Brazil,Peru,Colombia and now South Korea have all joined the “Buy Dollar and Sell Local Currency” Club.The Brazilian Real has appreciated by 34% in the last 2 years while similar stories lie behind Peru and Colombian interventions as well.With yields at near zero,Developed World Investors are pouring money into debt,equity and commodities fueling some of the Emerging Markets to all time highs.Some of the valuations like the Indian market are already stretched with local investors shunning the bubble markets.Countries with large Export Sectors like South Korea are particularly sensitive to currency appreciation and are joining in the chaos that the currency markets have become.The $4 Trillion Currency Markets are too big for a single country to take on as the Swiss found out losing Billions of Dollars in the process.The Currency Chaos is set to persist as the Financial System has become Unstable with Huge Debts,Moral Hazard and Central Bank Meddling.Gold has touched an all time high of $1300 with Silver following closely.With such volatility in Currencies,Business has become quite difficult with faith in currencies eroding at a fast pace.
Offshore Wind Energy is starting to receive a huge amount of investment and attention both in Europe and Asia.Onshore wind installations facing the problems of visual impact,saturation of good windy geological locations and problems of low frequency noise.However Offshore Wind Farms face no such problems since they are located in high wind locations offshore far away from the general population.The largest Wind Farm got installed in the UK with Swedish Utility Vattenfal starting a 300 MW + Farm off the cost of Thanet.UK is at the vanguard of the Offshore Wind Energy Revolution with the largest amount of installations at 1340 MW.The Government has given out a number of approvals to another 30-40 GW of Wind Farms to a number of private players.This will not only substantially raise the Renewable Energy generated from UK but will also result in a huge number of Green Jobs and Investment.Already a number of Oil and Gas offshore companies are converting themselves to Green Ones to take advantage of the Offshore Wind Boom.The Wind Farms are being developed by big utilities like Dong,E.ON,EDP and RWE.
Recently Rare Earth Minerals Companies have seen sharply rising exports.Molycorp which came out with an IPO in the US markets has seen its stock price shooting up despite not producing commercial quantities.Other Australian and Canadian Companies have also seen steep increase in stock price.The Chinese Embargo should lead to further price appreciation as other countries focus on expanding supply and production of these minerals.The recent spat between Japan and China over a fishing boat incident has escalated in recent times with the top leadership in China taking issues.China’s relations with other countries have deteriorated in recent times with increasing trade friction with USA,Currency and Territorial Issues with Japan and growing Tension with India over border and land issues.
Not only Europe,even US is rapidly losing Green Jobs to Asia.Earlier Evergreen Solar had decided to shut down its US plant to set up a factory in China and Energy Conversion Devices is laying off workers to hire more in Mexico.The high costs of labor and capital have made it unfeasible for Western companies to manufacture in the Developed Nations.High Subsidies in the form of Low Interest Long Term Loans,Tax Holidays,Free Land have made the Asian countries irresistible to US companies.First Solar which is the largest manufacturer of panels in the world has most of its production in Malaysia where it enjoys a 15 year tax holiday.Chinese Company’s get massive subsidies from the government.This combined with extremely low worker and managerial salaries make western factories totally uncompetitive in a globalized world.REC which is one of the world’s biggest solar polysilicon and wafer producers has decided to shut down its module plant in Sweden.While the reason given is isolation from other factories,I suspect the costs are too high in expensive Sweden.Another European Solar Factory closes as Green Industry moves to Low Cost,Subsidy Rich Asia
BYD has fallen almost 35% this year heavily underperforming the market as sales growth has slowed substantially.After a 140% growth in Auto Sales last year,this year the sales growth will go down to 30% as the company has reduced sales target to 600,000 from 800,000 earlier.Chinese auto sales have fallen and BYD has been specially affected with its workhorse F3 Model declining in popularity.The company delivered a good first half with $100 million in 2Q profits.However the company is still quite expensive at $15 Billion Market Cap which would give it a P/E of around 38x.Also the company’s strategy to enter solar energy does not make sense.However BYD is a good story for the future.China has made a new Green Policy to create National Champions in the EV and Battery Industry.BYD is a perfect candidate with its strengths in both areas.While its execution in the EV sector is yet to give results,it is already planning into the future getting into the Grid Storage Sectors.I would not put money presently but would wait for a better entry point in the future.
USA is increasing its protectionist actions recently filing 2 cases in World Trade Organisation against China over Electrical Steel and Credit Card payment providers.Only last week a US Union had filed a complaint with the US government about the Predatory Practices of Chinese Green Companies.USA thinks that China has unfairly put duties on US made Steel and it is locking out Mastercard and Visa from the credit card processing market in China.There is little doubt that China indulges in favoritism and implicit and explicit support of domestic companies.However it the scale that is the only difference .Like all other things China also implements its policies king size.MNCs in recent times like GE,Google,Siemens have all criticized Chinse discrimination against foreign companies.However WTO remains an ineffective body to resolve complex Trades Disputes.The US Congress is also getting into the China-Bashing Act by passing 2 bills that mandate “Buy American” clauses.The US has already antagonized the Indian IT Industry by specifically targeting the Indian companies like Infosys and Wipro.These new bills target China making it mandatory for government departments to buy American made goods.With November Elections fast approaching,politicians are outdoing each other in protectionist rhetoric.