Highlights Our top five “black swan” risks for 2022: Social unrest in China; Russian invasion of all of Ukraine; unilateral Israeli strikes on Iran; a cyber attack that goes kinetic; and a failure of OPEC 2.0. Too early…
Tensions between Russia and the West appear to be escalating. On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden stated that he believes that Russia “will move in” on Ukraine, suggesting that a partial re-invasion is likely. Biden…
Diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions over Ukraine failed last week. The US did not give in to Russian demands that Washington provides assurance that Ukraine does not join NATO and halts defense cooperation with Ukraine. High-…
US and Russian officials are in the midst of critical high-level negotiations aimed at defusing tensions over Ukraine. Talks on Monday between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and Deputy US Secretary of State Wendy…
Highlights Our three strategic themes over the long run: (1) great power rivalry (2) hypo-globalization (3) populism and nationalism. The implications are inflationary over the long run. Nations that gear up for potential conflict and…
Highlights A partial reinvasion of Ukraine cannot be ruled out. The constraints on Russia are not prohibitive, especially amid global energy shortages. On this issue, it is better to be alarmist than complacent. We would put the risk…
Mr. X and his daughter, Ms. X, are long-time BCA clients who visit our office toward the end of each year to discuss the economic and financial market outlook for the year ahead. This report is an edited transcript of our recent…
Highlights Remain neutral on the US dollar. A breakout of the dollar would cause a shift in strategy. Russia’s conflict with the West is heating up now that Germany has delayed the certification of the Nord Stream II pipeline.…
Highlights Geopolitical conflicts point to energy price spikes and could add to inflation surprises in the near term. However, US fiscal drag and China’s economic slowdown are both disinflationary risks to be aware of. …