John Woods

John Woods

Workers transporting soil containing rare earth elements for export at a port in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, China.
RETHINKING MATTERS

China’s Fourth Plenum – planning or prepping?

Beijing’s new-found willingness to go head-to-head with the US in its trade and tariff war marks a new, muscular change in mindset

FILE PHOTO: A man walks past a stock quotation board showing the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nikkei share average, Topix average, Japan and U.S 10-year government bond yield outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan April 2, 2025. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
RETHINKING MATTERS

The great sucking sound: Japan’s capital shifts

Why the 30-year Japanese government bond yield could be the most important ‘risk indicator’ in the world now

Despite the tumultuous backdrop of US trade policy, the first half of 2025 concluded with a surprising level of resilience in the US economy.
WHO’S WHO IN PRIVATE BANKING

A year less ordinary: Navigating discordant narratives in 2025

In this dynamic environment, the ability to pivot and seize opportunities will define successful investment strategies for the remainder of the year

American flags on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Monday, Aug. 18, 2025. Wall Street saw a quiet start to a key Federal Reserve week, with geopolitics coming into play as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his European allies get ready to meet with Donald Trump to a potential peace deal with Russia. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
RETHINKING MATTERS

Plain sailing and successful investing

How to navigate 2025’s trade policy uncertainties and geopolitical tensions

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with reporters, as he departs for travel to Pennsylvania from the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, D.C. U.S., July 15, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
RETHINKING MATTERS

Trump’s tariffs end Asia’s era of fence-sitting

As the US-China trade war intensifies, new lines of trade and allegiance are being drawn

Hong Kong’s stock market has a total market capitalisation of US$6.3 trillion, entirely dwarfing Singapore’s at merely US$0.5 trillion, a 13-fold difference.
RETHINKING MATTERS

Hong Kong – Canary in a goldmine

The city’s East-West history positions it in the crosshairs of tensions between the world’s two great superpowers

A container port in Jiangsu, China. The country's external dependency is sobering – over the last five years, exports have been critical in offsetting the property sector's collapse and weak consumption.
RETHINKING MATTERS

Blinkmanship

For weeks, both US and China have played hardball, escalating tariffs and seeking to out-stare each other, but recent reports suggest concessions...

The Port Of Long Beach, California.  A trade war triggered by President Trump’s tariffs alone could result in a US$1 trillion hit to the US economy over the next decade, according to the latest analysis from Yale University’s Budget Lab.
RETHINKING MATTERS

Liberation Day for USA Ltd

The chaos, confusion and outrage around the imposition of US trade tariffs have roiled markets. Brace for more shocks as ‘America First’...

Perhaps there exists now a cautious optimism among working people in the US who have witnessed factory closures, stagnating wages, job losses to China, and soaring corporate profits.
RETHINKING MATTERS

The new great game

Trump’s shift to an ‘America First’ focus may benefit US consumers but risks abound

In 2016, US journalists and commentators famously observed that Trump's critics took him literally but not seriously, while his supporters took him seriously but not literally.
RETHINKING MATTERS

Planet Trump

Here, markets and goalposts move fast, which means the benefits of a diversified and balanced portfolio cannot be stressed highly enough