagued by deflation, these signs suggest that the tide is finally turning. Higher consumer prices will not only lead to an increase in the inflation expectations component, but also the inflation risk premium, which compensates investors over the inflation outlook. As the majority of the rise in bond yields will come via the inflation component and not the real component, we advocate a long-term allocation to TIPS. VII. Subpar Long-Run Returns Asset prices have surged following the global financial crisis and have reached fairly expensive valuations. While this not to say that a bear market is imminent, it certainly makes financial assets more vulnerable to correction and it does suggest that long-term return prospects are bleak. Lower future returns will shift the efficient frontier inward, requiring substantially more risk to achieve the same level of returns. Investors will find it far more difficult to achieve returns they have become accustomed to over the past 30 years. Sovereign Bonds: After 35 years, the structural decline in interest rates is at an end. While we do not expect an outright bond bear market, the path of least resistance for yields is up (Chart 39). Across all major countries and regions, starting long-term real yields have been an excellent predictor for future five-year returns. Given that yields are at multi-century lows, and even negative in some regions, future returns will be meager. Investors should reduce their long-term allocation to sovereign debt. Chart 39Yields: The Path Of Least Resistance Is Up Corporate Bonds: Corporate debt is also priced expensively relative to its long-term history. The credit cycle is in its late stages, and while accommodative monetary policy will extend this phase, defaults will eventually grind higher and low starting yields will limit long-term returns. Investment grade real returns can be mostly explained by their starting real yields. In fact, real yields have been an even better predictor for investment grade returns than they have for sovereigns. Investment grade spreads are less important as they have historically been stable, and defaults are fairly rare in this space. For high yield, while starting real yields are important, spreads and defaults are also crucial determinants for performance. All valuation metrics suggest that both future investment grade and high-yield returns will fall far short of investors' ingrained expectations (Chart 40). Equities: The relationship between cyclically-adjusted price-to-earnings ratios (CAPEs) and real returns is well established, as a simple regression generates a high r-squared (Chart 41). Current valuations are expensive, suggesting low to mid single digit returns. However, there is reason to believe that this scenario is overly optimistic. First, global equities have benefitted from the structural decline in interest rates. Going forward however, the end of the bond bull market removes a substantial tailwind. Secondly, the Debt Supercycle, in which each cycle begins with more indebtedness than the one that preceded it, is played out in the developed world. The implication is that household credit demand will be weak and businesses are less likely to spend on capex, thereby dampening economic growth. Chart 40Low Starting Yields = Low Future Returns Chart 41Shiller P/E Suggests Below-Average Long-Run Equity Returns In order for investors to reach their return targets, we recommend several options. The end of the structural decline in interest rates does not bode well for sovereign bond returns. Instead, allocators should increase their structural exposure to equities. Investors should also focus more on bottom-up analysis and differentiating at lower levels, i.e. industry groups (GICS level 2). Finally, we advocate a long-term allocation to alternative assets. Alternatives provide downside protection through volatility reduction and substantial return enhancement potential given their active management and an illiquidity premium. VIII. Structural Bull Market In Resources Is Over Commodities experienced an unusually strong bull market in the 2000s, driven by very supportive global economic and financial conditions (Chart 42): 1) the U.S. dollar spent the decade in decline; 2) investment in mining capacity was depressed following the bear market of the 1990s; 3) rapid industrialization and double-digit growth in China. The bull market of 2000s lasted longer than its predecessors and was driven more by demand growth than by supply shortages. Commodities have never been a long-term buy. While there have been cyclical bull markets, the commodity complex in real terms has been in a structural downtrend for the past two centuries (Chart 43). This is despite a 20-fold increase in real GDP, a sign that rapid economic growth and weaker commodity prices can go hand in hand. The simple reason is that humans constantly find ways to extract commodities from the ground more cheaply and use them more efficiently. The current cyclical downturn is likely to continue for some years. Demand: A number cyclical and structural factors (Chart 44) will weigh on marginal demand for commodities in the long run: Chart 42Very SUpportive Backdrop In The 1990s Chart 43Not A Good Long-Term Investment Chart 44Shaky Demand Outlook Anemic Global Growth: Despite rising incomes, per capita consumption of base metals has been flat in most developed nations. With growth in the working age population slowing to 0.7% in 2010 - 2050, down from 1.7% in 1970 - 2010, the long-term outlook for consumer demand is poor. China: China consumes more zinc, aluminium and copper than the U.S., Japan, and Europe combined. It comprises more than 40% of global base metal demand, while it has only a 15% share of global GDP. With China's plans to transition into a consumer-driven services economy, this magnitude of incremental demand is highly unlikely in the future. Alternatives & Technological Advancements: Improved energy efficiency, the transition to renewable sources, and growth in electric-hybrid vehicles will weigh on demand for traditional sources of energy. A large-scale push towards nuclear energy, led by China's plans for 80GW of installed capacity by 2020, will pose a serious threat to marginal demand. Supply: Coordinated production cuts are a thing of the past. Underutilization (Chart 45) and market share-wars by countries that need to finance rising fiscal deficits have changed supply dynamics: Excess Capacity: Following the Global Financial Crisis, completion of projects which had been previously committed to, led to enormous capacity expansion when global growth was struggling. Both mining and oil & gas extraction capacity have reached new highs led by the U.S. This will continue to put downward pressure on both metals and energy prices until excess capacity has been removed. Proven Reserves: Known reserves of most metals have risen over the past decade and reached new highs: for example, in the case of copper, nearly three tons have been added to reserves for every ton consumed. In the crude oil market, technological progress has led to discovery of unconventional deposits, the best-known being Canadian oil sands, which by some estimates contain more than twice Saudi Arabia's crude oil reserves. Price Elasticity: The shale revolution brought with it leaner drilling operations which have a much shorter supply response time. The key to the price of crude is how quickly U.S. shale oil producers respond once the oil price rises above their current average cash cost of $50. This will limit the upside potential to crude oil for the next few years. U.S. Dollar & Real Rates: The dollar (Chart 46) has much more explanatory power for commodity prices than Chinese demand does. Given monetary policy and growth divergence between the U.S. and the rest of the world, the U.S. dollar will continue to appreciate. When real rates are low, the opportunity cost of keeping resources in the ground is also low. As growth starts to stabilize, rising real rates will add downward pressure on prices. Chart 45Relentless Supply Response Chart 46U.S. Dollar Vs Chinese Growth We remain structurally bearish on the overall commodity complex, but expect short-lived divergences within the group. As more nations agree on production cuts in oil, we expect energy markets to outperform metals. Precious metals will continue to stage mini-rallies on the back of heightened equity market volatility. Agricultural commodities will continue to bear the brunt of poor global demographics. IX. Mal-Distribution Of Income And Social Unrest The decision by the U.K. in June's referendum to leave the EU and Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election suggest a high degree of dissatisfaction with the status quo in Anglo-Saxon economies. This is hardly surprising given the stagnation of median wages in developed economies since the early 1980s, especially among the less educated (Chart 47), and growing inequality. The middle class (defined as those with disposable income between 25% below and 25% above the median) in the U.S. has fallen to 27% of the population from 33% in the early 1980s, and in the U.K. to 33% from 40% (Chart 48). Note that the decline in the middle class is much less prominent in continental Europe and Canada. Chart 47Wages For Less Educated Have Stagnated Chart 48Middle Class Has Shrunk In U.S. And U.K. But Not In Continental Europe The Gini coefficient in the U.S. has risen to as high a level as during the 1920s (Chart 49). Branko Milanovic, the leading academic working on global inequality, explains the reasons are follows: "The forces that pushed U.S. inequality up in the roaring twenties were, in many ways, similar to the forces that pushed it up in the 1990s: downward pressure on wages (from immigration and/or increased trade), capital-based technological change (Taylorism and the Internet), monopolization of the economy (Standard Oil and large banks), suppression or decreasing attractiveness of trade unions, and a shift toward plutocracy in government."15 Chart 49U.S. Inequality Back To 1920's Level The backlash has begun. BCA's Geopolitical Strategy service has described how the median voter in the Anglo-Saxon world is shifting to the left.16 Around the world governments are abandoning austerity and moving to fiscal stimulus and spending to improve infrastructure. Many, for example, are raising the minimum wage. In the U.K., it is due to go up from GBP7.20 to 60% of the median wage (about GBP9.35) by 2020, and in California from $10 to $15 by 2022. The 40 years of a falling labor share of GDP and rising capital share have started to reverse in the U.S. over the past two or three years (Chart 50). These shifts also threaten growth of global trade. Trump opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement and says he will renegotiate or scrap the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Global trade, after continuous growth as a percentage of GDP since World War Two, has slowed since the Great Recession (Chart 51). The WTO reports an increase in trade-restrictive measures and a fall in trade-facilitating measures over the past 12 months (Chart 52). Chart 50Fall In Labor Share ##br##Of GDP Starting To Reverse Chart 51Trade Globalization* Chart 52Trade Measures Are Getting ##br##Increasingly Restrictive Chart 53Populism Could Cause ##br##Profit Margins To Mean Revert These trends have significant implications for investors. The shift to populist politics is likely to be inflationary, as governments increasingly fall back on stimulative fiscal policy. A faster rise in wages will hurt corporate profit margins which, in the U.S., are likely to mean-revert from their current near-record highs (Chart 53). The popular discontent (and the growing unreliability of opinion polls) will make election results more unpredictable, as witnessed in the Brexit vote and the U.S. presidential election. A further pullback in global trade will hurt exporting sectors and export-dependent countries. All these factors lead to the conclusion that returns from investment assets over coming years are likely to be lower, and volatility higher, than has been the case over the past 40 years. Garry Evans, Senior Vice President Global Asset Allocation garry@bcaresearch.com Marko Papic, Senior Vice President Geopolitical Strategy marko@bcaresearch.com Xiaoli Tang, Associate Vice President xiaoli@bcaresearch.com Patrick Trinh, Senior Analyst patrick@bcaresearch.com Aditya Kurian, Research Analyst adityak@bcaresearch.com 1 Money And Investment Profits, A. Hamilton Bolton, Dow-Jones-Irwin Inc, 1967, pp74, 304. 2 For our most recent detailed analysis of this, please see BCA Special Report, "The End Of The Debt Supercycle, An Update," dated May 11, 2016, available at reports.bcaresearch.com 3 Please see, for example, Summers' article in Foreign Affairs, "The Age of Secular Stagnation," dated February 15, 2016. 4 Please see, for example, Rogoff's article, "Debt Supercycle, not secular stagnation," Centre for Economic Policy Research, dated April 22, 2015. 5 Please see, for example, Emerging Markets Strategy Special Report, "Gauging EM/China Credit Impulses," dated August 31, 2016, available at ems.bcaresearch.com 6 Please see, for example, her book Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital, published in 2002. 7 Please see Alasdair Nairn, "Engines That Move Markets," Wiley, dated January 4, 2002. 8 Measured either over the whole period, or between the dates that they were listed during the period. 9 Please see The Bank Credit Analyst, "Human Intelligence And Economic Growth," March 2013, available at bca.bcaresearch.com. 10 Please see Emerging Markets Strategy Weekly Report, "EM Equities: Downgrade To Underweight," dated April 20, 2010, available at ems.bcaresearch.com. 11 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Monthly Report, "Multipolarity And Investing," dated April 9, 2014, and Geopolitical Strategy Strategic Outlook, "Stay The Course: EM Risk - DM Reward," dated January 23, 2014, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 12 Please see Mearsheimer, John "The Tragedy Of Great Power Politics," New York: W.W. Norton & Company (2001). 13 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Special Report, "After BREXIT, N-Exit?," dated July 13, 2016, available at gps.bcaresearch.com, and BCA The Bank Credit Analyst, "Europe's Geopolitical Gambit: Relevance Through Integration," dated November 2011, available at bca.bcaresearch.com. 14 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Special Report, "The Apex Of Globalization: All Downhill From Here," dated November 12, 2014. 15 Please see Branco Milanovic, "Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization," Harvard University Press, 2016. 16 Please see Geopolitical Strategy Monthly Report, "Introducing: The Median Voter Theory," dated June 8, 2016, available at gps.bcaresearch.com.

