2 Questions

• 02-May-22
• admin

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/antique-bills-business-cash-210600/

 

These two questions were raised by our readers.  

1. What would the economic fallout in China likely to be, if they continue to pursue a zero covid policy?
2. How do we expect our method of trading to perform in an environment of stagflation and/or recession, a strengthening of USD (especially against Euro and Yen), or geopolitical risks from Ukraine?

 

Oh man, those two issues just about cover all the shit going on in the world right now, don’t they?   Is there any more bad news that keeps us from enjoying a nice long weekend in Singapore?  

 

Let’s take these questions one at a time. 

 

First, China.

 

All of us have already gone through two years of covid - (A, B, D and O).  Is there anything we don’t know about it?   I think not.   

 

Most of the Western countries, because their societies cannot handle draconian measures from a central authority, have adopted a covid approach which is basically, you make your own choices and you live and die by those.   Vaccines are provided and there are various degrees of compulsion as to whether one should get vaccinated.  Free choice for yourself, and no choice of everybody else for having to live with your choice.   Life is probably more contentious for everyone and far more people die.  

 

Looking at the Worldometer Covid statistics which are still updated – as of 30 April 2022, there have been more than half a billion infections, and 6.2 million deaths.   Most of those are in the countries which have chosen personal liberties over public responsibilities.   There need not be debate over this.   It is what it is.

 

The stark choice is basically that the lives of older citizens in those countries are not as important as the ability of younger people to make a living or just enjoying personal freedom.

 

China has chosen a different path.   Public health requirements are mandated by tough policies.  It is expressed as a zero covid policy.   Implicitly, the policy is that no citizen, including the elderly, should be sacrificed.    It absolutely worked from Alpha to Delta, and Omicron is a bit more tricky, as we all know.   Actually, given their population size, and the fact that Omicron is less lethal, the current caseload in China is really miniscule.   But as dictated by zero covid policies, even these small (by anybody’s else standards) outbreaks are subjected to strict lockdowns.  

 

These are draconian relative to the problem and its fallout.   Most observers outside the country are doubtful any zero covid system can outrun Omicron.  Most countries who could not control their own outbreaks and lost citizens to the virus are smirking and saying zero covid methods have met their match.   

 

There are two aspects of this criticism.   The first is a sour grapes attitude.   China did it and they did not.  Now that it seems like the Chinese are failing to control it as efficaciously as they used to (not in an absolute sense or relative to the performance in the rest of the world but only relative to their own track record), they are extending the criticism of Chinese covid policies to a derision of the CCP’s governance policies.   It is part of the anti-China offensive to show that the western model is superior.   It is almost an existential narrative.

 

That’s politics and we won’t have anything to add, one way or the other. 

 

The more important aspect is the economic one.   The strict lockdowns, as everywhere, will slow economic activity.   Already, economists are saying that instead of the government’s forecast of GDP growth at around 5.5 percent for 2022, it will come in lower than that.   Some say 4.4 percent.

 

The way I see it, and it is just my personal point of view, how they trade-off economic growth for public health is China’s choice.  Who are we, in the rest of the world to criticise it?   There has been no lack of mistakes in anti covid policies everywhere in the world, and errors in execution have been found in every country, whatever the political choice between individual liberty versus public responsibility.       

 

The fact of the matter is that economic pain is actually a part of that choice.  If collective public health consideration is thought more important than individualism, then the community will have to pick up the tab.   It has been the same trade-off in every country; some just more severe than others.

 

As usual, lockdowns affect the poor far more than the rich.   Everywhere lockdowns have been implemented, poor people living in cramped spaces (ie small apartments) have suffered far more than rich people who have enough living space to survive being restricted. 

 

The experience in the world over the last two years is that businesses that have not been crushed too badly have been technology enabled.   Those that require human interaction, and we all know what these are, have been badly affected.    

 

China is a humongous country.   It can easily overcome any self-imposed economic slowdown as a significant proportion of its labour force is employed by the State.   Shanghai is not the entire China.   Actually, even the areas affected by the lockdowns in Shanghai also do not represent all of Shanghai.  The city has 25 million people, plus a lot of migrant workers, with a total the size of a medium sized country close to 50 million.  For it to bounce back is easy.    Once the lockdowns are lifted, it will be back to normal in a week.

 

Of course, it is not just Shanghai or Beijing.   The lockdowns also come with restrictions on travel, and domestic tourism has been affected.   This hurts the overall effort to migrate the export-infrastructure development model to domestic consumption.    In addition, supply chains internal to China are also affected, and this will have some impact on growth.

