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Macro backdrop favours Australian equities but headwinds linger

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ETF Securities Equity Research Macro backdrop favours Australian equities but headwinds linger Revival in commodity price

ETF Securities Equity Research Macro backdrop favours Australian equities but headwinds linger

Highlights

  • Revival in commodity prices has improved the macro outlook for Australia’s export driven economy.
  • Positive inflation expectations globally spurred by the repricing of US inflation and rising oil prices will lead to a recovery in wage growth in Australia, helping boost consumption.
  • The Fed model acts as a contrarian indicator for Australian equities and highlights further upside for stocks.
  • The contribution of a minority of companies in the energy and mining sector have caused the dividend payout ratio to appear unrealistically higher.

Commodity upswing benefits macro outlook

Rising commodity prices in 2016, in particular iron ore (+80%) and coal (+300%), have pushed Australia’s trade balance into surplus for the first time since 2014. The improved terms of trade (export prices relative to import prices) will support domestic demand. However since the rise in exports was due to a rise in prices rather than volumes, it is unlikely to translate into higher real Q4 GDP growth. We view the contraction of Q3 2016 GDP as temporary and expect to see a pickup in housing, Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) supply, small business profits and retail sales to restore Q4 2016 GDP growth.

Click to enlarge

The base effects of higher fuel prices will drive headline CPI inflation higher, currently at 1.3%, towards the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) 2-3% target by Q1 2017. Furthermore, the re-pricing of US inflation subsequent to Trumps presidential victory and his pro-growth policies has raised inflation expectations globally.

Click to enlarge

This should alleviate some of the downside risks posed by prior weak inflation expectations and generate a recovery in wages. We are now starting to see a gradual rise in real wage growth since the latter half of 2015. Total household debt is excessive at 186% of income on average, its highest level since 1977. For this reason, a revival in wage growth is the key to underpin consumption, known to account for 56% of economic activity.

Stability in China is pivotal for trade

The Chinese economy picked up pace during 2016 owing to increased infrastructure spending and a buoyant property market. Chinese strength is best evident in Australia in the strong demand and pricing of bulk industrial commodities, bearing in mind they are by far its biggest trading partner worth 30% of exports. However, Donald Trump’s presidency raises the potential for a rise in US-China trade friction and attempts to threaten the outlook for Australian exports. On the positive side, demand for tourism and education services in Australia might get a boost, as an alternative to the US should these frictions materialise.

Rebalancing economy

There are signs that other sectors of the economy are moving out from the shadow of the resources sector. We expect to see the benefits of accommodative monetary conditions and the weaker Australian dollar to bolster the competitiveness of non-resource exports across tourism, education and services.

Click to enlarge

Fed model acts as a contrarian indicator

The combination of an improved macro outlook supported by higher material prices and the global reflation theme have helped swing Australian corporate earnings growth forecasts for 2017 back to positive territory after stagnating for 2 years. However a careful look at valuations suggest Australian equities are not cheap. The cyclically adjusted price to earnings (CAPE) ratio for the MSCI Australia Index at 18.3x is at the benchmark’s long-term median CAPE at 18x. The chart below depicts the Fed model (based on the ratio of forward equity earnings yield and 10-year government bond yields) as a contrarian indicator for Australian equities. As the ratio trends downwards (suggesting bonds favoured over equities), Australian equities tend to outperform. Currently the ratio at 1.36 has been steadily declining and is reverting to its long-term median of 1.31 signifying further upside for Australian equities.

Higher yields drive momentum

Dividend yields have been the main driver of short and medium term returns of the Australian equity market. Australian companies’ dividends are high by international standards, yielding 5.6% on average. Domestic investors and pension funds rely heavily on the Australian equity markets as a source of income as they benefit from franked dividends, an agreement in Australia eliminating the double taxation of dividends.

More importantly, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reveals that the percentage of the population that is in retirement i.e. aged 65 years and above grew by 37% since 2006. ABS has projected that this segment will rise 21% by 2023. Given this structural demographic shift among the investor base, we expect the demand for high yielding equities to persist as the aging population seek to generate more stable income.

Dividend payments are sustainable

In 2016, the dividend payout ratio (that measures the proportion of a company’s earnings paid to investors as dividends) attained its highest level at 190% in more than a decade. Implying that Australian companies were paying more than they earned. This raised concerns on the sustainability of ongoing dividend payments. However, we found a minority of companies in the energy and mining sectors skewed the ratio higher. On stripping out their contribution to the overall ratio, we got a more realistic value of 78%, which did not have a material impact on the dividend yield of the index.

In addition, on analysing the combination of dividends paid and share buybacks as a percentage of free cash flow, we noted buybacks were a small portion of the total amount, rendering dividend payments not as stretched.