Special Report

Highlights Trump's foreign policy proposals will exacerbate geopolitical risks. Sino-American relations are the chief risk - they will determine global stability. A Russian reset will benefit Europe, especially outside the Russian periphery. Trump will retain the gist of the Iran nuclear deal. Turkey and North Korea are wildcards. Feature Chart 1Market Rally Redoubled After Trump's Win Financial markets rallied sharply after the election of Donald Trump and the resulting prospect of lower taxes, fewer regulations, and greater fiscal thrust (Chart 1). But is the euphoria justified in light of Trump's unorthodox views on U.S. foreign policy and trade? Is Trump's "normalization" amid the transition to the White House a reliable indicator that the geopolitical status quo will largely be preserved? We believe Trump's election marks a substantial increase in geopolitical risk that is being understated by markets.1 This is not because of his personality, though that is not particularly reassuring, but rather because of his policy proposals. If acted on, Trump's geopolitical agenda would exacerbate global trends that are already underway: Waning U.S. Dominance: American power, relative to other nations, has been declining in recent years as a result of the emergence of new economic and military powers like China and India (Chart 2). If Trump allows himself to be sucked into another conflict despite his campaign promises - say, by overturning the nuclear deal with Iran - he could embroil the U.S. at a time when it is relatively weak. Multipolarity: America's relative decline has emboldened various other nations to pursue their interests independently, increasing global friction and creating a world with multiple "poles" of influence.2 If Trump keeps his word on reducing foreign commitments he will speed along this historically dangerous process. Lesser powers like Russia and Turkey will try to fill vacuums created by the U.S. with their own ambitions, with competition for spheres of influence potentially sparking conflict. Multipolarity has already increased the incidence of global conflicts (Chart 3). De-Globalization: The greatest risk of the incoming administration is protectionism. Trump ran on an overtly protectionist platform. Democratic-leaning economic patriots in the American "Rust Belt" handed him the victory (Chart 4), and he will enact policies to maintain these pivotal supporters in 2018 and 2020 elections. This will hasten the decline of trade globalization, which we signaled was peaking back in 2014.3 It does not help that multipolarity and collapse of globalization have tended to go hand in hand in the past. And historically speaking, big reversals in global trade do not end well (Chart 5). Chart 2U.S. Power Eroding In A Relative Sense Chart 3Multipolarity Increases Conflict Frequency Chart 5Declines In Global Trade Preceded World Wars In what follows we assess what we think are likely to be the most important geopolitical effects of Trump's "America First" policies. We see Russia and Europe as the chief beneficiaries, and China and Iran as the chief risks. A tougher stance on China, in particular, will feed broader strategic distrust; the combination of internal and external pressures on China will ensure that the latter will not be as flexible as in the past. For the past five years, BCA's Geopolitical Strategy has stressed that the deterioration in Sino-American cooperation is the greatest geopolitical risk for investors - and the world. Trump's election will accelerate this process. Trump And Eurasia Trump's election is clearly a boon for Russia. Over the past 16 years, Russia has methodically attempted to collect the pieces from the Soviet collapse. The purpose of Putin's assertiveness has been to defend the Russian sphere of influence (namely Ukraine and Belarus in Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia) from outside powers: the U.S. and NATO seemed eager to "move in for the kill" after Russia emerged from the ashes. Putin also needed to rally popular support at various times by distracting the public with "rally around the flag" operations. We view Ukraine and Syria through this analytical prism. Lastly, Russia acted aggressively because it needed to reassure its allies that it would stand up for them.4 And yet the U.S. can live with a "strong" Russia. It can make a deal with Russia if the Trump administration recognizes some core interests (e.g. Crimea) and calls off the "democracy promotion" activities that Putin considers to be directly aimed at the Kremlin. As we argued during the Ukraine invasion, it is the U.S., not Russia, which poses the greatest risk of destabilization.5 That is because the U.S. lacks constraints. It can be aggressive towards Russia and face zero consequences: it has no economic relationship with Russia (Chart 6) and does not stand directly in the way of any retaliation, as Europe does. That is why we think Trump and Putin will manage to reset relations. The U.S. can step back and allow Russia to control its sphere of influence. Trump's team may be comfortable with the concept, unlike the Obama administration, whose Vice-President Joe Biden famously pronounced that America "will not recognize any nation having a sphere of influence." We could even see the U.S. pledging not to expand NATO from this point onwards, given that it has already expanded as far as it can feasibly and credibly go. Note, however, that a Russo-American truce may not last long. George W. Bush famously "looked into Putin's eyes and ... saw his soul," but relations soured nonetheless. Obama went further with his "Russian reset," removing European missile defense plans from avowed NATO allies Poland and Czech Republic merely one year after Russian troops invaded Georgia. And yet Moscow and Washington ended up rattling sabers and meddling in each other's internal affairs. Ultimately, U.S. resets fail because Russia is in a structural decline as a great power and is attempting to hold on to a very large sphere of influence whose denizens are not entirely willing participants.6 Because Moscow often must use blunt force to prevent the revolt of its vassal states (e.g. Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014), it renews tensions with the West. Unless Russia strengthens significantly in the next few years, we would expect the cycle to continue. On the horizon may be Ukraine-like incidents in neighboring Belarus and Kazakhstan, both key components of the Russian sphere of influence. Bottom Line: Russia will get a reprieve from U.S. pressure under Trump. While we expect Europe to extend sanctions through the end of 2017, a rapprochement with Washington could ultimately thaw relations by the end of next year. Europe stands to benefit, being able to resume business as usual with Russia and face less of a risk of Russian provocations via the Middle East, like in Syria. The recent decline in refugee flows will be made permanent with Russia's cooperation. The losers will be states in the Russian periphery that will feel less secure about American, EU and NATO backing, particularly Ukraine, but also Turkey. Countries like Belarus, which enjoyed playing Moscow against the West in the past, will lose the ability to do so. Once the U.S. abandons plans to prop up pro-West regimes in the Russian sphere of influence, Europeans will drop their designs to do the same as well. Trump And The Middle East Trump's "America First" foreign policy promises to be Obama's "geopolitical deleveraging" on steroids. He is opposed to American adventurism and laser-focused on counter-terrorism and U.S. domestic security. He also wants to deregulate the U.S. energy sector aggressively to encourage even greater energy independence (Chart 7). The chief difference from Obama - and a major risk to global stability - is Iran, where Trump could overturn the Obama administration's 2015 nuclear deal, potentially setting the two countries back onto the path of confrontation. Nevertheless, this deal never depended on Obama's preferences but was rooted in a strategic logic that still holds:7 Iraqi stability: The U.S. needed to withdraw troops from Iraq without creating a power vacuum that would open up a regional war or vast terrorist safe haven. With the advent of the Islamic State, this plan clearly failed. However, Iran did provide a Shia-led central government that has maintained security for investments and oil outflows (Chart 8). Iranian defenses: Bombing Iran is extremely difficult logistically, and the U.S. did not want to force the country into a corner where asymmetric warfare, like cutting off shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, seemed necessary. Despite growing American oil production, the U.S. will always care about the transit of oil through the Straits of Hormuz, as this impacts global oil prices.8 China's emergence: Strategic threats grew rapidly in Asia while the U.S. was preoccupied in Iraq and Afghanistan. China has emerged as a more technologically advanced and assertive global power that threatens to establish hegemony in the region. The deal with Iran was therefore a crucial piece of President Obama's "Pivot to Asia" strategy. Chart 7U.S. Becoming More Energy Independent Chart 8U.S. Policy Boosts Iraqi And Iranian Oil None of the above will change with Obama's moving on. Nor will the other powers that participated in sanctioning Iran (Germany, France, the U.K., Russia, and China) be convinced to re-impose sanctions now, just as they gain access to Iranian resources and markets. It is also not clear why Trump would seek confrontation with Iran in light of his desire to improve relations with Russia and concentrate U.S. firepower on ISIS - both objectives make Iran the ideal and obvious partner. Trump will therefore begrudgingly agree to the détente with Iran, perhaps after tweaking some aspects of the deal to save face. Meanwhile, it will serve the hawks in both countries if they can go back to calling each other "Satan." Iran itself is comfortable with the current situation, so it does not have an incentive to reverse the deal. It controls almost half of Iraq (and specifically the portion of Iraq that produces oil), its ally Hezbollah is safe in Lebanon, its ally Bashar Assad will win in Syria (more so with Trump in charge!), and its allies in Yemen (Houthi rebels) are a status quo power secure in a mountain fortress in the north of the country. It is hard to see where Trump would dislodge Iranian influence if he sought to do so. The U.S. is a powerful country that could put a lot of resources into rolling back Iranian influence, but the logic for such a move simply does not exist. Trump will also maintain Obama's aloof policy toward Saudi Arabia, which keeps it constrained (Chart 9).9 The country is in some ways the stereotype of the "ungrateful ally" that Trump wants to downgrade. For instance, Trump supported the law allowing victims of the September 11 attacks to sue the kingdom (a law that Obama tried unsuccessfully to veto). He has blamed the Saudis for the rise of ISIS and the failure to take care of Syrian refugees. His primary focus is on preventing terrorists from striking the U.S., and to that end he wants to cooperate with Russia and stabilize the region's regimes. This entails the relative neglect of Sunni groups under Shia rule in Syria and Iraq. Indeed, the few issues where the Saudis will welcome Trump - opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, support for Egypt's military ruler Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and opposition to aggressive democracy promotion - are so far rhetorical, not concrete, commitments. Chart 9Saudi Arabia Sees The U.S. Stepping Back Will Trump get sucked into the region to intervene against ISIS? We do not think so. A bigger risk is Turkey.10 President Recep Erdogan may think that Trump will either be too complacent about Turkish interests in Syria, or that Trump is in fact a "kindred nationalist spirit" who will not prevent Turkey from pursuing its own sphere of influence in Syria and northern Iraq. Trump's foreign policy of "offshore balancing" would call for the U.S. to prevent Turkey from resurrecting any kind of regional empire, especially if it risks a war with Russia and Iran or comes at the cost of regional influence for American allies like the Kurds.11 Turkey will also be starkly at odds on Syria and ISIS. This means Turkey and the U.S. could see already tense relations get substantially worse in 2017. We would not be surprised to see President Trump threaten Erdogan with expulsion from NATO within his first term. Bottom Line: The biggest risk to our view is that Trump rejects the consensus of the intelligence and defense establishment and pushes Iran too far, leading to conflict. We do not think this will happen, but his rhetoric on the nuclear deal has been consistently negative and he seems likely to favor "Middle East hands" for top cabinet positions. He could involve the country in new Middle East entanglements if he does not show discipline in adhering to his non-interventionist preferences - particularly if he overreacts to an attack. Nonetheless, we believe that America's policy of geopolitical deleveraging from the Middle East will continue. Trump may have a mandate to be tough on terrorism from his voters, but he definitely does not have a free hand to commit military resources to the region. Trump And Asia Trump criticized China furiously during the campaign, declaring that he would name China a currency manipulator on his first day in office and threatening to impose a 45% tariff on Chinese imports. However, there is a familiar pattern of China bashing in U.S. presidential elections that leads to no sharp changes in policy.12 Will Trump be different? Some would argue that relations may actually improve, given how bad they already are. First, Trump's chief concern is to fire up the U.S. economy's animal spirits, and that would support China's ailing economy as long as he does not couple his tax cuts and fiscal stimulus with aggressive protectionist measures (Chart 10). Proponents of this view would point out that Trump's tougher measures may be called off when he realizes that the Chinese current account surplus has fallen sharply in recent years (Chart 11), and that the PBoC is propping up the RMB, not suppressing it. Similarly, Trump's China-bashing trade advisor, the former steel executive Dan DiMicco, may not get much traction given that the U.S. has largely shifted to Brazilian steel imports (Chart 12). In short, the U.S. could take a somewhat tougher stance on specific trade spats without provoking a vicious spiral of discriminatory actions. The fact that the U.S. is more exposed than ever to trade with emerging markets only reinforces the idea that it does not want to spark a real trade war (Chart 13). Chart 10A Trump Boom, Sans Protectionism, Would Lift Chinese Growth Chart 11China's Economy Rebalancing Chart 12China Already Lost The Chart 13A Reason To Eschew Protectionism Second, the Obama administration's "Pivot to Asia" and attempts to undermine China's economic influence in the region through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) have aggravated China with little substantive gain. By contrast, Trump may emphasize American business access to China over Chinese citizens' freedoms - which could reduce the risk of conflict. He may not go beyond symbolic protectionist moves, like the currency manipulation charge, and meanwhile canceling the never-ratified TPP would be a net gain for China.13 In essence, Trump, despite his populist rhetoric, could prove both pragmatic and willing to inherit the traditional Republican stance of business-oriented positive engagement with China. This is a compelling argument and we take it seriously. But it is not our baseline case. Rather, we think Trump will eventually take concrete populist steps that will mark a departure from U.S. policy in recent memory. As mentioned, it was protectionist blue-collar voters in the Midwest who gave Trump the White House, and he will need to retain their loyalty in coming elections. Moreover, the secular flatlining of American wages and the growth of income inequality have moved the median U.S. voter to the left of the economic spectrum, as we have argued.14 Neo-liberal economic policy has fewer powerful proponents than in the recent past. Thus, in the long run, we expect the grand renegotiation with China to fall short of market hopes, and Sino-American tensions to resume their upward trajectory.15 Why are we so pessimistic? Three main reasons: The "Thucydides Trap": Sino-U.S. tensions are fundamentally driven not by trade disputes but by the U.S.'s fear of China's growing capability and ambition.16 Great conflicts in history have often occurred when a new economic and military power emerged and tried to alter the regional political arrangements set up by the dominant power. This was as true in late nineteenth-century Europe, with the rise of Germany vis-à-vis the U.K. and France (Chart 14), as it was in ancient Greece. The rise of Japan in the first half of the twentieth century had a similar effect in Asia (Chart 15). Trump could, of course, endorse Xi's idea of a "new type of great power relations," which is supposed to avoid this problem. But nobody knows what that would look like, and greater trade openness is the only conceivable foundation for it. Chart 15AThe Disruptive Rise Of Germany Chart 15BThe Disruptive Rise Of Japan China's economic imbalances: A caustic dose of trade remedies from the Trump administration will compound internal economic pressures in China resulting from rampant credit expansion, misallocation of capital, excessive money printing, and capital outflows (Chart 16).17 The combination of internal and external pressures is potentially fatal and China's leaders will fight it. Otherwise, they risk either the fate of the Soviets or of the Asian strongman regimes that succumbed to democracy after embracing capitalism fully. Instead, China will avoid rushing its structural reforms (it is, after all, currently closing its capital account), and protect its consumer market, which it hopes to be the growth engine going forward. This is not a strong basis for the "better deal" that Trump will demand. President Trump will want China to open up further to U.S. manufacturing, tech, and service exports. Economics and the security dilemma: China and the U.S. will not be able to prevent economic tensions from spilling over into broader strategic tensions. Compare the spike in trade tensions with Japan in the 1980s, when Japanese exports to the U.S. peaked and the U.S. strong-armed Japan into appreciating its currency (Chart 17). The U.S. had nurtured Japan and South Korea out of their post-war devastation by running large trade deficits and enabling them to focus on manufacturing exports while minimizing spending on defense. China joined this system in the 1980s and has largely resembled the formal U.S. allies (Chart 18). Given that China has largely followed Japan's path, it was inevitable that the U.S. would eventually lose patience and become more competitive with China. China has seized a greater share of the U.S. market than Japan had done at that time, and its exports are even more important to the U.S. as a share of GDP (Chart 19). Comparing the exchange rates then and