 

Unemployment has risen as a result.  Premier Li Keqiang has confirmed this.

 

Besides zero covid policies, there are other issues which hinder the execution of plans to put China on a smooth path to hit its economic targets.   These issues, which have been covered in several Weekly Commentaries previously, are as follows:

1. The implementation of policies that crack down on income inequality and the unregulated growth of Big Tech, which have led to a prolonged slide in Chinese equities;
2. Limiting credit growth in the real estate market, which has led to a bear market in the sector;
3. The generally negative trading environment arising from the American attempt to box in China’s growth; and
4. An energy crisis of sorts arising from rising oil and gas prices due to the Ukrainian war.

The economic setback caused by the covid lockdowns are not causing any problem greater than any of the above.     But together, all five of these problems added together require a leadership team that is of the highest calibre.

 

That the Chinese government has.  It has a very well tested leadership, given their system of selection.   Bottom line, they are still forecasting a GDP growth rate of around 5 percent, not zero, not minus 5, with no recession.   Even a 4,4 percent growth rate would be amazing. 

Who else in the world can do that?  

 

For one thing, the American effort to derail the Chinese path to economic ascendancy using tariffs has to be dropped soon due to the fact that the Chinese export juggernaut shows no sign of slowing down.   American officials are already considering lifting some of these tariffs in order to alleviate the price pressure caused by such artificial barriers to trade, which have been borne largely by US consumers because of their undiminished demand for Chinese goods.

 

Nevertheless, the Chinese government is not sitting on its hands.    The following measures have been announced to fend off the expected slowdown:

1. Companies will be allowed to stop paying unemployment insurance to the government to avoid retrenchments;
2. Electricity and internet charges will be cut for businesses;
3. New graduates will be subsidized to start their own businesses;
4. Trucks will be given more permits to bypass roadblocks set up to control Covid; 
5. Migrant workers will be given government allowances if they lose their employment. 

 

There are also cities, like Ningbo and Shenzhen, which are giving money directly to their residents, just as the Americans did in 2020.   This is supposed to be, as in the States, an effort to stimulate consumer spending, which is something the CCP has been trying to do for several years, to shift the development model away from exports and infrastructure.   But it has been difficult given the high Chinese propensity to save.

 

With this covid 19 outbreak and a growing number of unemployed, they are trying it again.    

 

Because inflation is not an issue in China, the PBOC (central bank) has eased on reserve requirements for bank deposits.   This easing is exactly the opposite of the Fed’s tightening, and in the last week, the RMB has weakened against the Dollar, together with almost every other currency in the world.   This is probably intended as it will boost price competitiveness in its exports.  

 

Most importantly, the Chinese government has announced a tried and tested economic development initiative – infrastructure.   In this regard, this is not like it used to be.   Infrastructure was synonymous with high speed rail, roads, bridges and the like, but this time around, infrastructure stimulus includes expanding the tcchnological infrastructure in the country, such as AI research, internet 5G/6G networks, chip research and such other things that will help the country advanced into a brave new world.

 

What will emerge from the other side of this economic slowdown will likely be a fighting fit China that will lead the rest of the world in using science and technology for human endeavour.   I would not worry too much about the fallout from a Chinese slowdown arising from their zero Covid policies.

 

Let’s now move on to the second question:  With the war in Ukraine where it is, the sharp decline of the Euro, the Yen and Sterling, impending stagflation in the US, how will our fintech trading system be affected?

 

If you read the NYT and the Economist last week, the end of the war is in sight.   According to them, the Russians have proven to be not up to the task of conquering Ukraine, has fallen short of its own objectives, taken huge casualties and lost a lot of equipment and according to one British military expert interviewed, the war will end in less than a month.   Everyone in Western media seems cocksure about it.

 

If on the other hand, you are reading non-mainstream and non-English language media, the entrapped force in Azovstal is about to surrender (actually the civilians are already being evacuated), leading to the likely capture of many high-ranked (ex-) NATO advisors.  Russian artillery is pounding Ukrainian defences in the Donbass.  There seems a slowing down of the pace of battle, as the Russian army no longer dashes down the road on to the next objective on a map as they did in Feb and early March, and is instead systematically pulverizing everything in front of them with artillery fire until nothing is left to block their advance.  This new doctrine is hurting the Ukrainian defence.

