The U.S. energy sector, particularly shale oil, is highly leveraged, with an averge gearing close to 200% and net debt to Ebitda ratio of 2.8x for our independent/shale basket of quoted companies.
At first glance, the U.S. retail industry is the typical case of what the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction”, in which new entrants capture growth or create new markets altogether at the expense of established companies.
The strong decrease in Russia’s current account surplus in 2019 has been confirmed. It declined to USD71bn (an estimated +4.2% of GDP) in 2019, down from USD114bn (+6.8% of GDP) in 2018. Merchandise exports dropped by -6% or -USD25bn to USD418bn in 2019.
We expect global growth to muddle through in the next two years. Monetary policies have to deal with a threefold series of disturbances, i.e. political risk, an external shock on trade and structural issues related to the ecological transition.