now, the Trump administration will be able to argue that China's currency is overdue for appreciation (Chart 20). However, in the 1980s, the U.S. and Japan faced no risk of military conflict - their strategic hierarchy was entirely settled in 1945. The U.S. and China have no such understanding. There is no way of assuring China that U.S. economic pressure is not about strategic dominance. In fact, it is about that. So while China may be cajoled into promising faster reforms - given that its trade surplus with the U.S. is the only thing that stands between it and current account deficits (Chart 21) - nevertheless it will tend to dilute and postpone these reforms for the sake of its own security, putting Trump's resolve to the test. Chart 16Flashing Red Light On China's Economy Chart 17The U.S. Forced Structural Changes On Japan Chart 18Asia Sells, America Rules Chart 19The U.S. Will Get Tougher On China Trade Chart 20China Drags Its Feet On RMB Appreciation Chart 21A Reason For China To Kowtow Trump's victory may also heighten Beijing's fears that it is being surrounded by the U.S. and its partners. That is because Trump will make the following developments more likely: Better Russian relations: From a bird's eye view, Trump's thaw with Putin could mark an inversion of Nixon's thaw with Mao. China is the only power today that can stand a comparison with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The U.S. at least needs to make sure the Sino-Russian relationship does not become too warm (Chart 22).18 Russo-Japanese peace treaty: The two sides are already working on a treaty, never signed after World War II. Aside from their historic territorial dispute, the U.S. has been the main impediment by demanding Japan help penalize Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. Yet negotiations have advanced regardless, and Japanese air force scrambles against Russia have fallen while those against China have continued to spike (Chart 23). The best chance for a deal since the 1950s is now, with Abe and Putin both solidly in power until 2018. This would reduce Russian dependency on China for energy markets and capital investment, and free up Japan's security establishment to focus on China and North Korea. American allies are not defecting: The United States armed forces are deeply embedded in the Asia Pacific region and setbacks to the "pivot" policy should not be mistaken for setbacks to U.S. power in the absolute.19 U.S. allies like Thailand, the Philippines, and (soon) South Korea are in the headlines for seeking to warm up ties with China, but there is no hard evidence that they will turn away from the U.S. security umbrella. Rather, the pivot reassured them of U.S. commitment, giving them the flexibility to focus on boosting their economies, which means sending emissaries to Beijing. The problem is that Beijing knows this and will therefore still suspect that a "containment" strategy is underfoot over time. Better Indian relations: The Bush administration made considerable progress in improving ties with India. Trump also seems India-friendly, which would be supported by better ties with Russia and Iran. India could therefore become a greater obstacle to China's influence in South and Southeast Asia. Chart 22Energy A Solid Foundation For Sino-Russian Ties Chart 23Japan's Strategic Predicament From the above, we can draw three main conclusions: The U.S. role in the Pacific will determine global geopolitical stability under the Trump administration. The primary question is whether China is willing and able to accede to enough of Trump's demands to ensure that the U.S. and China have at least "one more fling," a further extension to the post-1979 trade relationship. It is possible that China is simply unable to do so and in the face of any concrete sanctions by Trump, will batten down the hatches, rally people around the flag, and shore up the state-led economy. There may be a tactical U.S.-China "improvement" over the next year - relative to the worst fears of trade war under Trump - but it will not be durable. The year 2017 will be the year of Trump's "honeymoon," while Xi Jinping will be focused on internal politics ahead of the Communist Party's crucial National Party Congress in the fall.20 Thus, after Trump gives China a "shot across the bow," like charging it with currency manipulation, the two sides will likely settle down at the negotiating table and send positive signals to the world about their time-tried ability to manage tensions. Financial markets will see through Trump's initially symbolic actions and begin to behave as if nothing has changed in U.S.-China relations. However, this calm will be deceiving, since economic and security tensions will eventually rise to the surface again, likely in a more disruptive way than ever before. China's periphery will be decisive, especially the Korean peninsula. The Koreas could become the locus of East Asia tensions for two reasons. First, North Korea's nuclear weaponization has reached a level that is truly alarming to the U.S. and Japan.21 New sanctions, if enforced, have real teeth because they target commodity exports (Chart 24). The problem is that China is unlikely to enforce them and South Korean politics are likely to turn more China-friendly and more pacific toward the North with the impending change of ruling parties. This will leave the U.S. and Japan with legitimate security grievances but less of an ability to change the outcome through non-military means. That is an arrangement ripe for confrontation. Separately, China's worsening relations with Taiwan, Vietnam's resistance to China's power-grab in the South China Sea, and conflicts between India and Pakistan will be key barometers of regional stability vis-à-vis China. Chart 24Will China Cut Imports From Here? The risk to this view, again, is that a Middle East crisis could distract the Trump administration. This would mark an excellent opportunity for China to build on its growing regional sway, and it would delay our baseline view that the Asia Pacific is now the chief source of geopolitical risk in the world. Investment Conclusions There is no geopolitical risk premium associated with Sino-American tensions. Our clients, colleagues, and friends in the industry are at a loss when we ask how one should hedge tensions in the region. This is a major risk for investors as the market will have to price emerging tensions quickly. Broadly speaking, Sino-American tensions will reinforce the ongoing de-globalization. If the top two global economies are at geopolitical loggerheads, they are more likely to see their geopolitical tensions spill over to the economic sphere. Unwinding globalization implies that inflation will make a comeback, as the reduction in flows of goods, services, capital, and people gradually increases supply constraints. This is primarily bad for bonds, which have enjoyed a bull market for the past three decades that we see reversing.22 At the same time, these trends suggest that investors should favor consumer-oriented sectors and countries relative to their export-reliant counterparts, and small-to-medium sized businesses over externally-exposed multinationals. BCA Geopolitical Strategy's long S&P 600 / short S&P 100 trade is up 7.4% since inceptionon November 9. Finally, these trends, combined with the associated geopolitical risks of various powers struggling for elbow room, warrant a continuation of the Geopolitical Strategy theme of favoring Developed Markets over Emerging Markets, which has made a 45.5% return since inception in November 2012. The centrality of China risk only reinforces this view. Matt Gertken, Associate Editor mattg@bcaresearch.com Marko Papic, Senior Vice President Geopolitical Strategy marko@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see our initial discussion of Trump's foreign policy, "U.S. Election Update: Trump, Presidential Powers, And Investment Implications," in BCA Geopolitical Strategy Monthly Report, "The Socialism Put," dated May 11, 2016, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 2 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Monthly Report, "Multipolarity And Investing," dated April 9, 2014, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 3 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Special Report, "The Apex Of Globalization: All Downhill From Here," dated November 12, 2014, and, more recently, "Constraints & Preferences Of The Trump Presidency," dated November 30, 2016, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 4 Please see "In Focus - Cold War Redux?" in BCA Geopolitical Strategy Monthly Report, "It's A Long Way Down From The 'Wall Of Worry,'" dated March 2014, and Geopolitical Strategy Special Report, "Russia: To Buy Or Not To Buy?" dated March 20, 2015, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 5 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Special Report, "Russia-West Showdown: The West, Not Putin, Is The 'Wild Card,'" dated July 31, 2014, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 6 Please see BCA's Emerging Markets Strategy Special Report, "Russia's Trilemma And The Coming Power Paralysis," dated February 21, 2012, available at ems.bcaresearch.com. 7 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Special Report, "Out Of The Vault: Explaining The U.S.-Iran Détente," dated July 15, 2015, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 8 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Special Report, "End Of An Era For Oil And The Middle East," dated April 8, 2015, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 9 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Special Report, "Saudi Arabia's Choice: Modernity Or Bust," dated May 11, 2016, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 10 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Special Report, "Turkey: Strategy After The Attempted Coup," dated July 18, 2016, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 11 Please see John J. Meirsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, "The Case For Offshore Balancing: A Superior U.S. Grand Strategy," Foreign Affairs, July/August 2016, available at www.foreignaffairs.com. 12 Please see BCA China Investment Strategy, "China As A Currency Manipulator?" dated November 24, 2016, available at cis.bcaresearch.com. 13 One of his foreign policy advisors, former CIA head James Woolsey, has floated the idea that the U.S. could turn positive about Chinese initiatives like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the One Belt One Road program to link Eurasian economies. Please see Woolsey, "Under Donald Trump, the US will accept China's rise - as long as it doesn't challenge the status quo," South China Morning Post, dated November 10, 2016, available at www.scmp.com. 14 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Special Report, "The End Of The Anglo-Saxon Economy?" dated April 13, 2016, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 15 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy and Global Investment Strategy Joint Special Report, "Sino-American Conflict: More Likely Than You Think, Part II," dated November 6, 2015, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 16 Please see Graham Allison, "The Thucydides Trap: Are The U.S. And China Headed For War?" The Atlantic, September 24, 2015, available at www.theatlantic.com. 17 Please see BCA Emerging Markets Strategy Special Report, "China's Money Creation Redux And The RMB," dated November 23, 2016, available at ems.bcaresearch.com. 18 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy and Emerging Markets Strategy Special Report, "Can Russia Import Productivity From China?" dated June 29, 2016, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 19 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy and Emerging Markets Strategy Special Report, "Philippine Elections: Taking The Shine Off Reform," dated May 11, 2016, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 20 Please see BCA Geopolitical Strategy Monthly Report, "De-Globalization," dated November 9, 2016, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 21 Please see "North Korea: A Red Herring No More?" in BCA Geopolitical Strategy Monthly Report, "Partem Mirabilis," dated April 13, 2016, available at gps.bcaresearch.com. 22 Please see BCA Global Investment Strategy Special Report, "End Of The 35-Year Bond Bull Market," dated July 5, 2016, available at gis.bcaresearch.com.

Highlights Dear Client, This issue of BCA's Commodity & Energy Strategy features our 2017 Outlook for Bulks and Base Metals. The evolution of China's economy will, as always, be critical to these markets, given that country's outsized role in iron ore, steel and base metals. We are broadly neutral the complex, and, with the exception of the nickel market, see supply and demand relatively balanced. That said, the potential for price spikes - e.g., copper, where spare capacity is shrinking - and for monetary and fiscal policy errors to spill into these markets keeps downside price risk elevated. Next week, we will publish our 2017 Outlook for Energy Markets, with special attention to the oil market. As expected, OPEC and Russia agreed to cut production. As we went to press, WTI and Brent crude oil prices were up ~ 8.5% on the news. We will take profits today on our Long February 2017 Brent $50/bbl Calls vs. Short February 2017 $55/bbl Calls, which was up 73.6% basis Wednesday's close when we went to press. We remain long August 2017 WTI vs. Short November 2017 WTI futures in anticipation of a backwardated forward curve in 2017H2; as of Wednesday's close, this position returned 76.39% since November 3, when we recommended the exposure. Our 2017 Precious Metals and Agricultural outlooks will be published in the following weeks. We will finish with an outlook for commodities as an asset class in 2017 at year-end. We trust you will find these reports informative and useful for your investing and year-ahead planning. Kindest regards, Robert P. Ryan, Senior Vice President The monetary and fiscal stimulus that massively boosted China's housing market this year will wind down, bringing an end to the run-up in iron ore, steel and base metals prices. While we expect "reflationary" policies to continue going into the Communist Party Congress next fall, when new leadership roles will be announced, we do not expect anything along the lines of the surge in policy stimulus seen earlier this year: Unwinding and controlling property-market excesses and high debt levels will limit policymakers' desire to turbo-charge the housing market again, limiting the boost such policies provide. We are downgrading our tactically bullish view on iron ore to neutral. Our out-of-consensus bullish call was proven correct with a 43% rally in iron ore prices within the past eight weeks.1 Strategically, we retain a bearish bias, as rising iron ore supply may overwhelm the market again in 2017H2. We remain tactically neutral and strategically bearish steel. Low steel inventories and production disruptions caused by China's recently launched environmental inspection program likely will continue to support steel prices in the near term. However, persistently high steel output and falling demand from the Chinese property sector should eventually knock down prices in 2017H2. We remain neutral copper going into 2017, expecting Chinese reflationary stimulus to continue along with a concerted effort to slow the housing boom in that country. This will still support real demand for copper, but will reduce demand from new construction. Manufacturing will play a larger role on the demand side next year, while a stronger USD could limit price appreciation. We still believe nickel will outperform zinc over a one-year time horizon. We are bullish nickel prices, both tactically and strategically, as we expect a supply deficit to widen on rising stainless steel demand and falling nickel ore supply in 2017. For zinc, we remain tactically neutral and strategically bearish. We expect zinc supply to rise considerably in response to current high prices. For the global aluminum market, we remain tactically bullish and strategically neutral. Supply shortages will likely persist ex-China over the next three to six months. We have three investment strategies, including long iron ore/short steel futures, long nickel/short zinc futures, and buying aluminum on weaknesses. Feature Iron Ore & Steel: Limited Upside In 2017 A Quick Recap Back in early October, we wrote an in-depth report on global iron ore and steel markets in which we made an out-of-consensus tactically bullish call on iron ore, expecting the price to reach the April high of $68.70/MT in 2016Q4. Our prediction was realized, with iron ore prices surging 43% to a two-year high of $79.81/MT on November 11 (Chart 1, panel 1). Although the steel market has been much stronger than the assessment driving our tactically neutral stance indicated earlier in the quarter, our call that iron ore would outperform steel in the near term was correct: Steel prices rose 21% during the same period of time - only half of the iron ore price rally (Chart 1, panel 1). Over the past two months, the rally occurred in both futures and spot markets, and in the markets globally (Chart 1, panels 2 and 3). Chart 1Iron Ore: Downgrade To Tactically Neutral Chart 2Steel: Remain Tactically Neutral The 2017 Outlook First, we downgrade our tactically bullish view on iron ore to neutral, as China likely will import less iron ore in 2017Q1 (Chart 2, panel 1). China has imposed stricter environmental regulations on its domestic metals industry since 2014 to control pollution. The government currently is sending environmental inspection teams to major steel-producing provinces to check how well the steel producers are complying with state environment rules. Many steel-producing factories were closed this year, due to environmental violations. This will constrain growth in Chinese steel output in the near term (Chart 2, panel 2). Between 2011 - 15, the state-owned Xinhua news agency states Chinese steel capacity has been reduced by 90 million MT; authorities want to cut as much as 150 million MT by 2020, including 45 million MT this year.2 Chinese steel production generally falls in January and February as workers are celebrating the Chinese Spring Festival - the most important festival for the Chinese. Iron ore inventories at major Chinese ports are still high (Chart 2, panel 3). Given iron ore prices have already rallied more than 100% since last December and steel demand outlook remains uncertain next year, most steel producers likely will choose to push off purchases into 2017Q2 or later. While China may slow its iron ore purchases next year, global iron ore supply is set to increase in 2017 as many projects will come on stream. The world's biggest iron ore project, Vale's S11D, which has a capacity of 90 million metric tons (mmt) per year, is expected to ship its first ore in January 2017. Moreover, with iron ore prices above $70/MT, global top iron ore companies with low production costs can be expected to sell as much as they can to maximize their profit, given their all-in production costs for high-quality iron ore (62% Fe) typically are between $30 and $35/MT.3 That said, we are not bearish on iron ore prices in the