 

The news emerging from this alternative narrative is that the Russian army is almost ready to begin the anticipated armoured offensive in the Donbas.  Large armoured forces are massing to move in behind the artillery barrages, and when the Donbas is pacified, that army may swing around to move on other Ukrainian cities such as Kharkiv and the cities along the Black Sea coast.   

 

It has also been reported that Russian missiles have taken out 9-10 traction substations that drive Ukraine’s electric train system, thereby paralysing the ability of Kyiv to transport NATO-sourced heavy weapons eastwards to the battlefront.  This will have the effect of avoiding further sacrifices by the brave Ukrainian soldiers using obsolete Western weapons like the Gepards, M113s, Mig 29s against a modern army.   

 

It is a description of the war that is diametrically opposite to the Ukrainian version, on which Western accounts depend. 

 

Who is right?   One only has to read the acknowledgement today (see NYT – 30 April) by the Ukrainian air force that the Ghost of Kyiv, a supposedly successful fighter pilot who “shot down” six Russian jets, is a complete fabrication, a myth, to have a better insight into the propaganda war.   Well, that was one immortalized hero, used to bolster Ukrainian morale, now unceremoniously buried by self-admission.  Ukraine is beginning to show that its interpretation of the “facts” about the war is just hubris.      

 

The fact of the matter is that Russia now holds about 3-4 times more territory in Eastern and Southern Ukraine than what they controlled in the Crimea prior to 24 Feb after just two months.  There is no map in the world that shows otherwise, and in fact, maps in the opposing camps are completely consistent with each other.     If the war ends now, if both sides cannot advance against (or push back, in the case of Ukraine) the other side anymore, it would end in a Korean peninsula style stale-mate that will take forever to unravel.    If the fighting does not end in another month or so, it will likely just end in an uneasy ceasefire.   And I don’t mean the war between Ukraine and Russia, which Ukraine has already lost; I mean the on-going proxy war between Russia and NATO, which are more evenly matched.

 

As far as Ukraine is concerned, the divisions that already existed in the country will be frozen in place by the Russian invasion.  Kherson, captured in the early days of the war, Mariupol, and the two Donbas provinces seem to be moving in the direction of having Russian administration imposed permanently on them.  The ruble is being used as currency, the Russian flag is flying over municipal buildings and new pro-Russian administrations have been set up to replace the ones loyal to Kyiv.   It is very likely these provinces will become just like Crimea, separated from the Ukrainian political structure and recognized as independent states by Russia.   Or absorbed into the Russian Federation.

 

How widespread this will become in the territory of Ukraine will depend on how the military situation stabilizes.  There has never been “one Ukraine”, and the fiction of its political unity has been blurred by the war.   But given that the regime in Kyiv, even with full military support from the West short of boots on the ground, cannot win back captured territory, it cannot escape the yoke of Russian control.   That one Ukraine is over.  

 

There is an article written about the views of an Ukrainian academic, which outlines how the country could not have survived a Zellensky presidency, and unlikely to come back together under the same political arrangement.   It is worth reading:

“The Real Zelensky: An Interview with Ukrainian Academic Olga Baysha

“A comedic actor who rose to the country’s highest office in 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky was virtually unknown to the average American, except perhaps as a bit player in the Trump impeachment theater. But when Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Zelensky was suddenly transformed to an Alist celebrity in US media. American news consumers were bombarded with images of a man

who appeared overcome by the tragic events, possibly in over his head, but ultimately sympathetic. It didn’t take long for that image to evolve into the khaki-clad, tireless hero governing over a scrappy little democracy and single-handedly staving off the barbarians of autocracy from the east.

But beyond that carefully crafted Western media image is something much more complicated and less flattering. Zelensky was elected by 73 percent of the vote on a promise to pursue peace while the rest of his platform was vague. On the eve of the invasion, however, his approval rating had sunk to 31 percent due to the pursuit of deeply unpopular policies.

Ukrainian academic, Olga Baysha, author of Democracy, Populism, and Neoliberalism in Ukraine: On the Fringes of the Virtual and the Real, has studied Zelensky’s rise to power and how he has wielded that power since becoming president. In the interview below, Baysha discusses Zelensky’s embrace of neoliberalism and increasing authoritarianism, how his actions contributed to the current war; his counterproductive and self-absorbed leadership throughout the war, the complex cultural and political views and identities of Ukrainians, the partnership between neoliberals and the radical right during and after Maidan, and whether a Russian takeover of the entire Donbass region might be less popular among the local population than it would have been in 2014.

Tell us a bit about your background. Where are you from and how did you become interested in your current area of study?