Click to enlarge

In fact, the rise of the dividend payout ratio was an outcome of the reduced profitability of mining and energy firms as opposed to an increase in dividend payments. This helped reinstate our view that the durability of future dividend payments remains intact.

Important Information

General

This communication has been issued and approved for the purpose of section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 by ETF Securities (UK) Limited (“ETFS UK”) which is authorised and regulated by the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority (the “FCA”).

The information contained in this communication is for your general information only and is neither an offer for sale nor a solicitation of an offer to buy securities. This communication should not be used as the basis for any investment decision. Historical performance is not an indication of future performance and any investments may go down in value.

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21Shares lanserar Toncoin Staking ETP (TONN)

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21Shares, världens största emittent av börshandlade kryptovalutaprodukter (ETPs) och ett dotterbolag till 21.co, tillkännager stolt lanseringen av 21Shares Toncoin Staking ETP. Denna banbrytande produkt ger investerare ett sömlöst sätt att engagera sig i ekosystemet för staking och tjäna belöningar utan ansträngning.

21Shares, världens största emittent av börshandlade kryptovalutaprodukter (ETPs) och ett dotterbolag till 21.co, tillkännager stolt lanseringen av 21Shares Toncoin Staking ETP. Denna banbrytande produkt ger investerare ett sömlöst sätt att engagera sig i ekosystemet för staking och tjäna belöningar utan ansträngning.

Toncoin Staking ETP presenterar en innovativ lösning för investerare som söker exponering för insatsbelöningar utan komplexiteten med att sätta upp och hantera en insatsnod. Med 21Shares ETP kan investerare nu dra nytta av fördelarna med att satsa Toncoin samtidigt som de utnyttjar likviditeten och bekvämligheten på traditionella finansmarknader.

”Vår 21Shares Toncoin Staking ETP öppnar upp en ny horisont för investerare och ger en problemfri inkörsport till att satsa belöningar inom blockchain-ekosystemet”, sa Ophelia Snyder, medgrundare och VD för 21Shares. ”Vi är dedikerade till att bemyndiga investerare med innovativa produkter som Toncoin Staking ETP, vilket bekräftar vårt engagemang för att driva utvecklingen av investeringsmöjligheter för blockchain.”

Nyckelfunktioner i 21Shares Toncoin Staking ETP:

  • Toncoin (TON): En decentraliserad lager 1-blockkedja, nu känd som ”The Open Network” efter förvärvet av TON Foundation. Toncoin fungerar som den ursprungliga valutan för TON-nätverket.
  • Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Consensus: TON använder en PoS-konsensusmodell för skalbarhet och nätverkstillförlitlighet, och erbjuder snabba, transparenta och säkra betalningstjänster med minimala avgifter.
  • Mission: The Open Network syftar till att skapa ett heltäckande ekosystem av användarvända tjänster som superappen WeChat, som erbjuder produkter som en decentraliserad lagring, decentraliserad VPN, en betalningslösning och en inbyggd plånbok för att hålla krypto direkt i meddelandeappen. Det kännetecknas av dess gemenskapsdrivna tillvägagångssätt och flexibla arkitektur, som tillgodoser behoven hos typiska konsumenter.
  • Skalbarhet: TONs avancerade skalbarhet säkerställer snabb avvecklingstid för transaktioner på ett kostnadseffektivt sätt, vilket möjliggör snabb nätverkstillväxt utan negativa effekter på miljön.
  • Stöd från Telegram: Trots separation stöder Telegram TON som sin favoritplattform för web3-infrastruktur, vilket framhäver dess engagemang för blockchain-innovation.

21Shares Toncoin Staking ETP kommer att vara tillgänglig för handel på SIX Exchange från och med onsdagen den 27 mars 2024, vilket ger investerare en sömlös väg att engagera sig i Toncoin-insatser och utnyttja de potentiella belöningarna med insatsekosystemet.

För mer information om 21Shares Toncoin Staking ETP, besök 21Shares hemsida.

NamnISINKortnamnValutaBörsListningsdatum
21Shares Toncoin Staking ETPCH1297762812TONN SEUSDSIX Swiss Exchange27 mars 2024

Om 21.co/21Shares

21.co är världens ledande företag när det gäller att tillhandahålla tillgång till krypto genom enkla och lättanvända produkter. 21.co är moderbolag till 21Shares, världens största emittent av börshandlade kryptovalutaprodukter (ETPs) – som drivs av Onyx, en proprietär teknologiplattform som används för att emittera och driva cryptocurrency ETP för 21Shares och tredje part. Företaget grundades 2018 av Hany Rashwan och Ophelia Snyder. 21Sharesis registrerat i Zürich, Schweiz med kontor i Zürich, London och New York. För mer information, besök 21Shares hemsida.

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FUD vs. Fundamentals: What Happened This Week in Crypto?