near term. We prefer to be neutral. Iron ore prices will have pullbacks, but the downside may be also limited in 2017H1. Chinese domestic iron ore production is still in a deep contraction (Chart 2, panel 4). Plus, most steel producing companies prefer high-quality ore from overseas over the domestic low-quality ore. In addition, almost all steel companies in China are profitable at present, which means Chinese steel production will rise after the Spring Festival holidays. All of these factors will support iron ore prices. Chart 3Iron Ore & Steel: Strategically Bearish Second, we retain our tactically neutral view on steel. Chinese steel demand was lifted by China's expansionary monetary and fiscal policies this year - which we have dubbed China's "reflationary" policy - which included reductions in its central bank's policy rate and reserve requirement ratio, and implementation of additional infrastructure projects (Chart 3). This was the driving force for the sharp steel price rally this year. The big question is how sustainable Chinese steel demand growth will be? This will be highly dependent on the Chinese government's decisions and actions. More than a third of steel demand is accounted for by the property market, of which some 70% is residential property.4 Mortgages accounted for approximately 71% of all new loans in August of this year, down from 90% in July, according to Reuters.5 This loan growth powered the iron ore and steel markets this past 12 - 18 months and China's credit-to-GDP ratio to extremely high levels. The OECD recently observed, "The high pace of debt accumulation was sustained despite weaker domestic demand growth. This raises concerns about the underlying quality of new credit, disorderly corporate defaults and the possible extent to which it has been used to support financial asset prices. Residential property prices in some of the largest cities have risen by over 30% year-on-year, although price growth in smaller cities has been much more modest. The price gains have been partly driven by loose monetary policy and ample credit availability as well as reduced land supply."6 Based on our calculations, Chinese steel demand started showing positive yoy growth in July and, so far, had posted four consecutive months of positive yoy growth from July to October. In September and October, the growth was accelerated to 8.3% and 6.6%, respectively, a clear improvement from the 0.8% yoy growth registered in July. The growth may last another three to six months but could peak sooner, if there are no new stimulus plans announced by the government. In addition to the housing sector, China's auto industry also saw significant demand growth. As China cut the sale taxes on small passenger vehicles from 10% to 5% this year, Chinese car sales jumped 13.6% yoy for the first 10 months of 2016, a significant improvement from a 5.7% yoy contraction in the same period of last year. If the government lets the tax cut expire at year-end, Chinese auto production may decline in 2017, which will weaken Chinese steel demand. In the meantime, Chinese steel producers will keep boosting production next year, which likely will limit the upside for steel prices. That said, current steel inventories in China are still low. According to the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA), steel inventories at large and medium steel enterprises fell 9% from mid-September to late October. This probably will limit the downside for steel prices. Third, we retain a strategic bearish view on both iron ore and steel. If there is no additional reflationary stimulus deployed in 2017, we expect Chinese steel demand to weaken. In the meantime, Chinese steel producers will keep boosting their production. Let these two factors run nine to 12 months, and we believe they will be sufficient to knock down both steel and iron ore prices. Our research last year concluded the Chinese property sector is structurally down-trending.7 Given that the property market is the biggest end user of steel in China, accounting for about 35% of total steel demand, we are strategically bearish on steel and iron ore prices. How To Make Money In The Iron Ore & Steel Market? Chart 4Take Profit On Long ##br##Iron Ore/ShortSteel Rebar Trade We went long May/17 iron ore futures in Dalian Futures Exchange in China and short May/17 steel rebar futures in Shanghai Futures Exchange on October 6 (Chart 4). Both contracts are denominated in RMB. The relative trade gives us a return of 18.1% in two months. We are taking profits with this publication, but we may re-initiate this pair trade on pullbacks. Risks If China deploys additional fiscal and monetary stimulus next year, similar in scope to this year's stimulus, we will re-evaluate our view accordingly. If global iron ore production is less than the market expects we could see further rallies in iron ore prices. Should this occur, we will re-examine our market call, as well. Copper: Market Is Balanced; Little Flex On Supply Side The reflationary stimulus that powered China's property markets - and drove demand for iron ore and steel higher - also propelled copper prices to dizzying heights in 2016H2. We do not expect this juggernaut to continue, and instead expect copper to trade sideways next year as global supply and demand stay relatively balanced (Chart 5). China accounts for roughly half of global refined copper demand (Chart 6). Manufacturing activity has the greatest impact on prices: A 1% increase in China's PMI translates to a 1.8% increase in LME copper prices (Chart 7). Chart 5Copper Market Is In Balance Chart 6World Copper Markets Are Balanced Chart 7China Demand Will Remain Key For Copper China's property market accounts for about a third of global copper demand in used in construction, according to the CME Group, which trades copper on its COMEX exchange. A 1% increase floor-space started in China leads to a 0.3% increase in LME copper prices (Chart 8). The surge in demand from the housing market lifted China's copper demand over the past 12 - 18 months, as credit creation in the form of home-mortgage loans expanded at a rapid clip (Chart 9). We expect the Chinese government to continue to try to rein in a booming property market, which has seen mortgage-loan growth of 90% p.a. recently. If the government is successful, this will limit price gains for copper next year. If not, the bubble will continue to expand in large tier-1 and -2 cities in China, making the copper rally's fundamental support tenous to say the least. Chart 8China PMIs and USD TWI Drive LME Prices Chart 9Mortgage Growth Likely Slows in 2017 This drives our expectation that the real economic activity in China - chiefly manufacturing - will be the dominant fundamental on the demand side for copper next year. On the supply side, we expect 2.65% yoy growth in refined copper production, just slightly above the International Copper Study Group's 2% estimate. Company and press reports cite a reduced mine capacity additions, lower ore content in mined output, and labor unrest as reasons supply side growth is slowing. Our balances reflect a convergence of supply and demand for next year, and also highlight the reduced flexibility in the system to respond to unplanned outages. For this reason, the global copper market could be prone to upside price risk in the event of a major unplanned production outage. Watch Out For USD Strength Copper, like all of the base metals, is sensitive to the path taken by the USD. We continue to expect the Fed to lift rates next month and a couple of times next year. This most likely will lift the USD 10% or so over the next 12 months. This would be bearish for base metals, particularly copper, since 92% of global demand for the red metal occurs outside the U.S. Our modeling indicates a 1% increase in the broad USD trade-weighted index leads to a 3.5% decrease in LME copper prices. A stronger USD will raise the local-currency cost of commodities ex-U.S. EM demand would suffer, which would slow the principal source of growth for base metals. Metals producers' ex-U.S. with little or no exposure to USD debt-service obligations would see local-currency operating costs fall. At the margin, this will lead to increased supply. These effects would combine to push commodity prices lower, producing a deflationary blowback to the U.S. Nickel & Zinc: Going Different Ways In 2017? Zinc has outperformed nickel significantly for the past six years. This year alone, zinc prices have shot up over 90% since January, almost doubling the 50% rally in nickel prices for the same period of time (Chart 10, panel 1). The nickel/zinc price ratio has declined to its lowest level since 1998 (Chart 10, panel 2). Will nickel continue underperforming zinc into 2017? Or will the trend reverse next year? We believe the latter has a higher probability. Tactically, we are bullish nickel and neutral zinc. Strategically, we are bullish nickel and bearish zinc.8 Zinc's bull story has been well-known for the past several years, and nickel's oversupplied bear story also has been commented on in the news. However, both markets' fundamentals are changing. Based on World Bureau of Metal Statistics (WBMS) data, for the first nine months of this year, the supply deficit in the global nickel market was at its highest level since 1996. Meanwhile, the global zinc market was already in balance (Chart 10, panels 3 and 4). Chart 10Nickel Likely To Outperform Zinc In 2017 Chart 11Nickel Has More Positive Fundamentals Than Zinc Both nickel and zinc markets are experiencing ore shortages (Chart 11, panels 1 and 2). For the nickel market, the ore shortage was mainly due to the Indonesian ore export ban, and Philippines' suspension of nickel miners for violating that country's environmental laws. For the zinc market, the ore shortage arose because of several big mines' depletion, years of underinvestment, and mine suspensions due to low prices late last year. The nickel ore shortage will become acute as the Indonesian ban remains in place and the Philippines' government becomes stricter on domestic mining operations. However, for zinc, most of the output loss occurred last year, and actually may be restored to the market in the near future. Zinc prices reached $2,811/MT last year as the market was adjusting to lost supply - the highest level since March 2008. In terms of demand, nickel exhibits much stronger demand growth versus zinc (Chart 11, panels 3 and 4). In addition, China's auto sales tax-cut policy will expire at year-end, which may cause Chinese auto production to fall in 2017. This will affect zinc much more than nickel, as less galvanized steel will be needed next year if Chinese car production falls. Investment Strategies We sold Dec/17 zinc at $2,400/MT on November 3, and the trade was stopped out at $2,500/MT with a 4% loss (Chart 12, panel 1). Zinc prices jumped 11.5% in four trading days in late November, which we believe was mainly driven by speculative buying. Nonetheless, in the near term, global zinc supply is still on the tight side, and zinc inventories are low (Chart 12, panel 2). Zinc prices could rally more in the near term. We were looking to go Long Dec/17 LME nickel vs. Short Dec/17 LME zinc if the ratio drops to 4.3 since mid-November (Chart 13, panel 1). We also suggested that if the order gets filled, put a stop-loss for the ratio at 4.15. Chart 12Zinc: Stay Tactically Neutral Chart 13Risks To Long Nickel/Short Zinc On November 25, the order was filled at the closing price ratio of 4.17. But unfortunately the ratio declined to 4.08 on the next trading day (November 28), based on the closing price ratio, which triggered our predefined stop-loss level with a 2.2% loss. The ratio was trading at 4.17 again as of November 29. As the market is so volatile, we recommend initiating this relative trade if it drops below 4.05 to compensate the risk. If the order gets filled, we suggest putting a 5% stop-loss level for the relative trade. After all, nickel prices could still have pullbacks, as global nickel inventories still are elevated (Chart 13, panel 2). Risks Our strategically bearish view on zinc will be wrong if global zinc ore supply does not increase as much as we expect, or global zinc demand still has robust growth in 2017. Our strategically bullish view on nickel will be wrong if Indonesian refined nickel output increases quickly, resulting in a smaller supply deficit than the market expects. However, due to power shortages, poor infrastructure and funding problems, development on many of the smelters and stainless steel plants once envisioned for the nickel market have been delayed. We believe these problems will continue to be headwinds for Indonesian nickel output growth, and will continue to restrict supply growth going forward. Aluminum: Cautiously Bullish In 2017 Chart 14Aluminum: Remain Tactically Bullish ##br## And Strategically Neutral Sharp supply cuts combined with tight inventories have pushed aluminum prices higher this year. Prices in China have rallied more than 50% so far this year, which was more than double the 20% rise in the global aluminum market (Chart 14, panel 1). This probably indicates a tighter Chinese domestic market than the global (ex-China) market. Looking forward, we remain tactically bullish on LME aluminum prices and neutral on SHFE aluminum prices.9 The supply shortage will likely persist ex-China over next three to six months. Global aluminum production has declined faster than demand so far this year. Based on the WBMS data, global aluminum output was still in a deep contraction in September (Chart 14, panel 2). Even though China's operating capacity has been rising every month so far this year, Chinese total aluminum output for the first 10 months was still 1.1% less than the same period last year. In addition, considering the possible output loss due to the Spring Festival in late January, we believe it will take another three to six months for China to meet its own domestic demand and inventory restocking. Extremely tight domestic inventories should limit the downside of SHFE aluminum prices (Chart 14, panel 3) as the market adjusts on the supply side. We think there is more upside for LME aluminum prices, as the supply shortage will likely persist ex-China over next three to six months. Currently, Chinese aluminum prices are about 18% higher than the LME prices (both are in USD terms), which will likely limit the supply coming from China's exports to the rest of world. Strategically, we are neutral LME aluminum prices and bearish on SHFE aluminum prices. Currently, about 85% of the China's aluminum operating capacity is making money. With new low-cost capacity and more idled capacity coming back on line, profitable Chinese smelters will continue boosting their aluminum production to maximize profits. This, over a longer term like nine months to one year, should eventually spill over to the global market. Investment strategy Chart 15Still Look To Buy Aluminum We recommended buying the Mar/17 LME aluminum contract (Chart 15) if it falls to $1,640/MT (current: $1,721/MT). We expect the contract price to rise to $1,900/MT over the next three to five months. If our order is filled, we suggest a 5% stop-loss. Risks Prices at both the SHFE and LME may come under intense pressure if aluminum producers in China increases their output quickly, even at a small loss, in order to create jobs and revenue for local governments. If global aluminum demand falters in 2017 while supply is rising, we will revisit our strategically neutral view on LME aluminum prices. Ellen JingYuan He, Editor/Strategist ellenj@bcaresearch.com Robert P. Ryan, Senior Vice President rryan@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see Commodity & Energy Strategy Special Report for iron ore and steel "Global Iron Ore And Steel Markets: Is The Rally Over?," dated October 6, 2016, available at ces.bcaresearch.com. In this report, we are using Metal Bulletin iron ore price delivered to Qingdao port in China as our iron ore reference price. 2 Please see "N. China city cuts 32 mln tonnes of steel capacity" published October 30, 2016, by Xinhua's online service, xinhuanet.com. 3 Please see "CHART: The breakeven iron ore prices for major miners in 2016," published June 7, 2016, by Business Insider Australia. 4 Please see "China Resources Quarterly, Southern spring ~ Northern autumn 2016," published by the Australian Department of Industry, Innovation and Science and Westpac, particularly this discussion on p. 4, "The real estate sector." 5 Please see "China August new loans well above expectations on mortgage boom," published by Reuters September 14, 2016. 6 Please see the OECD Economic Outlook, Volume 2016 Issue 2, Chapter 1, entitled "General Assessment of the Macroeconomic Situation," p. 44, under the sub-head "Rapid debt accumulation risks instability in EMEs." The IMF also expressed concern over rising debt levels supporting the real-estate boom in China, particularly in the larger cities, noting, "Credit and financial sector leverage continue to rise faster than GDP, and state-owned enterprises in sectors with excess capacity and real estate continue to absorb a major share of credit flow. The deviation of credit growth from its long-term trend, the so-called credit overhang--a key cross-country indicator of potential crisis--is estimated somewhere in the range of 22-27 percent of GDP..., which is very high by international comparison." Please see the IMF's Global Financial Stability Report for October 2016, "Fostering Stability in a Low-Growth, Low-Rate Era," p. 35, under the sub-heading "China: Growing Credit and Complexities." 7 Please see Commodity & Energy Strategy Special Report "Chinese Property Market: A Structural Downtrend Just Started," dated June 4, 2015 and "China Property Market Q&As," dated July 2, 2015, available at ces.bcaresearch.com 8 Please see Commodity & Energy Strategy Weekly Report "Oil Production Cut, Trump Election Will Stoke Inflation Expectations," dated November 17, 2016 and "The Lithium Battery Supply Chain: Efficient Exposure To Electric-Vehicle Market," dated October 27, 2016, available at ces.bcaresearch.com 9 Please see Commodity & Energy Strategy Weekly Report "Market Saturation Likely In Asia, If KSA - Russia Fail To Curb Oil Production," dated November 10, 2016, available at ces.bcaresearch.com Investment Views and Themes Recommendations Strategic Recommendations Tactical Trades Commodity Prices and Plays Reference Table Closed Trades

The abrupt jump in cyclical vs. defensive share price ratio appears to have been driven solely by external forces, i.e. the sell-off in the bond market, rather than a shift in underlying profit drivers. For instance, emerging markets (EM) and the cyclical vs. defensive share price ratio have tended to move hand in hand. The former is pro-cyclical, and outperforms when economic growth prospects are perceived to be improving. Recent sharp EM underperformance has created a large negative divergence with the cyclical vs. defensive share price ratio. The surging U.S. dollar is a growth impediment for many developing countries with large foreign debt liabilities. By extension, the growth impetus required to support deep cyclical sector profit outperformance may be elusive. As a result, we expect re-convergence to occur via a rebound in defensive vs. cyclical sectors.