I am an ethnic Ukrainian born in Kharkov, a Ukrainian city on the borderline with Russia, where my dad and other relatives are still living. Before the current war, Kharkov was one of Ukraine’s leading educational and scientific centers. The city’s residents pride themselves on living in the “intellectual capital” of Ukraine. In 1990, the first television company free from party control was established there; soon, its first news program went on air. By that time, I had already graduated from Kharkov University, and one day, I was invited to work as a journalist in this program by a university friend.

Next day, without prior experience, I started reporting. In a couple of months, I was a news presenter. My meteoric career was not an exception.

New uncontrolled media, the number of which was increasing at a huge rate daily, demanded more and more media workers. In the overwhelming majority of cases, they were young ambitious people without any journalistic education or life experience. What united us was the desire to westernize, a lack of understanding of societal contradictions characterizing the post-Soviet transition, and deafness to the concerns of working people who opposed reforms. In our eyes, the latter were “retrograde”: they did not understand what civilization was about. We saw [our]selves as a revolutionary vanguard and chosen progressive reformers. It is we — media workers — who created a favorable environment for Ukraine’s neoliberalization, presented as westernization and civilization, with all disastrous consequences for society they brought. Only years after, I realized this.

Later, while supervising the production of historical documentaries in a Kiev television company, I recognized that the mythology of unidirectional historical progress and inevitability of westernization for “barbarians” provided an ideological ground for neoliberal experiments not only in the former Soviet states but around the globe. It is this interest in the global hegemony of the ideology of westernization that led me first to the doctoral program in critical media studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and then to the research I am doing now.

According to the academic work of some Ukrainian sociologists, polling showed in the recent past that most Ukrainians were not very interested in the issue of identity but were more concerned with issues like jobs, wages, and prices. Your work focuses a lot on the Neoliberal reforms that were enacted in Ukraine since 2019 — against the popular sentiment. Can you talk about what the view is on economic issues for most Ukrainians and why?

In the social milieus [in which] I lived — the east of Ukraine, Crimea, and Kiev — there were very few people concerned with the issue of ethnic identity. I do not in vain emphasize “my social milieus.” Ukraine is a complex and divided country with its far east and far west holding diametrically different views on all socially significant issues. Since the declaration of Ukraine’s independence in 1991, two ideas of national identity have been competing in Ukraine: “ethnic Ukrainian” versus “eastern Slavic.” The ethnic Ukrainian national idea, based on the notion that Ukrainian culture, language, and ethnicity-centered history should be the dominant integrating forces in the Ukrainian nation-state, has been much more popular in the west of Ukraine. The eastern Slavic idea, which envisages the Ukrainian nation as founded on two primary ethnic groups, languages, and cultures — Ukrainian and Russian — has been accepted as normal in the Ukrainian southeast. However, in general, I can agree that most Ukrainians are much more concerned with economic issues, which has always been the case.

As a matter of fact, Ukraine’s independence of 1991 was to a big extent also a matter of economic concerns. Many Ukrainians supported the idea of political divorce from Russia because of an expectation that Ukraine would be better off economically — this is what propagandistic leaflets promised us. This economic hope was not realized. In many ways, the collapse of the Soviet Union radically changed people’s lives for the worse because of Ukraine’s neoliberalization — the marketization of the social sphere and ruination of the Soviet welfare state.

What about neoliberal reforms initiated by Zelensky? You can judge on their popularity by opinion polls — up to 72% of Ukrainians did not support his land reform, the flagship of Zelensky’s neoliberal program. After his party approved it despite people’s indignation, Zelensky’s rating fell from 73 percent in Spring 2019 to 23 percent in January 2022. The reason is simple: a deep sense of betrayal. In his unofficial election platform — the show “Servant of the People” — Zelesnky-Holoborodko

[Holoborodko was Zelensky’s character in the television show — NB] promised that if he could rule the country for just one week, he would “make the teacher live as the president, and the president live as the teacher.” To put it mildly, this promise was not fulfilled. People realized that they were duped once again — the reforms have been carried out in the interests of not Ukrainians but global capital.

To what extent do you think that prioritizing of economic security versus identity issues has changed with the Russian invasion? How do you think that will work out for the political fortunes of the nationalists/ultranationalists versus moderates or leftists?