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Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) have clouded Ethereum's business prospects after CoinDesk reported on March 20 that Ethereum’s Github repository seemed to confirm rumors about ongoing investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). If true, this could be business as usual for the regulator as it nears its deadline for a decision on ETH spot ETFs on May 23. Nevertheless, statements about the investigations are vague and ambiguous, whether they're focused on the Ethereum Foundation or the companies dealing with it, making it a curious case to monitor closely.

• Ethereum: FUD vs. Fundamentals

• Arbitrum Doubles Down on Dencun’s Cost-Efficiency

• Optimism Strides Towards Full Decentralization

• Can This Major Upgrade Help Fantom Level Up With Solana?

Ethereum: FUD vs. Fundamentals

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) have clouded Ethereum’s business prospects after CoinDesk reported on March 20 that Ethereum’s Github repository seemed to confirm rumors about ongoing investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). If true, this could be business as usual for the regulator as it nears its deadline for a decision on ETH spot ETFs on May 23. Nevertheless, statements about the investigations are vague and ambiguous, whether they’re focused on the Ethereum Foundation or the companies dealing with it, making it a curious case to monitor closely.

How did the market react? Nothing dramatic. In the past week, despite Ethereum experiencing a 10% drop on the day of Coindesk’s report, it quickly recovered the following day with a 10% rebound and shrugging off the uncertainty, ultimately closing the week with a modest 1.78% gain. The below on-chain metrics are also worth noting:

• ETH deposits on centralized exchanges increased by ~3%, well within the 3-5% average increases seen in May 2021, 2022, and 2023, which is understandable as investors capitalize on reaching the $4K milestone.

• The market-value-to-realized-value (MVRV) is one of crypto’s leading on-chain indicators comparing Ethereum’s current market price to its historical average transaction price, to estimate its valuation based on past trends.. As shown in Figure 1, the MVRV went from 2.23 on March 13 to 1.65 on March 24, indicating that the network continues to be undervalued when compared to previous bull runs. For example, in May 2021, the MVRV Z-score was at 5.57 when Ethereum traded at around $3.9K.

Figure 1: Ethereum’s MVRV Z-Score (7D Moving Average)

Source: Glassnode

On a more positive note, the biggest news for Ethereum was arguably BlackRock’s announcement of tokenizing treasury bonds and repo agreements. The asset manager has partnered with Securitize as a transfer agent and tokenization platform to launch their yield-bearing fund, BUIDL, on top of Ethereum. As shown in Figure 2, Ethereum accounts for 80.33% of tokenized assets, if we exclude fiat-collateralized stablecoins. BlackRock has joined the likes of Franklin Templeton and Citigroup, among others, in tokenizing real-world assets. The deployment on Ethereum reiterates our thesis that the network will continue playing a vital role across the tokenization realm. So far, there has been a total of over $2 billion worth of commodities and government securities, among other traditional assets tokenized on several networks. Thanks to blockchain technology, these tokenized assets boast several advantages over their traditional form due to their transparency, around-the-clock trading, and faster settlement.

Figure 2: Tokenization Market Share by Chain

Source: 21.co on Dune Analytics

On the fundamental side, Ethereum’s core developers have launched an initiative called “pump the gas” to raise the gas block limit from 30 to 40 million (and even more), decreasing gas fees on Ethereum’s mainnet by as much as 33%. The gas block limit is the maximum amount of gas that all transactions combined can consume within a single block. The discussion of expanding the gas block limit has been up for debate since Vitalik brought it up in January 2024. However, some are not in favor of the initiative, arguing that EIP-4844 has already increased the block size and that it could lead to potential risks of network spam and attacks.

Arbitrum Doubles Down on Dencun’s Cost-Efficiency

With Optimism, Base, and Arbitrum all witnessing transaction fees drop by over 90% post-Dencun’s activation, the total number of transacting addresses across their networks has almost doubled since then, as seen below in Figure 3. However, Arbitrum has taken a step further by introducing the ATLAS upgrade, aiming to drive fees down even more. Specifically, ATLAS decreased what’s known as the “L1 surplus fees” from 32 gwei to zero while lowering the L2 base fees from 0.1 to 0.01 gwei, helping the network achieve a median transaction fee of ~$0.002, the lowest since October 2022. Applications built on Arbitrum can reap the benefit of the upgrade right away without any modifications from their end, while L3 networks built on top of Arbitrum, using its Orbit framework, need to implement the upgrade to capitalize on the blob posting mechanism to experience lower fees.