Highlights Despite the static headline GDP figures, most of our indicators suggest Chinese growth momentum has improved since the second quarter, particularly in the industrial sector. A dollar overshoot, domestic housing policy tightening and potential policy mistakes by the Chinese authorities need to be monitored for potential growth disappointments. The rally in commodity prices reflects improving Chinese demand, but it has ignored the surging dollar. Chinese H shares are a safer play on Chinese reflation and growth improvement. Feature Our recent conversations with clients suggest that global investors' concerns over China have slightly abated, as various economic numbers have shown improvement. Nonetheless, investors remain highly sceptical about China's macro situation, raising questions ranging from "traditional" distrust of China's economic data to the latest worries of a "trade war" with the U.S. under President Donald Trump. We dedicate this week's report to addressing some common issues that we have been discussing with clients of late. What Is The Actual GDP Growth In China? In Recent Quarters, It Seems To Be Holding In A "Too-Good-To-Be-True" Tight Range? Chinese real GDP growth has been 6.7% for the past three consecutive quarters, right in the middle of the government's official target of 6.5-7%. This seemingly incredible stability has stoked long-held suspicions among investors about the reliability of Chinese economic data. While we do not claim to have the ultimate insider story on official Chinese statistics, and it is certainly possible that the macro numbers are "smoothed out" to hide otherwise greater volatility in economic reality, it is also possible that stable headline numbers overshadow bigger underlying fluctuations among different sectors (Chart 1). Chart 1Greater Volatility Underneath ##br##Stable GDP For example, while real GDP growth has stayed at 6.7% since Q1 this year, there has been some fluctuations in both the industrial and service sectors. Within the service sector, the financial industry has had a major downturn, with nominal growth falling from 10.9% in Q1 to 8.2% in the last quarter, partly due to last year's base effect of the stock market boom-bust. The real estate sector, on the other hand, has been on the mend, with growth strengthening from 14% in Q1 to 16.3%. Regardless, the exact GDP growth figures rarely matter from an investor's perspective. What is more important is the growth trajectory and policy implications. On this front, most of our indicators suggest growth momentum has improved since the second quarter of the year, particularly in the industrial sector. A strong recovery in manufacturing-sensitive indicators such as railway freight, heavy machine sales and electricity consumption (Chart 2). Continued acceleration in profit growth, in both the overall industrial sector and among listed firms.1 Further improvement in pricing power and producer prices. Producer price deflation that lasted for over four years ended in September, compared with 5.3% deflation in January. Looking forward, we expect the economy to continue to improve, even though some of the high-flying variables may begin to moderate. On the policy front, the authorities will likely enter a wait-and-see mode, especially on interest rates. Our model signals that the central bank's interest rate cuts have likely come to an end, unless the economy relapses again (Chart 3). This is also reflected in the pickup in interest rates in the bond market. We will further explore China's growth outlook, policy orientation and investment implications for the New Year in the first week of 2017. Chart 2Broad Improvement In##br## Industrial Indicators Chart 3No More Rate Cuts, ##br##For Now There Appears To Be Growing Acceptance In The Market That China Will Not Suffer A Hard Landing. What Are You Monitoring To Gauge The Growth Risk? We have not been in the "hard landing" camp, and have been anticipating a "rocky bottoming" process in Chinese growth for the year.2 Despite enormous financial volatility in January associated with the domestic stock market and the RMB, growth has largely played out as we anticipated. We expect the economy to remain resilient, but are watching some pressure points that could lead to disappointments. The first is the RMB, which has been depreciating notably against the dollar in recent weeks, as the dollar uptrend has resumed with vigour. In our view, a strong dollar is one of the key risks, as it not only generates downward pressure on the CNY/USD cross rate, on which the market tends to focus closely, but also halts the "stealth" depreciation of the RMB in trade-weighted terms, which reduces the reflationary benefits of a weaker exchange rate on the Chinese economy (Chart 4). In other words, a weak CNY/USD and a strong trade-weighted RMB is a poor combination for both financial markets and the macro economy.3 So far, the CNY/USD decline appears orderly, and we doubt the greenback will massively overshoot against all major currencies within a short period without causing growth difficulties in the U.S. However, the situation should be closely monitored and continuously assessed. The second is housing policy tightening, which the authorities have re-imposed since October to check rapid gains in home prices. So far, the tightening measures have not led to a significant slowdown in home sales in major cities: Daily home sales in the major cities that we track have broken out to new record highs (Chart 5). However, new housing supply has already been very weak, which together with robust sales could lead to even lower housing inventory and a further spike in home prices. We maintain guarded optimism on China's housing construction, as we discussed in detail in our previous report.4 The risk is that unyielding home price gains will force the Chinese authorities to up the ante on tightening, which could lead to a sudden deterioration in housing activity. In this vein, price moderation should be good news from policymakers' perspectives, as well as for the overall economy. Chart 4The RMB: Weak Or Strong? Chart 5Monitor Housing Activity Finally, as we have argued repeatedly, China's growth difficulties in recent years have had a lot to do with the excessively tight policy environment post the global financial crisis - a policy mistake that compounded deflationary pressures in the economy, which had already been suffering from weak external demand. Despite budding improvement in the economy, China's overall macro environment remains highly challenging, and policy mistakes that undermine aggregate demand will prove extremely costly. In this vein, any broader attempt to tighten policies, hasten administrative enforcement to de-lever or prematurely withdraw fiscal support on infrastructure construction will prove counterproductive. A more recent risk is how China deals with the potential protectionist threat from the U.S. under President Donald Trump.5 Our view is that China should avoid escalating trade tensions with tic-for-tac retaliations that could further complicate the growth outlook. As far as the markets are concerned, Chinese equities appear to have begun to price in a lower "China risk premium." Forward P/E ratios for both A shares and H shares have been rising since early this year, likely a reflection of investors' easing anxiety on China's macro conditions (Chart 6). Nonetheless, Chinese stocks' forward P/E ratios remain well below other major markets and the global average, and the risk premium in Chinese equities is still substantially higher than historical norms. Beyond near-term volatility, we expect the risk premium in Chinese stocks to continue to revert to the mean, leading to multiples expansion and further price gains. At minimum, Chinese equities should outpace global and EM benchmarks. There Has Been A Massive Rally In Some Industrial Commodity Prices In China. Is This Driven By Speculative Frenzy? How Much Does The Commodities Rally Reflect Chinese Demand? Industrial commodity prices have rebounded sharply in both the Chinese domestic spot markets and various derivatives exchanges. For some products, prices have gone parabolic, and there is little doubt that these extreme moves cannot be fully explained by fundamental factors (Chart 7). Nonetheless, it is also well known that commodities in general are subject to volatile price fluctuations, as they are extremely sensitive to marginal shifts in the supply-demand balance due to very low price elasticity among both producers and end users. Therefore, it is impossible, and rather meaningless, to precisely detangle speculative forces and fundamental factors. Chart 6Risk Premium Will Continue ##br##To Mean Revert Chart 7No Clear Evidence Of Commodity ##br## Speculative Frenzy That said, from a macro perspective, a few observations are in order: There does not appear to be a particularly high level of over-trading and speculative activity involved this time around compared with historical norms. Futures transactions this year have been hovering at close to record low levels, despite sharp prices gains in numerous products. Even if prices decline sharply, the impact on the financial system should be negligible because of very low investor participation. Broad-based improvement in numerous industry-sensitive indicators shown in Chart 2 on page 2 suggest the gains in commodity prices are at least partially attributable to improving demand rather than purely driven by speculative frenzy. In fact, improving Chinese demand is also reflected in a firmer global shipping rate. The Baltic Dry Index has almost quadrupled since its February lows, which hardly has anything to do with Chinese retail speculators (Chart 8, top panel). Massive price gains in some commodities such as steel and coal have been partially driven by the Chinese authorities' attempts early this year to "de-capacity" the two sectors, with aggressive efforts to cut idle capacity and reduce domestic production. The self-imposed restrictions together with improving demand have led to sharp price gains and a significant rebound in imports of related products (Chart 8, bottom panel). This confirms our view that the overcapacity issue in the Chinese industrial sector has been overestimated.6 Moreover, regulators' control on domestic supply has been relaxed, which will likely lead to rising domestic production in due course - this bodes well for Chinese domestic business activity, but poorly for the prices of related products. Historically, commodity prices have been positively correlated with China's growth trajectory, and negatively correlated with the trade-weighted dollar (Chart 9). Currently, the commodities rally clearly reflects regained strength in Chinese industrial activity, but has ignored the recent strength of the greenback, leading to a glaring divergence that has been very rare in recent history. Chart 8More Signs Of ##br## Improving Demand Chart 9Macro Drivers And Commodity Prices: ##br##Mind The Gap It remains to be seen how such a divergence will eventually converge. Our hunch is that the dollar will likely continue to rally in the near term, which means commodity prices could converge to the downside. Our commodities team has upgraded base metals from underweight earlier this year on China's reflation efforts, and is currently neutral on the asset class. What is more certain, however, is that China's reflation efforts and growth improvement should also lift Chinese H shares, but the price gains of H shares so far have been much more muted. Earlier this year we recommended going long Chinese H shares against the CRB index, which so far has been flat. We are still comfortable holding this position. The bottom line is that we do not advocate chasing the current rally in base metals. Chinese H shares are a safer play on Chinese reflation and growth improvement. Yan Wang, Senior Vice President China Investment Strategy yanw@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see China Investment Strategy Weekly Report, "Chinese Stocks: Between Domestic Improvement And External Uncertainty", dated November 10, 2016, available at cis.bcaresearch.com 2 Please see China Investment Strategy Weekly Report, "2016: A Choppy Bottoming", dated January 6, 2016, available at cis.bcaresearch.com 3 Please see China Investment Strategy Weekly Report, "The RMB's Near-Term Dilemma And Long-Term Ambition", dated October 20, 2016, available at cis.bcaresearch.com 4 Please see China Investment Strategy Weekly Report, "Housing Tightening: Now And 2010", dated October 13, 2016, available at cis.bcaresearch.com 5 Please see China Investment Strategy Weekly Report, "China As A Currency Manipulator?", dated November 24, 2016; and "China-U.S. Trade Relations: The Big Picture", dated November 17, 2016, available at cis.bcaresearch.com 6 Please see China Investment Strategy Special Report, "The Myth Of Chinese Overcapacity", dated October 6, 2016, available at cis.bcaresearch.com Cyclical Investment Stance Equity Sector Recommendations

Highlights U.S. bond yields and the U.S. dollar will rise further. Consistently, EM currencies and local bonds will continue selling off. There is meaningful downside in EM exchange rates. We recommend short positions in the following basket of EM currencies versus the U.S. dollar: KOR, MYR, IDR, TRY, ZAR, BRL, COP and CLP. Within domestic bond portfolios, overweight low-beta defensive markets as well as Russia and Mexico. Our underweights are Turkey, South Africa, Malaysia and Indonesia. The latest exponential rise in commodities prices on Chinese exchanges is an unsustainable speculative frenzy. Feature Emerging market (EM) risk assets will likely continue to be driven by both rising U.S. bond yields and a strong U.S. dollar over the next two months or so. Beyond the next couple of months, the focus of the markets will likely switch to China: renewed weakness in growth and possible instability in its financial markets, with negative implications for China plays globally and for commodities prices in particular. The combination of these two negative forces will lead to a considerable drop in EM currencies in the next six months or so. In turn, EM currency depreciation will trigger broad liquidation of EM risk assets. BCA's Emerging Markets Strategy service believes that EM risk assets will continue to sell off in absolute terms, and underperform their DM/U.S. peers. EM Local Bonds The total return (including carry) index of JPM GBI-EM1 local currency bonds in U.S. dollar terms has rolled over at a critical resistance level (Chart I-1). The total return index of EM local bonds has also relapsed relative to the total return of 5-year U.S. Treasurys, failing to break above its long-term moving average (Chart I-1, bottom panel). Consistently, domestic bond yields have troughed at important technical levels in several key countries such as Brazil, Turkey, Colombia, Russia, South Africa and Malaysia (Chart I-2A and Chart I-2B). Chart I-1EM Local Bonds' Total ##br##Return In US$: Failed Breakout Chart I-2AHave EM Domestic ##br##Bond Yields Bottomed? Chart I-2BHave EM Domestic ##br##Bond Yields Bottomed? In short, EM local bonds are exhibiting negative technical dynamics that corroborate our downbeat fundamental analysis. Consequently, we believe the total return JPM GBI-EM index in U.S. dollar terms will drop to new lows for the following reasons: Currency swings are responsible for most of the fluctuations in EM local bond total