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Why Brits need to take a chill Pill
House prices are falling, BUT...
Tim Vollans
November 13, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
America’s looking forward to a Taylor Swift inspired baby boom & golden economic era.
So positive all the time, it’s exhausting…
🧠 The Big Brain
Patiently Waiting For A Print To Explode On
Everywhere I look, I see risks ‘hiding’ in plain sight. But there’s still not much to do…
See, the market’s highly aware of those exact same risks. They’ve been in and out of headlines for a year or more.
Recession, fiscal sustainability, Middle East conflict, higher for longer actually being a thing, China weakness, the Bank of Japan abandoning easy money, Europe generally being more unstable than ‘expected’ and so on…
(Then there was Black Monday trending on Twitter/X…)
Never change tweeps.
That said… The big macro picture is still intensely cluttered.
The soft landing could take a while to complete…
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⚡ The Spark
Why Brits need to take a chill Pill
UK house prices fell again today…
According to Rightmove, they’re down by 1.7% on the month. But that’s not the whole story.
See, there are loads of problems with how each house price index is constructed.
Especially when we’re seeing so few transactions relative to ‘normal’.
What really matters is the trend.
Prices are coming under pressure, and that’s likely to continue for a few more months at least…
@fink.tok The #ukeconomy is very dependent on the #ukhousingmarket (unfortunately) so seeing declines is troubling. Its down 1.7% in a month whilst ... See more
Chill Pill: The Bank of England’s Chief Economist Huw Pill said that he basically agrees with the market pricing of rate cuts next year, and he’s acutely aware of the risks:
"But if we have the restrictive policy for too long, then the danger is...we trigger a recession, we trigger an excessive slowdown in the economy,"
UK inflation is expected to fall sharply this week. From 6.7% in September, to 4.8% in October.
Chilling: The faster inflation falls, the sooner rate cuts are back on the table, (along with cheaper mortgages)
💡 The Lightbulb
Oil giants are mining lithium
Enough for 100,000 EV batteries every single year…
Yep. In today’s edition of “you learn something new every day”, oil giant Exxon is aiming to start production of…
…at least 10,000 metric tons per year of lithium in Arkansas by 2026 with partner Tetra Technologies (TTI.N) in what has been labeled "Project Evergreen," according to the Reuters source.
The Inventor: While it might seem odd for an oil company to get into Lithium mining, it was Exxon researchers that invented the first lithium ion battery back in the 1970’s.
In the modern world, it’s the perfect crossover.
Helping with the energy transition: Exxon’s good at getting stuff out of the ground (some of which contains Lithium already), and this way they get a little eco bonus to satisfy the box-tickers.
If all goes well, maybe something for the bottom line too.
For the nerds: Chart showing how Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) is way faster and less environmentally impactful than the current extraction methods:
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