Seismic – LSD News

Sri Lanka vigilant as seismic activity increases in the region

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 07:32:41 +0000

While recent earthquakes have not directly impacted Sri Lanka, the Geological Survey & Mines Bureau has urged authorities and the public to remain vigilant regarding seismic activity in the region.

According to the Bureau, if a major earthquake occurs near the island of Sumatra, Sri Lanka could face tsunami-like effects. Officials assured that global earthquake activity is being closely monitored, and necessary measures are in place to respond to any seismic events within the country.

Rising Global Seismic Activity

Concerns have heightened following a devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake in Myanmar, which has caused widespread destruction. Foreign media reports indicate that the death toll has exceeded 2,000, with emergency response teams continuing rescue and recovery operations.

Meanwhile, the Japanese government has also warned of a potential earthquake with a magnitude between 8 and 9 on the Richter scale. Predictions suggest that such an event could lead to catastrophic damage, with estimates indicating that over 300,000 lives may be at risk.

India’s New Delhi also experienced a magnitude 4.0 earthquake last month.

Authorities worldwide are closely monitoring seismic patterns, and Sri Lankan officials emphasize the importance of preparedness in case of future tremors or tsunami threats.

AI era is a ‘seismic moment’ in tech we’ve not seen in a decade, top Meta exec says

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 11:47:18 +0000

The new artificial intelligence era represents a huge moment for the tech industry that has not been seen in a decade, according to a top executive at Facebook parent company Meta Platforms.

Reflecting on 2024, Nicola Mendelsohn, head of global business group at Meta, said it was important to talk about the potential for AI as a force for good, while also paying mind to the dangers of the technology.

“This is a seismic moment,” Mendelsohn said, in conversation with CNBC’s Tania Bryer at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We will look back on this year seeing a really pivotal year in terms of how it was across society.”

In her role at Meta, Mendelsohn leads relationships with top marketers and agencies. She is also a seasoned advertising executive, with past experience including partner and executive chairman at London advertising agency Karmarama, and non-executive director of alcoholic beverages firm Diageo.

Meta had a banner year in 2023, with shares climbing sharply, while investors praised CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s push for a “year of efficiency” driven by sharp cost-cutting and a change in focus towards more profitable lines of business.

Last year also marked a major pivot toward artificial intelligence for Meta — an area where the company plays a key role with its LLaMA large language model. Meta also remains heavily focused on the metaverse with its Quest 3 headsets.

“From a Meta perspective, we can be a leader and a pioneer,” Mendelsohn said.

Biden’s Border Negotiations Mark Seismic Shift on Immigration Politics

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Sat, 16 Dec 2023 23:12:31 +0000

On his first day in office, President Biden sent a bill to Congress to “restore humanity and American values to our immigration system.” Nearly three years later, he is considering sweeping restrictions on migration in exchange for aid to Ukraine and Israel.

It is the latest sign of how drastically the politics of immigration have shifted in the United States, where polls suggest there is growing support, even inside the president’s own party, for border measures once denounced by Democrats and championed by former President Donald Trump.

But it is also a gamble for Mr. Biden, who risks walking away from some of the most deeply held principles of the Democratic Party and angering key parts of his core constituency, such as progressives and young voters.

“There’s no doubt there’s been a shift on this partly because of the influx of these migrants in these big cities,” said David Axelrod, a top adviser to former President Barack Obama. “There are limits to where he can and should go but this is almost a gift to have, under the cover of this broad package, to be able to do things that were perhaps tougher to do before.”

The southern border is a political vulnerability for Mr. Biden, who has been unable to contain a record number of migrants heading north to escape gang violence, poverty and natural disasters. Republican-led states have shipped busloads of migrants to liberal bastions like Washington and New York to protest what they characterize as Mr. Biden’s failed policies.

As border crossings surge, the political center of gravity on the issue has moved sharply to the right. Polls by The New York Times and Siena College in battleground states found that voters preferred Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden on immigration by 12 points.

Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a swing-state Democrat with left-leaning politics, said his position on restricting migration puts him out of step with the liberal wing of his party.

“I’m not a progressive,” Mr. Fetterman told NBC News.

And some of the country’s most prominent Democratic governors and mayors, whose communities are being stressed by the cost of providing for migrants, have put pressure on Mr. Biden to find new ways to address the crisis.

The fact that Republicans have refused to support further aid for Ukraine without a new crackdown on immigration may give Mr. Biden that opportunity, said pollsters, political experts and some Democrats.

Mr. Biden has said he is willing to make “significant compromises” on border security to satisfy Republicans, who say they will not support any more aid for Ukraine without a new crackdown on immigration.

Some of the proposals on the table include making it more difficult to gain asylum in the United States, which the White House has signaled it is willing to consider. The idea would be to raise the standard migrants must meet when they claim they need asylum in the United States because they fear persecution in their home countries.

But Republicans also want to restrict the use of an immigration policy known as humanitarian parole, which has allowed thousands of Afghans, Ukrainians and others fleeing war and violence to come to the United States. Democrats have not yet agreed to that proposal.

Republicans and Democrats are also discussing a policy that would rapidly turn people away at the border once arrests at the border reach a certain height.

“It was pretty clear that they were considering things that were going to be controversial,” Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said this week of the White House’s approach to the negotiations. “Changes have to be made in our policy at the border.”

Negotiations were continuing over the weekend, but there was little sign of a potential breakthrough before the end of the year. And while the White House and Democrats have not signed off on the restrictions, the fact that they are even considering them has angered progressives and immigration advocates.

“I just think it’s unfortunate that we constantly do this, where we buy into and try to out-Republican Republicans,” said Pramila Jayapal, the leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “It’s never worked. The enforcement-only strategy does not work.”

Ms. Jayapal is one of many progressives who appear to have reached a boiling point with the White House. They say the recent polling fails to ask voters about the long-term effects of the policies being considered, which they say would include deporting refugees seeking sanctuary in the United States and breaking apart families.

“Throwing immigrants under the bus — which I’ve seen happen over and over again — is not a good election strategy,” Ms. Jayapal said.

Mr. Biden’s aides say he is trying to find a compromise to secure financial aid that Ukraine needs to win the war against Russia. They say Mr. Biden’s approach is not comparable to that of Mr. Trump, who separated thousands of families at the border.

Asked about potentially embracing Trump-era policies in exchange for the aid, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said this week that the White House’s strategy is consistent with Mr. Biden’s approach in past negotiations on Capitol Hill.

“We understand, in order to come up with a compromise and get things done on behalf of the American people, you have to find a bipartisan way to do that,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said.

But some members of the party fear that policies will turn away asylum seekers for years to come.

Representative Gabe Vasquez, Democrat of New Mexico, said Democrats “need to be looking at more than the political moment of today and what the polls say.”

Karoun Demirjian and Hamed Aleaziz contributed reporting.

Indian Markets: Seismic shift underway for flows?

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Sun, 13 Aug 2023 12:05:51 +0000

In an intriguing coincidence, India’s GDP beat in April came when the China reopening trade was fizzling out. Till then, in the March quarter, the prevailing narrative was primarily focused on China reopening trade, which led to FIIs withdrawing funds from markets such as India, which had a resilient year in FY23.

However, the consensus China trade did not last long as China’s growth began to slow down. Meanwhile, in stark contrast, India received a significant boost from a better-than-expected GDP growth rate of 6.1% in Q4, surpassing the consensus forecast of 5%. This caught the attention of the FIIs, leading them to reassess allocations and shift flows into India.

While this backdrop of the current bull run in Indian markets has been widely debated, what remains unknown is the ongoing shift in both domestic and FII flows. It is this topic that we aim to explore and unravel in this column.
Let’s turn our attention to the domestic flows, where the evolving story is a lot more gripping and captivating.