returns. As we have elaborated numerous times and re-assert in this report, the outlook for EM exchange rates remains gloomy. Foreign holdings of EM local currency bonds are substantial (Table I-1). Even though there have been improvements in a few countries, current account and fiscal deficits generally remain wide in the majority of developing nations (Chart I-3A and Chart I-3B). In other words, a number of EM economies are still at risk from a slowdown in foreign funding. Table I-1Foreign Holdings Of EM Local Bonds Chart I-3ACurrent Accounts And Fiscal Deficits Chart I-3BCurrent Accounts And Fiscal Deficits Chart I-4U.S. And EM Local Yields Notably, the bar for exchange rate depreciation is very low in EM economies with current account deficits. It takes only a reduction in net capital and financial inflows - i.e., net outflows are not necessary - for these countries' currencies to depreciate significantly. As net foreign funding diminishes, exchange rates of countries with current account deficits should weaken and interest rates should rise in order to compress domestic demand, which in turn would equalize the current account deficit to net inflows in capital and financial accounts. Finally, the spread of EM local bonds (the yield for GBI-EM global diversified index) over duration-matched (5-year) U.S. Treasury yields has not risen much (Chart I-4). Heightened risks in EM currencies warrant higher local bond yield spreads over U.S. Treasurys. Bottom Line: Absolute return investors should stay away from EM local currency bonds. U.S. Bond Yields And The Dollar: More Upside We expect U.S./DM bond yields to keep rising as re-pricing in global fixed income markets continues. The decline in DM bond yields in recent years until the latest selloff was enormous, and some sort of mean reversion should not come as a surprise. Our bias is that this selloff will likely continue until sometime in January, when U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office. This riot in the bond market could, in retrospect, resemble a typical "sell the rumor, buy the news" pattern. In other words, by the time President-elect Trump takes office, a lot of bad news will already be priced into the U.S. bond markets, creating a buying opportunity. In our July 13 Weekly Report,2 we argued that: "In the U.S., the combination of a healthy labor market and a heavily overbought fixed-income market have created the backdrop for a material rise in U.S. interest rate expectations/bond yields. As U.S. rate expectations climb, the U.S. dollar should gain support. This in turn will create headwinds for EM currencies and other EM risk assets." Then, we reiterated this view in our July 27 Weekly Report: "Nowadays, there is little talk in the investment community about a bond bubble and the potential for much higher bond yields. Indeed, "lower for longer" has begun to dominate the investor lexicon. This is a sign that many G7 bond bears have likely capitulated. Investor consensus on bonds has become quite bullish, and many investors are long duration. When many bears capitulate, the odds of a market selloff inevitably rise. "Importantly, the increase in G7 bond yields might not be gradual as many expect because of the following: with yields at such low levels, bonds' duration is high and price changes become very sensitive to changes in yield... Such (large) price changes (drops) would amount to large losses for bond investors, and forced selling could intensify. As a result, the unwinding of long positions could be abrupt and volatile." For now, odds are that U.S. bond yields will rise further. Given global bond funds have seen massive inflows in recent years, the latest drop in prices of various bonds has been substantial and will likely trigger withdrawals and redemptions from bond funds, prompting forced selling. This is true for all types of bond portfolios, including DM government and corporates, EM credit (U.S. dollar bonds) and EM local currency bonds. U.S. bond yields are still low, even from the perspective of the past several years, and the market-implied terminal fed funds rate is still 80 basis points below the median projection of the Federal Open Market Committee's longer-run rate (Chart I-5). Given that U.S. interest rate expectations are not high at all, they will rise further (Chart I-6) as the uptrend in U.S. wages persists - driven by an already reasonably tight labor market (Chart I-7). Chart I-5U.S. Interest Rate Expectations Are Still Low Chart I-6U.S. Wage Growth Is Accelerating Chart I-7More Upside In U.S. Treasurys Yields Finally, the U.S. dollar will continue to be buoyed by rising U.S. interest rate expectations. Our composite momentum indicator for the broad trade-weighted U.S. dollar has bounced off the zero line (Chart I-8). This constitutes a strong technical confirmation of the durable bullish market trend in the dollar. Bottom Line: Odds are that the rise in U.S. bond yields is not over. As U.S. bond yields rise further, EM currencies and bonds will sell off. Long-Term EM Currency Trends We have several observations on the long-term performance of EM currencies and financial markets: In the long run, there is no guarantee that the majority of EM currencies will appreciate in real terms (adjusted for inflation differentials). In fact, even countries such as Korea and Taiwan - which have been very successful in their economic development and have tremendously grown their income per capita - have seen their real (inflation-adjusted) exchange rates depreciate over the past several decades (Chart I-9). The case for long-term appreciation in real terms is even weaker for exchange rates in countries that exhibit chronically high inflation rates and/or current account deficits. This has been true for many non-Asian EM currencies (Chart I-10). Chart I-8The U.S. Dollar Is ##br##In A Genuine Bull Market Chart I-9Long-Term Currency ##br##Downtrends In Korea And Taiwan Chart I-10EM Currency Trends: ##br##A Long-Term Perspective Importantly, most losses to foreign investors in EM financial markets often occur via currency depreciation. This is even truer in the current bear market downtrend. The JPM ELMI+ currency total return index (including cost of carry) seems to be about to break down (Chart I-11). In EM ex-China, the real effective exchange rate is still elevated (Chart I-12). Given their poor productivity growth outlook, the real effective exchange rates will be inclined to depreciate. Chart I-11EM Currency Return With Cost ##br##Of Carry Versus U.S. Dollar Chart I-12Weak Productivity Means ##br##Further Currency Depreciation To limit the upside in domestic interest rates - both in bond yields and interbank rates - many developing nations' central banks will inject more local currency liquidity into their respective systems.3 This might help cap local interest rates, but is bearish for their currencies. The Turkish central bank has been among the most aggressive in this disguised money printing, and not surprisingly the value of its currency has collapsed (Chart I-13). There is no long-term history for EM currencies, as before 1998 most developing nations' exchange rates were pegged. Yet when one examines EM equities' relative performance against the S&P 500, it emerges that there is no single EM bourse that has outperformed U.S. stocks on a consistent basis in the very long run. Chart I-14A and Chart I-14B demonstrate that among 11 EM equity markets that have a long-term history, none have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past 30-35 years. Chart I-13Turkey's Central Bank Has Been ##br##Pumping Local Currency Into The System Chart I-14AEM Equities Versus The S&P 500: ##br##A Long-Term Perspective Chart I-14BEM Equities Versus The S&P 500: ##br##A Long-Term Perspective This goes to reveal that the starting point of underdevelopment and the mark "emerging" does not guarantee consistent outperformance even in the long run. In fact, EM's relative performance against the U.S. has followed multi-year cycles, and we believe the current bear market and underperformance is not yet over. While EM underperformance is long in duration, economic and financial adjustments remain incomplete. DM QE programs and China's still-growing credit bubble have delayed the adjustment. As a rule, the longer a financial or economic imbalance/excess lingers, the more protracted the adjustment will be. Bottom Line: EM exchange rates will continue depreciating. We recommend short positions in the following basket of EM currencies versus the U.S. dollar: KRW, MYR, IDR, TRY, ZAR, BRL, COP and CLP. For a complete list of our open currency and fixed-income trades please refer to page 18. Country Allocation For EM Local Bond Portfolios Chart I-15 demonstrates the relationship between developing countries' foreign funding requirements and their real (inflation-adjusted) local bond yields. The foreign funding requirement is calculated as the sum of the current account deficit and foreign debt service obligations over the next 12 months. We use inflation-linked (real) bond yields for markets where they are available. In other cases, we subtract the headline inflation rate from nominal bond yields to derive the real one. Chart I-15Real Bond Yields And Foreign Funding Requirements: A Cross Country Comparison The higher the foreign funding requirement, the higher the real yield must be to attract foreign capital, all else equal. On this diagram, the value pockets are Brazil (its real yield of 6.3% offers the best value by far), Indonesia, Russia and India. Domestic real yields in these countries are relatively high compared to their foreign funding requirements, which is a proxy for exchange rate risk. In contrast, Turkey, Chile, Colombia, Hungary and Malaysia have low real yields relative to their large foreign funding requirements. However, there are other factors that are shaping local yields. For example, Brazilian real yields look very attractive on this matrix because the latter does not account for public debt dynamics. The fiscal dynamics in Brazil are dreadful.4 On the contrary, Chilean local bonds appear expensive, but the country's fiscal outlook is very healthy. After considering all factors that affect local bond yields as well as incorporating the currency outlook, we recommend the following allocations: Overweight Korea, Thailand, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Russia and Mexico (Chart I-16). For investors who can invest in Chinese, Taiwanese and Indian local bonds, we also recommend overweighting these markets within an EM domestic bond portfolio. Underweight Turkish, South African, Malaysian and Indonesian local currency bonds (Chart I-17). We will publish our analysis on Indonesia soon. Stay neutral on domestic bonds' total return in U.S. dollar terms in Brazil (with a negative bias because of the considerable currency risk), Chile and Colombia (Chart I-18). Chart I-16Our Recommended ##br##Overweights In Local Bonds Chart I-17Our Recommended ##br##Underweights In Local Bonds Chart I-18Local Bonds ##br##Warranting A Neutral Allocation A Word On China's Commodities Frenzy Speculative fever is running high in Chinese commodities exchanges. Frenetic commodities trading in China has seen prices skyrocket of late (Chart I-19). Prices often rise a limit during a day. We have the following observations: This stampede into commodities is a reflection of rotating bubbles in China. Mania forces rotated from property to stocks, then to corporate bonds, and then back to housing, again. It seems to be shifting into commodities now. While the mainland's industrial sector and real demand for commodities have registered gradual improvement in recent months, the sharp spike in commodities prices largely reflects speculative activity much more than real demand. In fact, net imports of base metals have been flat for the past six years (zero growth in six years), and all swings have most likely been related to inventory cycles (Chart I-20). Chart I-19The Spike In Commodities ##br##Prices Trading In China Chart I-20China: Net Import Of Base Metals Like any speculative frenzy, this is momentum-driven and will one day crash. Timing the reversal is impossible. A lot depends on policymakers' willingness to confront this speculative bubble and investor psychology. Notably, onshore corporate bond yields and swap rates have recently begun rising. As in DM bonds, the rise in yields from very low levels is causing large price drops. As and if yields rise further, losses in corporate bonds will become considerable and investors (especially ones managing retail investors' money) will head for the exits, triggering liquidation. This, along with the eventual unraveling of commodities speculation poses substantial potential risk to global, or at least EM, financial markets. Bottom Line: The latest exponential rise in commodities prices on Chinese exchanges is an unsustainable speculative frenzy that will end badly. Arthur Budaghyan, Senior Vice President Emerging Markets Strategy & Frontier Markets Strategy arthurb@bcaresearch.com 1 The JPMorgan Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets (GBI-EM) indices are emerging market debt benchmarks that track local currency bonds issued by Emerging Market governments. 2 Please see Emerging Markets Strategy Weekly Report, titled "Risks To Our Negative EM View," dated July 13, 2016. 3 Please see "EM: Is The Liquidity Upturn Genuine And Sustainable?" Parts I & II, dated November 25, 2015 and December 2, 2015, respectively. 4 Please refer to the Emerging Markets Strategy Special Report, "Brazil: The Honeymoon Is Over," dated August 3, 2016. Equity Recommendations Fixed-Income, Credit And Currency Recommendations

