Morning comment

Storm Laura is due to hit the southern US states any moment now, AFAICT.

Ant Group, a bit of Alibaba, is trying to get an IPO away in HK and Shanghai. Well, I always think that sellers know more than (potential) buyers in a situation like this, and clearly the sellers can’t make out the sunny uplands.

The US and China had talks about talks about their phase 1 trade deal, delayed from a couple of weeks ago. My perception is that this means that someone is trying to pump the stockmarket.

The battle between Apple and the makers of Fortnite grinds on. I think that this will end up with Apple giving at least some ground. It helps the EU competition commissioner in her argument that these tech giants are oligopolists.

Another black man was shot in the USA. The number of people killed by the police in the USA is about twenty-five times the number executed, even though the debate over capital punishment seems much more high profile. It all seems so unnecessary, but the Americans sure love their guns.

This is the final day of the ballot to choose the new leader of the Liberal Democrats. Nobody cares what the result is, with the possible exception of (Sir) Ed Davey, who is, as the papers say, “the bookies favourite.” I can’t imagine that the betting was very heavy.

In case you thought that the Nasdaq price performance was something to do with how software was eating the world (from The Market Ear):

In other news, the annual shindig at Jackson Hole, where central bankers hobnob with each other, is virtual. It’s expected that they will all congratulate each other about what a fantastic job they’ve done. The assumption is that Powell will announce that he’ll introduced “average inflation targetting,” which means letting inflation run hot for as long as it’s undershot in the past. I cannot help thinking this will be good for commodities and commodity currencies, but what do I know?

Greenlight Capital

I am a fan of David Einhorn. He runs a hedge fund, Greenlight Capital. Like all regulated funds, he files 13-F reports to the SEC. The latest one can be viewed here. There is a write-up here. I would not suggest trying to replicate such a fund’s holdings, but it’s interesting to see how very successful investors are changing their investment strategy in response to events. Of course, this data is lagging, and the fund may have sold the stocks mentioned, but I don’t think Einhorn is some sort of glorified day trader. He seems to be going all-in on gold, together with small stakes in some rather dull sounding industries: mattresses, gas water heaters, fast food, broadband services, apparel and washing machines. He has made a big bet on specialized air freight. The logic of AAWW is that with fewer passenger planes flying, specialized air freight companies will be able to clean up. I can see the logic, but I really don’t know enough about this to have a firm view.

Closing Wrap (6pm BST)

We are still risk on: equities up a bit, same for commodities, bonds down.

I am not convinced that mortgage deliquencies are a blip. They have jumped up but the Calculated Risk blog things that this is nothing to worry about. Yet.

Another contribution to the inflation measurement debate. Basically, Joseph Carson, former chief economist at AllianceBernstein states that, even after CPI was “fixed” after Greenspan said it overstated experienced inflation, it has still run at or above the target for most of the last ten years. Therefore, the plan to run it even hotter, with “average inflation targetting” is going to result in, presumably, very serious inflation.