Figure 3: Number of Transacting Addresses across Base vs. Optimism vs, Arbitrum

Source: msibl7 on Dune

Optimism Strides Towards Full Decentralization

On the other hand, Optimism is progressing towards its vision of full decentralization. For context, the network currently relies on a single sequencer, a validator that posts transaction data from Optimism on Ethereum, run by the Optimism Foundation itself. This sequencer is overseen by an elected security council, which acts as a custodian managing the protocol upgrades and the security of the network by ensuring that the sequencer is acting honestly, amongst other security-related tasks. This means that only a handful of eight elected individuals can contest the validity of transactions if they suspect any malicious behavior. Nevertheless, this was a temporary setup until Optimism released its “Fault Proof” system, which determines the validity of transactions before they’re posted on Ethereum’s mainnet. This enables a proactive rather than a reactive approach to maintaining transaction integrity. In line with this, Optimism rolled out the second iteration of the system on Sepolia testnet after releasing the first in October of last year, with the full launch expected later this year, where anyone can submit a fault-proof and dispute the validity of transactions.

Can This Major Upgrade Help Fantom Level Up With Solana?

The Ethereum alternative blockchain is set to implement its upcoming Sonic upgrade in the spring of 2024. Although the date isn’t determined yet, the next network iteration will position Fantom as one of the most scalable networks within the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) ecosystem, capable of rivaling Solana’s efficiency. Namely, Sonic introduces the Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM), a new operating system facilitating close to 2000 transactions per second (TPS) based on the latest testnet results while adopting parallelization to enhance transaction throughput. Further, Sonic achieves transaction finality in under a second, with transaction fees costing less than a cent while introducing Carmen, a new database model that reduces the storage costs for validators by close to 90%. This enables them to participate in the network’s security validation in a cost-effective manner while expediting the time required for the foundation to spin up a new archival validator node from several weeks to 36 hours.

All in all, the excitement in anticipation of the upgrade can be seen with Fantom’s price growing by 200% over the last 30 days, while its DEX trading volume has surged by close to 12-fold, growing from $5M and peaking at $60M last week. Fantom’s stablecoin assets under management has also increased by about 150% over the same period since the lows of October 2023, implying that new users are increasingly depositing capital into the network to experiment with its ecosystem, akin to what was seen during the run-up of the ETF-led rally last October. Nevertheless, Fantom shows promising growth prospects as its P/E ratio continues to decrease despite its recent price gains, as shown below in Figure 4. This indicates that transaction volume and network utilization are outpacing its market capitalization growth, potentially implying that Fantom remains relatively undervalued.

Figure 4: NVT: The P/E-Equivalent of Blockchain Networks

Source: Glassnode

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Source: Forex Factory, 21Shares

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Each week the 21Shares Research team will publish our data-driven insights into the crypto asset world through this newsletter. Please direct any comments, questions, and words of feedback to research@21shares.com

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The information provided does not constitute a prospectus or other offering material and does not contain or constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy securities in any jurisdiction. Some of the information published herein may contain forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties and that actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. The information contained herein may not be considered as economic, legal, tax or other advice and users are cautioned to base investment decisions or other decisions solely on the content hereof.

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BlackRock säger att det finns låg efterfrågan på Ethereum

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Robert Mitchnick, chef för digitala tillgångar på BlackRock, har avslöjat att kunderna till finansgiganten visar låg efterfrågan på Ethereum, den näst största kryptovalutan efter börsvärde. Samtidigt finns det "väldigt lite intresse överallt", vilket innebär att investeringsbolaget inte ens överväger mindre kryptovalutor.

Robert Mitchnick, chef för digitala tillgångar på BlackRock, har avslöjat att kunderna till finansgiganten visar låg efterfrågan på Ethereum, den näst största kryptovalutan efter börsvärde. Samtidigt finns det ”väldigt lite intresse överallt”, vilket innebär att investeringsbolaget inte ens överväger mindre kryptovalutor.

Mitchnick har erkänt att kryptovalutacommunityt vill se finansjätten utforska fler alternativ, men han säger att BlackRock fortfarande främst fokuserar på Bitcoin. Bitcoin, enligt chefen, är ”överväldigande prioritet nummer ett.”

Nyligen gick BlackRock med i tokeniseringsracet genom att lansera en ny fond baserad på Ethereum-nätverket. Fonden, som officiellt lanserades tidigare i veckan, gör det möjligt att tjäna amerikanska dollaravkastning med hjälp av blockchain-teknik.

I november ansökte BlackRock också om att lansera en Ethereum börshandlad fond. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sköt dock upp sitt beslut om denna ansökan tidigare i mars.

Som rapporterats av U.Today kollapsade oddsen för att en Ethereum ETF skulle godkännas på grund av regulatoriskt tryck. För en vecka sedan bad senatorerna Jack Reed och Laphonza Butler specifikt SEC-ordförande Gary Gensler att inte godkänna ETFer för fler kryptovaluta-tokens.

Samtidigt har SEC enligt uppgift lanserat en aggressiv kampanj för att klassificiera Ether som ett värdepapper, vilket ytterligare minskar sannolikheten för att en Ether-baserad spot-ETF ska godkännas inom en snar framtid.

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