Tariffs shake the leaves of Canadian forest producers

ERA Research

Tariff Tuesday has arrived with Canadian forest products firms facing extinction-level impacts. Tariffs will be pushed through to US buyers in some cases, but chaos will ensue regardless. Additionally, all Canadian timber/fibre-based products could be subject to incremental tariffs (Section 232 investigation). China has announced a ban on US log imports. It was a busy week in North American lumber markets as buyers, with generally lean inventories, weighed the threat of tariffs against tepid demand. Prices for S-P-F 2x4s finished the week up an impressive $30 to $518 (first time above $500 since the autumn of 2022). Canadian producers were hit with a double-whammy this week—President Trump’s 25% tariff came into effect on Tuesday and, on Monday, preliminary AR6 anti-dumping duty rates were released. Passing on both tariffs and higher duties come August will be a challenge.

- 07 March, 2025

Crude flirts with US economic mood, ignoring supply risks

Vanda Insights

A troika of geopolitical factors erupted on the market at the start of last week in the Middle East, Ukraine and Libya. Brent and WTI futures jumped 3% on Monday yet surrendered most of that premium as the week progressed. Vandana Hari was asked in several television interviews if crude had become immune to geopolitical risk; whilst no market is immune to supply shocks or the risk thereof, there are good reasons why the Ukraine and Gaza wars are not injecting a fear premium in crude. Vandana expects markets to shrug off any worsening of the Gaza situation as long as the hostilities remain confined, and expects the market to do a just-in-time pricing in of a supply risk premium should the Ukraine war impact Russian oil supplies.

- 06 September, 2024

Monday.com (MNDY)

Technology

Hedgeye

Attempts to expand into new areas, such as CRM and developer-focused products, have had limited success, with low penetration rates and integration challenges. Hedgeye does not believe MNDY will successfully bridge the gap from point solution to platform. Meanwhile, in Jan 24, the firm implemented a 20% price increase for customers. This will lead to increased churn/seat reductions and negatively impact win rates on new business. Operating in a highly competitive market with low barriers to entry, MNDY faces rivalry from established players in work management, CRM and devops - ultimately positioning its core product as an add-on solution within a broader ecosystem.

- 28 June, 2024

CSD’s Top 10 Asia Stocks have outperformed MSCI Emerging Asia by an astonishing +55% over the past 2 years

Crystal Shore Alpha

The flagship strategy combines 1) CSD’s weekly ranking of 900 Asian stocks and 2) CSD’s country risk scores covering China, India, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines and Pakistan. Top 10 Asia stocks is delivered to subscribers every weekend before the Monday morning market open in Asia. The top 3 performing positions are Hindustan Petroleum (+74.2% since BUY on 15th May 2023); Tata Consumer Products (+31.6% since 2nd Oct 2023 BUY); and Yes Bank (+30.6% since 4th Dec 2023 BUY).

- 26 January, 2024

Atlassian (TEAM)

Technology

Verbatim Advisory Group

According to Verbatim’s latest channel checks, 1Q24 sales trends are significantly stronger on a y/y basis. This strength stems from Cloud migration, ESM projects and Jira Work Management, while larger deal sizes are driving q/q trends. The 2Q24 outlook for TEAM is also stronger on both a y/y and q/q basis. Close rate continues to remain steady according to 100% of their respondents and the flow of new leads is mostly increasing. Also noteworthy, ServiceNow is losing market share to TEAM, but price increases are leading to competition from emerging vendors such as Monday.

- 27 October, 2023

Asia FX: Gloom in the news

PPG Macro

Last Monday, Patrick Perret-Green highlighted the upside risks to the yuan/CNH, Asia FX as a whole and particularly the won, which had strongly outperformed. Since then, there’s been a heap of dismal data and lots more turmoil in the real estate sector. At the time USD/CNH was 7.20 and USDKRW 1-month NDF at 1,305, now they’re flirting with 7.32 and 1,335. The former is almost 14 sen higher than the official fixing, with such divergence often a warning sign for dollar bulls. The yuan and forwards are at an attractive level for exporters to hedge. Further out, the view remains one of weakness, but Patrick would look to lock in profits or place some tight stops on CNY/CNH and AsiaFX.

- 18 August, 2023