In a reflection of the changing landscape, domestic flows no longer play second fiddle to FII flows like they used to a few years back. With the growing financialization in terms of a shift in savings from physical to financial assets structurally, domestic annual flows into equities have the potential to overshadow FII flows, and as a result, can emerge as the dominant force in shaping the Indian markets’ trajectory in the coming years. Here is the data point that will be a revelation to many in this context.

Domestic equity AUM which includes equity MF, DIIs like insurance, banks, and pension funds, currently is 550 billion odd. FIIs overall equity AUM is around 586 billion. The difference, which was close to about 140Bn+ dollars two years back, has now narrowed sharply to around 35 billion dollars.

This is because of the surging domestic flows on growing financialization. Annual domestic flows, which used to be less than 20 billion dollars a few years back, have significantly gone up to over 30-35 billion+ over the last two years. Currently, household savings in equities are less than 10% of their overall financial savings, while in developed markets, it is around 40% or more. This suggests that there is considerable headroom for domestic flows. Given this, it is a question of time before the domestic equity AUM outpaces the FIIs in a convincing manner.

Fortunately or unfortunately, this development may have some unintended consequences for the volatility in the Indian markets. In periods of massive FII pull-outs, one may not see deep corrections as witnessed in previous cycles because of the growing domestic support. One saw the early evidence when the Indian markets went through a shallow correction in the 1st half of 2022 when FIIs pulled out a massive 28 billion+ dollars in just six months of 2022.

On the other hand, when FIIs rush in, Indian markets are likely to overshoot (unrealistic valuations) as we are witnessing now because of the combo effect of domestic and FII flows. This will be an emerging challenge for value investors as cycles would become less vicious and more virtuous. This, of course, may not apply during periods of global accidents and global crises when markets may go through deep cracks.

On the other side of the fence, we have another interesting structural shift unfolding in global flows. It is well known that the concept of China+1 in terms of supply chain diversification gained significant traction after the pandemic exposed the risks of reliance on a single market. But what may be less widely known is the emergence of a similar China+1 play in portfolio allocation among global money managers. This primarily refers to the shift in investment strategies and asset allocation made by global managers to reduce the exposure to China as a measure of geo-political risk mitigation.

Global Investors are increasingly tracking MSCI-ex-China. A Reuters study shows a massive jump in assets of EM mutual funds and ETFs that exclude China as US and European investors are more wary of having exposure to China. Refinitiv data shows China-focused MFs suffered a net outflow of 674 million dollars in the second quarter of this year, while, in contrast, nearly one billion went into EM ex-China mutual funds.

Bloomberg data of equity flows into EMs in the second week this month (July 10 to 14th) shows the US ETFs favored India stocks the most among EM peers and invested 637 million dollars and around 1/3rd of it went to China. Though this is for a short period, this does point to where one is headed. Looking at another data point, China’s weight on the MSCI EM has reduced sharply to 29.55% from 38.7% in 2020, whereas exposure to India has increased from 8.3% in 2020 to 14.63%.

As a result of this diversification from China, Indian markets are witnessing a sharp surge in FII flows. In just three months, over 16 billion dollars have flooded into the Indian markets. For the calendar year, it is over 14Bn dollars and counting (adjusting for the outflows in the Ist quarter).

As a result of the aforementioned structural shifts in both domestic and global flows, along with India’s relatively stronger macroeconomic position, Indian benchmarks, which have been stagnating within a range for over fifteen months, experienced a sudden surge in momentum, leading to a breakout in benchmark indices to new all-time highs.

This surge was bolstered by the robust performance of the Nasdaq and S&P in the global markets. This positive sentiment from these global indices had a timely and amplifying impact on the domestic markets, fueling optimism in all directions.

More importantly, the structural trends in flows explored in this column are something real that is here to stay and gain more traction in the coming years. It is essential for investors to understand this, and accordingly, they should recalibrate their strategies and expectations on the emerging valuation landscape, which could see a profound change in the coming years.

(ArunaGiri N is the Founder CEO & Fund Manager of TrustLine Holdings)