Highlights Commodity prices and the dollar can occasionally rise together. The 1999-2001 and the 2005 experiences suggest a supply shock is required. If commodities were to rally alongside a strengthening dollar in 2017, this would be an oil-led move. Metals have very little potential upside as improving DM growth drains liquidity from EM economies. Favor petro currencies (CAD and NOK) relative to the antipodeans (AUD and NZD). Stay short AUD/CAD. USD/JPY is in a major bull market. However, near-term risks are to the downside. Feature It has become axiomatic among investors to assume that a dollar bull market is synonymous with a commodity bear market. While the relationships usually holds, there have been episodes where the narrow trade-weighted dollar and natural resource prices moved in tandem, not in opposite directions: 1982 to 1984, 1999 to 2001, and in 2005. The recent surge in base metals raises that possibility, but as DM economies suck in global liquidity away from EM ones, the prospect for a positive correlation between most commodities and the dollar is still remote. When Do Commodities And The Dollar Walk Together? Commodities and the dollar usually move in opposite direction. Since 1980, there has only been three episodes of consistent commodity strength despite dollar appreciation: 1982 to 1984, 1999 to 2001, and in 2005 (Chart I-1). What defines each of these episodes? In the early 1980s, the rally in commodities was concentrated outside of the energy complex. The U.S. economy was rebounding from the 1980s double-dip recession, and Japan was in the middle of its economic miracle. Their vigorous growth resulted in a large positive demand shock, boosting Japan and the U.S.'s share of global copper consumption from 34% to 37%. This undermined any harmful effect on metal prices from a rising dollar (Chart I-2). Chart I-1Commodities Can Rise ##br##Alongside The Dollar Chart I-2Early 1980s: U.S. Growth Was ##br##Able To Boost Metal Prices From 1999 to 2000, the rally in commodity was not broad based. In fact, it was concentrated in the energy sector (Chart I-3). It reflected three factors: After being decimated in 1997 and 1998, EM stock prices managed to stage a temporary rebound; one that mostly reflected bombed out equity and currency valuations. However, the muted response of non-oil commodities suggests that this rebound had little economic impact. Energy was buoyed by the vigorous growth in DM, with OECD oil consumption growing 1% annually between 1998 and 2001. Finally, as oil prices fell below US$10/bbl in late 1998 global oil production contracted sharply, plummeting by more than 4 million barrels, or 5% of total production. Not only could Saudi Arabia and Russia not withstand the pain of lower oil prices, but the latter was in the midst of a massive economic crisis that disrupted the local oil industry's ability to finance its operations. While most commodities in the 2005 episode experienced subtle upward drift, once again, energy was the true winner (Chart I-4). Supply disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico following the record-breaking 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons contributed to removing slightly more than one million barrels from the market. Additionally, oil had captured investors' imagination, with the peak-oil theory being all the rage. This combination explains why oil was the primary beneficiary of Chinese and EM economic strength while base metals could not overcome the dollar's hurdle. Chart I-31999-2001: Commodity##br## Rally Was An Oil Rally Chart I-42005: Commodity##br## Rally Was An Oil Rally Bringing it all together, the dollar and commodities where able to rise as one in the 1980s because they responded to the same positive U.S. growth shock. However, during the 1999-2001 and 2005 commodity rallies in the face of strong dollar, the supply/demand imbalance in oil was paramount. Bottom Line: The dollar and commodity prices can occasionally move together. This happens when a supply shock affects a natural resource as important as oil, lifting its price despite the greenback hurdle. Outside of energy, in general prices still displayed little upside through these episodes. Giant Sucking Sound Our bullishness on the dollar is built on our positive outlook for U.S. growth and rates, a view only reinforced by Trump's electoral victory.1 This does not mean we expect the same boost to metal consumption that we saw in the early 1980s. Today, combined Japanese and U.S. copper consumption only accounts for 11% of global consumption. For iron ore, the U.S. represents only 4% of global consumption. Even if the U.S. were to spend $1trillion over five years on infrastructure (an extremely optimistic assumption), it will not constitute the same relative boost to global demand as the U.S. expansion during the 1980s did (Chart I-5). Additionally, metals will remain slightly oversupplied. In fact, inventories have been rising and more supply of iron ore is coming upstream in 2017, as additional Pilbara iron ore deposits are being unleashed on the markets. In the case of copper, our commodity specialists expect supply to continue to grow in the years ahead. But still, could EM lift the demand for metals enough to play the same role as the U.S. did in the early 1980s? We doubt it. When it comes to China, the current growth improvement is likely as good as it gets. The Keqiang index - a measure of industrial activity in the Middle Kingdom - is approaching post-2011 highs, but the demand for loans remains very depressed (Chart I-6). Moreover, the Chinese fiscal impulse - which has buoyed the country's economy for much of 2016 - has rolled over and is now in negative territory, suggesting that the Keqiang index will weaken in 2017. This will weigh on Chinese imports of machinery and raw materials, representing a deflationary shock for other EM. Chart I-5Metals Are About China, Not The U.S. Chart I-6China: The Best Is Behind Us At the current juncture, additional deflationary forces on EM would be an unwelcomed development. The structural headwinds plaguing EM economies are still in place. EM remain burdened by too much capacity, too much debt, and too little productivity (Chart I-7). More worryingly, strong DM growth will do very little to lift EM economies and assets out of their structural funk. Instead, DM strength is likely to hurt EM. As Chart I-8 shows, since 2009 improvements in DM leading economic indicators (LEIs) have led to falling EM LEIs. Chart I-7EM Structural Headwinds Chart I-8DM Hurting EM EM nations are not very dependent on DM as a source of growth. Intra EM trade has been responsible for most of the growth in EM exports as shipments to the DM economies and the U.S. now account for only 28% and 15% of EM total exports, respectively. While this explains why DM growth cannot lift EM growth, it still does not explain why DM growth leads to deteriorating EM activity. The glue binding this paradox is global liquidity. In a nutshell, when DM growth improves, DM economies suck in global liquidity, which results in a tightening of EM monetary and financial conditions. This combined constriction acts as a large brake on EM growth. Underpinning the relationship between liquidity and growth are a few relationships: First, DM real rates are a relatively clean measure of growth expectations. As Chart I-9 shows, U.S. real yields and the growth expectations embedded in U.S. stocks prices correlate closely with each other. Second, when DM real yields rise, EM reserve accumulation - a measure of high-powered liquidity - moves into reverse (Chart I-10). This suggests that rising DM real yields prompt investors to abandon EM markets, attracted by improving risk-adjusted returns in DM. Chart I-9Real Interest Rates: ##br##A Read On Expected Growth Chart I-10The Liquidity ##br##Channel Third, rising DM rates puts downward pressure on EM FX (Chart 10, bottom panel). Being associated with a reversal of carry trades this is another indication that capital is leaving EM economies. Additionally, falling EM exchange rates tighten EM financial conditions by hampering the financial viability of EM borrowers with foreign currency debt. Fourth, given that the exogenously-driven fall in liquidity already hurts EM growth, rising EM borrowing costs in response to increasing DM real rates amplify the economic drag. By causing the return on EM bonds to fall (Chart I-11), this generates further outflows from EM, and also tightens EM financial conditions. Finally, rising DM yields have been associated with underperforming EM equities relative to DM equities (Chart I-12), giving investors another reason to pull money out of EM. These dynamics have implications for commodity currencies. BCA's view is that DM real yields have upside from here, and therefore EM liquidity and financial conditions are set to tighten. Not only will this hurt EM assets, but a flattening BRICs yield curve should also lead to falling commodity currencies (Chart I-13). Chart I-11The Financial ##br##Channel Chart I-12EM/DM Stocks: A Function ##br##Of DM Real Rates Chart I-13Tightening EM Liquidity Conditions##br## Hurt Commodity Currencies However, differentiation is needed. Tightening EM liquidity and financial conditions are likely to hurt the metal market where there is no broad-based supply deficit. However, like in the late 1990s, oil could actually do well under a strong dollar scenario. For one, the OECD and the U.S. represent much larger shares of oil demand than they do for industrial metals (Chart I-14). In the context of robust U.S. economic growth and consumer spending, we could see continued upward momentum in global oil demand. This is crucial as the oil market is already in a deficit following the collapse in oil capex in 2015 and 2016 (Chart I-15). Additionally, our Commodity and Energy Strategy team argues that OPEC and Russia are very likely to cut production next week. Economic strains and the desire for asset sales in Saudi Arabia and Russia are creating the needed incentives.2 In this environment, oil currencies (CAD and NOK) should outperform antipodeans (AUD and NZD). The outlook for the AUD is the poorest. It is the currency most exposed to metals, the segment of the commodity market most aligned with EM growth. NZD could be at risk too. While it is not exposed to metals like the AUD, the kiwi is very exposed to EM spreads, a variable that is likely to suffer if DM yields continue to rise.3 Buying a basket of CAD and NOK relative to AUD and NZD makes sense here. In terms of our trades, we shorted AUD/CAD too early. However, the economic backdrop described above suggests that the economic rationale for this trade is growing ever more potent. In fact, from late December 1998 to January 2000, CAD rallied against the USD, while the AUD was flat. Additionally, technicals and positioning point to a favorable entry point at the current juncture (Chart I-16). Chart I-14Oil Is Still About The U.S. Chart I-15Favorable Supply/Demand Backdrop For Oil Chart I-16A Good Entry Point For Shorting AUD/CAD Bottom Line: In 2017, the relationship between commodity prices and the dollar is likely to resemble the 1999-2001 outcome. While tightening EM liquidity conditions could weigh on metals, supply concerns and a strong U.S. economy could lift oil prices. This environment would favor the CAD and the NOK relative to the AUD and the NZD. A Countertrend Bounce In The Yen? As we discussed last week, the move in USD/JPY makes sense based on the BoJ policy dynamics we analyzed in our September 23 report titled "How Do You Say "Whatever It Takes" In Japanese?". However, despite our bearish disposition toward the yen, we worry that a countertrend correction in USD/JPY is in the offing. USD/JPY is approaching a formidable resistance. The tell-tale sign of a USD/JPY bull market has been when the pair moves above its 100-week moving average (Chart I-17). We do expect such a move to ultimately materialize. However, with the 100-week MA currently at 114.8, this key indicator is a stone throw away from the present exchange rate of 113.39 and might prove to be a temporary resistance. Additionally, a congestion zone exists between 113 and 114.5, reinforcing this risk. Increasing the danger at the 114 level is the recent high degree of groupthink behavior displayed by this pair. As was the case for the U.S. bonds, the fractal dimension measure for USD/JPY is now below 1.25, highlighting the risk of a countertrend move (Chart I-18). Chart I-17USD/JPY: Key Resistance In Sight Chart I-18A Countertrend Move In USD/JPY Moreover, we agree with our U.S. Bond Strategy service and expect a pause in the U.S. bond sell-off.4 With the tight relationship between USD/JPY and 10-year Treasury yields fully alive, any rebound in bond prices would imply a rebound in the yen. Finally, our intermediate-term timing indicator shows that USD/JPY is 5% overvalued on a tactical time frame, a level where the likelihood of a temporary reversal is heightened. Based on the above observations, today we are opening a tactical short USD/JPY position at 113.39, with a target of 107 and a stop at 115.2. We are also closing our long NOK/JPY trade at a profit of 5.3%. Bottom Line: While the cyclical outlook for USD/JPY continues to point upward, tactically, USD/JPY is facing some downside risk. We are implementing a tactical short USD/JPY trade with a target at 107 and closing our long NOK/JPY trade. Mathieu Savary, Vice President Foreign Exchange Strategy mathieu@bcaresearch.com 1 Please see Foreign Exchange Strategy Weekly Report, "Dollar: The Great Redistributor", dated October 7, 2016, and Foreign Exchange Strategy Weekly Report, "Reaganomics 2.0?", dated November 11, 2016, available at fes.bcaresearch.com 2 Please see Commodity & Energy Strategy Weekly Report, "The OPEC Debate", dated November 24, 2016, available atces.bcaresearch.com 3 Please see Foreign Exchange Strategy Special Report, "Global Perspective On Currencies: A PCA Approach For The FX Market", dated September 16, 2016, available at fes.bcaresearch.com 4 Please see U.S. Bond Strategy Weekly Report, "Toward A Cyclical Sweet Spot?", dated November 22, 2016, available at usbs.bcaresearch.com Currencies U.S. Dollar Chart II-1USD Technicals 1 Chart II-2USD Technicals 2 The dollar has crossed a crucial resistance level, and the DXY is now trading close to 102. Positive data this month have contributed to this rally. Durable goods orders came in at 4.8% for October, up from 0.4% in September. This has lifted manufacturing PMI for November to 53.9, showing strength in the supply side of the U.S. economy. Minutes from the November 1-2 FOMC meeting indicate a clear hawkish consensus for December's meeting. A probability of a hike is now fully priced in and is reflected in the almost 14-year high reached by the DXY following the release of the minutes. We should see some stability in the DXY coming up to the December meeting. Otherwise, the U.S. economy seems strong. Upcoming data should ultimately buoy the strength in the dollar, but short-term movements will be limited. Report Links: One Trade To Rule Them All - November 18, 2016 Reaganomics 2.0? - November 11, 2016 When You Come To A Fork In The Road, Take It - November 4, 2016 The Euro Chart II-3EUR Technicals 1 Chart II-4EUR Technicals 2 Draghi remains resolute in his commitment to reach the inflation target. Easy monetary policy has helped support recent growth in the euro area. Low policy rates have increased credit supply, leading to higher lending volumes to households, NFCs and SMEs. Key indicators, such as this month's composite PMI which went up to 53.7, from 53.3, highlight continued decent growth in Europe. Nevertheless, core inflation remains weak at 0.75%, which entails a high likelihood for easy policy going forward. Persistently low rates and structural weaknesses will continue to weigh on bank profitability. Banks may eventually respond by limiting credit growth in the future and hampering overall activity. The short-run outlook for the Euro still remains solid against crosses. EUR/USD has hit a support level, but momentum indicates strong downward pressure against the dollar, so attention to this resistance level is warranted. Report Links: When You Come To A Fork In The Road, Take It - November 4, 2016 Relative Pressures And Monetary Divergences - October 21, 2016 The Pound Falls To The Conquering Dollar - October 14, 2016 The Yen Chart II-5JPY Technicals 1 Chart II-6JPY Technicals 2 USD/JPY has appreciated by more than 7% since the day Donald Trump was elected president. From 1990 up until the day Trump got elected, the yen depreciated at such a high rate in such a short time frame in only 4 occasions. We are taking a tactical short position in USD/JPY, because although we continue to be yen bears on a cyclical basis, the current sell-off seems overdone. USD/JPY has reached highly overbought technical levels and it is near its 100-week moving average of 114.8, which should act as a temporary resistance. More importantly, the sell-off in U.S. bond yields, a major driver of the recent plunge in the yen is likely to pause for the time being. USD/JPY will once again become an attractive buy at around 107. Report Links: One Trade To Rule Them All - November 18, 2016 When You Come To A Fork In The Road, Take It - November 4, 2016 USD, JPY, AUD: Where Do We Stand - October 28, 2016 British Pound Chart II-7GBP Technicals 1 Chart II-8GBP Technicals 2 On Wednesday the Treasury released its Autumn Statement, outlining fiscal policy for the coming year. Philip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer, offered no surprises as he vouched to continue to rebalance the budget, albeit at a slower pace. The fiscal impulse looks to increase slightly, yet stay negative for the next 4 years. Such a hawkish fiscal stance should be a drag on growth in an economy that cannot afford any setbacks as it prepares to exit the European Union. However, despite this grim outlook we are still monitoring the pound as an attractive buy, given that it is very cheap. In fact GBP/USD had very little movement after the announcement, which suggests that much of the risks for the U.K's economic outlook are already priced into the cable. Report Links: The Pound Falls To The Conquering Dollar - October 14, 2016 The Dollar: The Great Redistributor - October 7, 2016 Long-Term FX Valuation Models: Updates And New Coverages - September 30, 2016 Australian Dollar Chart II-9AUD Technicals 1 Chart II-10AUD Technicals 2 The Australian economy continues to encounter structural weaknesses from a deteriorating mining sector, for which the outlook remains pessimistic. An interesting observation is that the mining investment-cut is considerably mature, as RBA Assistant Governor Christopher Kent states "about 80% of the adjustment" is done. However, weak Asian EM fundamentals and a questionable outlook for China imply impending demand-side problems, which will weigh, not only on Australian terms of trade, but also the Australian economy, as emerging Asia represents 66% of Australia's total exports. An additional hurdle for the terms of trade is a rising USD, which could drag down commodity prices and the AUD. In the short run, the MACD line for AUD/USD also points to downside in the near future, as the currency approaches a possible resistance level at 0.72. Report Links: One Trade To Rule Them All - November 18, 2016 When You Come To A Fork In The Road, Take It - November 4, 2016 USD, JPY, AUD: Where Do We Stand - October 28, 2016 New Zealand Dollar Chart II-11NZD Technicals 1 Chart II-12NZD Technicals 2 We continue to hold a bearish stance towards NZD/USD, as the dollar bull market and weakness in Asian currencies will ultimately weigh on the kiwi. However, the outlook for the NZD against other commodity producers is not as clear. Prices for dairy products, which constitute over 30% of New Zealand exports, have skyrocketed and are now growing at 46% YoY. This trend is set to continue in the short term, as Chinese dairy imports continue to rebound, recording a 9.7% growth rate compared to last year. Furthermore, real GDP is growing at a 3.5% pace, the highest in the G10. That being said, we are reticent to be too bullish on this currency, as inflation remains very low and increasing migration is putting a lid on wages. However if inflation picks up, the NZD could become attractive relative to its commodity peers. Report Links: Long-Term FX Valuation Models: Updates And New Coverages - September 30, 2016 Global Perspective On Currencies: A PCA Approach For The FX Market - September 16, 2016 The Fed is Trapped Under Ice - September 9, 2016 Canadian Dollar Chart II-13CAD Technicals 1 Chart II-14CAD Technicals 2 Recent data has come out below expectations: Core CPI came in at 1.7%. Wholesale sales are contracting at -1.2%. Retail sales excluding autos are at 0%. These figures support the view that there is an underlying weakness in the Canadian economy which will keep the BoC from reaching its inflation target. However, as the U.S. continues to be the largest consumer of oil in the world, with around 20% of global consumption, stronger U.S. growth will support oil demand, which in conjunction with tighter supply, will support oil prices. This will support the CAD against other commodity producing currencies. Structural weaknesses and an upward trend in USD/CAD since May suggest that the CAD could experience more downside momentum against USD. Nevertheless, it is important to monitor next week's OPEC meeting, the outcome of which will dictate the CAD. Report Links: When You Come To A Fork In The Road, Take It - November 4, 2016 Relative Pressures And Monetary Divergences - October 21, 2016 The Pound Falls To The Conquering Dollar - October 14, 2016 Swiss Franc Chart II-15CHF Technicals 1 Chart II-16CHF Technicals 2 The decline in EUR/CHF appears to have subsided for the time being. Last week we mentioned that the SNB would not tolerate much more downside on this cross, and would not be shy to intervene if necessary. This view has shown to be valid, as EUR/CHF has found support around 1.07. This floor imposed by the SNB means that the performance of the franc against the dollar should mirror EUR/USD for the time being. This implies that USD/CHF should have limited upside in the short term, as EUR/USD has hit a major support level around 1.05 that has been in place for the last 2 years. On a cyclical basis, monetary divergences should continue to weigh against the euro, which makes us bullish on USD/CHF on this time frame. Report Links: Long-Term FX Valuation Models: Updates And New Coverages - September 30, 2016 Global Perspective On Currencies: A PCA Approach For The FX Market - September 16, 2016 Clashing Forces - July 29, 2016 Norwegian Krone Chart II-17NOK Technicals 1 Chart II-18NOK Technicals 2 The U.S. continues to be world's largest consumer of crude oil, with 20% of total consumption, while China leads in both the copper and nickel markets, accounting for nearly half of global consumption and consuming over 5 times as much as the U.S. in both markets. This divergence implies that if U.S. outperforms the rest of the world, and if the rising dollar continues to weigh on EM economies, oil should outperform base metals in the commodity space and consequently petro currencies like the NOK should outperform other commodity currencies. Additionally the NOK is supported by a current account surplus of 6%, and high inflation is prompting Norges Bank to back off from its dovish stance. While we like the NOK on its crosses, we are more bearish on the NOK versus the USD, as USD/NOK remains very sensitive to the dollar. Report Links: The Pound Falls To The Conquering Dollar - October 14, 2016 The Dollar: The Great Redistributor - October 7, 2016 Long-Term FX Valuation Models: Updates And New Coverages - September 30, 2016 Swedish Krona Chart II-19SEK Technicals 1 Chart II-20SEK Technicals 2 The Swedish economy continues to show signs of strength. Recent data supports this view: Consumer confidence for November is at 105.8, compared to 104.8 for October. Producer Price Index came in at 2.2% annually for October. A strong consumer sector has lifted inflation expectations in Sweden. Strong PPI numbers validate this, as they foretell a potential rise in CPI as producers pass on their costs to consumers. Despite this strength, SEK may see limited upside. As mentioned last week, most of the movement in the SEK can be attributed to the USD. Rate hike expectations have now been fully priced in for the Fed, so it is likely that movements in the USD will be muted, and hence the SEK could find some support, at least for now. Report Links: One Trade To Rule Them All - November 18, 2016 The Pound Falls To The Conquering Dollar - October 14, 2016 Long-Term FX Valuation Models: Updates And New Coverages - September 30, 2016 Trades & Forecasts Forecast Summary Core Portfolio Tactical Trades Closed Trades

The Tactical Asset Allocation model can provide investment recommendations which diverge from those outlined in our regular weekly publications. The model has a much shorter investment horizon - namely, one month - and thus attempts to capture very tactical opportunities. Meanwhile, our regular recommendations have a longer expected life, anywhere from 3-months to a year (or longer). This difference explains why the recommendations between the two publications can deviate from each other from time to time. Highlights In November, the model underperformed global equities and the S&P in USD and in local-currency terms. For December, the model reduced its allocation to cash and stocks and boosted its weighting in bonds (Chart 1). Within the equity portfolio, most of the decrease in allocation came at the expense of EM, Sweden, Netherlands, U.S., and New Zealand. The model increased its weighting in Swedish, French, U.K., and Canadian bonds. The risk index for stocks deteriorated in November, while the bond risk index improved significantly. Chart 1Model Weights Feature Performance In November, the recommended balanced portfolio lost 1.5% in local-currency terms and was down 3.4% in U.S. dollar terms (Chart 2). This compares with a gain of 1.3% for the global equity benchmark, and a 3.7% gain for the S&P 500 index. Given that the underlying model is structured in local-currency terms, we generally recommend that investors hedge their positions, though we do provide recommendations from time to time. The sharp bond selloff and weakness in EM equity markets both took a toll on the model's performance in November. Weights The model cut its allocation to stocks from 66% to 53%, and increased its bond weighting from 26% to 47%. The allocation to cash was brought down to zero from 8%, while commodities remain excluded from the portfolio (Table 1). The model trimmed its allocation to Latin American equities by 4 points, Sweden by 3 points, and the Netherlands by 3 points. Also, weightings were reduced in U.S., New Zealand, Spanish, and Emerging Asian stocks. In the fixed-income space, the allocation to Swedish paper was boosted by 12 points, France by 7 points, Canada by 5 points, the U.K. by 3 points, and Italy by 1 point. Allocation to New Zealand bonds was decreased by 6 points and U.S. Treasurys by 1 point. Chart 2Portfolio Total Returns Table 1Model Weights (As Of November 24, 2016) Currency Allocation Local currency-based indicators drive the construction of our model. As such, the performance of the model's portfolio should be compared with the local-currency global equity benchmark. The decision to hedge currency exposure should be made at the client's discretion, though from time to time, we do provide our recommendations. The dollar appreciated significantly in November following the U.S. presidential election. Our Dollar Capitulation Index spiked and is currently at levels that suggest the rally in the broad trade-weighted dollar could pause (Chart 3). Chart 3U.S. Trade-Weighted Dollar* And Capitulation Capital Market Indicators The momentum indicator for commodities has moved further into overbought territory, pushing up the overall risk index. This asset class remains excluded from the portfolio (Chart 4). The deterioration in the liquidity and momentum indicators has lifted the risk index for global equities to the highest level in over 2 years. Our model cut its weighting in equities for the fourth month in a row (Chart 5). Chart 4Commodity Index And Risk Chart 5Global Stock Market And Risk The risk index for U.S. stocks increased sharply in November. With stocks reaching new highs, the model trimmed its allocation to this bourse. The markets took note of the growth-positive aspects of Trump's policies, but seem complacent about the stronger dollar, higher interest rates, and the potential for trade protectionist policies (Chart 6). The risk index for euro area equities has ticked up slightly in November. However, unlike its U.S. peers, it remains in the low-risk zone. Above-trend growth could provide support for euro area equities. (Chart 7). Chart 6U.S. Stock Market And Risk Chart 7Euro Area Stock Market And Risk The risk index for Dutch equities ticked up slightly and the model has downgraded this asset. That said, the weighting in Dutch equities remains the highest among its euro area counterparts (Chart 8). Improvements in the value and momentum measures for Latin American stocks have been largely offset by a deteriorating liquidity reading. As a result, the risk index did not decline much after the selloff. The model decreased its allocation to this asset (Chart 9). Chart 8Dutch Stock Market And Risk Chart 9Latin American Stock Market And Risk Over the course of only a few months, the risk index for bonds has swung from an extremely high risk level to the low-risk zone. Momentum has been the primary driving force behind this move and currently suggests that yields could pull back in the near term (Chart 10). The risk index for U.S. Treasurys declined significantly in November. While the model used the latest selloff to boost its allocation to bonds, it preferred to add allocation to bond markets outside of Treasurys. (Chart 11). Chart 10Global Bond Yields And Risk Chart 11U.S. Bond Yields And Risk After the rise in yields, Canadian bonds are massively oversold based on our momentum measure. The extremely low-risk reading has prompted the model to allocate to this asset (Chart 12). German bonds are oversold, but the reading on the cyclical measure has become considerably more bund-unfriendly. The model opted not to include bunds in the overall boost to its bond allocation. (Chart 13). Chart 12Canadian Bond Yields And Risk Chart 13German Bond Yields And Risk The risk reading in French bonds is more favorable than for bunds. Apart from oversold momentum, the value reading has also improved. The model increased its allocation to French bonds (Chart 14). The cyclical component of the risk index for Swedish bonds keeps moving in a bond-bearish direction. But that is completely overshadowed by extremely oversold conditions. In fact, the overall risk index for Swedish bonds is the lowest within our bond universe. Much of the increase in overall bond allocation ended up in Swedish paper (Chart 15). Chart 14French Bond Yields And Risk Chart 15Swedish Bond Yields And Risk Following sharp gains, the 13-week momentum measure for the U.S. dollar has reached levels at which some consolidation may take place. But the recovery in the 40-week rate of change measure indicates that it would probably be a pause in the dollar bull market rather than a trend change. With the December rate hike baked in, the Fed's communication about the policy next year holds the key to the path of the dollar - in addition to the fiscal policy of the next administration (Chart 16). The Japanese yen has been a major victim of the dollar rally. The 13-week momentum measure is approaching levels that halted the yen weakening trend in 2013 and 2015. However, this time around, it is not coupled with the same signal from the 40-week rate of change measure. The BoJ is sticking to its easy monetary policy, and some additional support on the fiscal front could drag the yen lower, notwithstanding a possible hiatus in the short term. Short term the yen could benefit from an EM pullback (Chart 17). After the latest bout of depreciation, the euro seems poised for another attempt to break below 1.05. The 13-week and 40-week momentum measures do not preclude this from happening. However, it would probably take the ECB to reaffirm its dovish message to push EUR/USD technical indicators into more oversold territory (Chart 18). Chart 16U.S. Trade-Weighted Dollar* Chart 17Yen Chart 18Euro Miroslav Aradski, Senior Analyst miroslava@bcaresearch.com