That is an interesting question. On the one hand, people’s priority now is to survive, which makes security their primary concern. To save their lives, millions of Ukrainians, including my mom and my sister with children, have left Ukraine for Europe. Many of them are ready to stay there forever, to learn foreign languages, and to adopt to a foreign way of life — all these developments can hardly prioritize identity concerns. On the other hand, however, the intensification of ethnic sentiments and the consolidation of the nation in the face of the invasion is also evident. I can judge on this from public discussions in social media — some Kharkovites whom I know personally even started making posts in Ukrainian [language], which they had never used before, to highlight their national identity and signal that they are against any foreign invasion.

This is another tragic aspect of this war. The Maidan revolution of 2014, which many people in the southeast did not support, transformed these people into “slaves,” “sovki” and “vatniki” — derogatory terms to denote their backwardness and barbarism. This is how Maidan revolutionaries, who considered themselves the progressive force of history, saw anti-Maidan “others” because of their adherence to Russian language and culture. Never ever could this pro-Russian population imagine Russia to shell their cities and ruin their lives. The tragedy of these people is twofold: first, their world was ruined symbolically by the Maidan, now, it is being destroyed physically by Russia.

The outcomes of these developments are unclear so far as it is unclear how the war will end. If the southeastern regions remain in Ukraine, the ruination of everything resisting aggressive nationalism will most likely be completed. This will be probably the end of this unique borderline culture that has never wanted to be either completely Ukrainized or Russified. If Russia establishes control over these regions, as it boasts now, I can hardly predict how it will be dealing with mass resentment — at least, in the cities that are damaged significantly, as in Kharkov…”

 

by: Natylie Baldwin, writing in Medium, 28 April 2022.

 

If NATO has used all its resources to bolster the Ukrainian army and make its stand against a far superior enemy in the eastern part of the country, then the final political settlement will not be the resumption of the political entity that has been called Ukraine.   Nor will it be as straightforward as the Crimean takeover has been after 2014; nor will it be as dependent on Russian military support as the two Donbas provinces.   For the regions such as Kherson, Mariupol and whatever additional provinces that would fall under Russian military control, we will have to see where a ceasefire line will appear as hostilities end.   

 

This means that a wide swathe of Eastern and Southern Ukraine will not be “Ukrainian” again.   It will become a new buffer state between NATO and the Russian Federation, with the Western part of the former Ukraine, under Kyiv, under NATO control (and financing).   As it stands now, the end game will not be an independent Ukraine under someone like Zellensky.    The rest of the country, now occupied, seems more likely to be permanently under Russian military control.   

 

Whether there will be “forever” hostilities between the Western part of Ukraine, and the Eastern part of Ukraine, or a stifled peace, as between N and S Korea, remains to be seen.   But Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back together again.   The military powers that be, ie Russia and NATO, will not be able to overcome the other side so much as to unify what was originally a deeply divided land.

 

That military end game will also be accompanied by an economic one.

 

That end game has already become evident.   In the last week, Russia executed a coup de grace on the EU.   Call it blackmail if you want, but the natural advantage of one country, Russia, which possesses immense resources of energy and grain, over another group, the European West which has none, cannot be overcome except by divine, rather than American, intervention.  The termination of gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria represents only the first shot across the bow in Russia’s counter-offensive in the on-going economic war.   

 

The West ignited economic WW3 some eight weeks ago, with the shock and awe of massive sanctions launched against Russia.  Eight weeks later, that economic war already has a scoresheet.  It is Russia 1, West 0…

 

Russia took it on the nose in the first two weeks – the ruble collapsed, and Russia was “cancelled” in the world economy as Western companies pulled out of the country.  There was, most prominently, the so-called energy sanction.  The whole purpose of the shock and awe was to bring Russia to heel, weaken it economically so that it cannot continue the war.  Nothing like that happened.

 

The ruble has gone higher than the levels it was trading at before the war started.  The international financial markets have given its view on how the economic war has turned out – the ruble wins.   

 

Meanwhile, Russia is making money hand over fist on its trade account due to its booming exports.   To the EU.   Sanctions did not work.  

 

Basically, the energy imports into the EU from Russia cannot be, and have not, stopped.   Not a single NATO country, not even the loudest among them - the USA -  stopped buying Russian energy in the last eight weeks!   That hypocritical situation has continued to this day, and very soon, it will be the Russians who will stop selling to the West, by their own volition.   As when it happened last week, the likes of Ursula von der Leyen, and other leaders in the EU, started hollering “not fair!”… Seems like if the Europeans stop buying gas on their own timing, it is a successful sanction; but when the Russians stop selling on their timetable, it becomes blackmail!   I thought the whole intention of the sanction was to end the trade with Russia.  It has now ended for Poland and Bulgaria.  Mission accomplished.   So why all the verbiage??

 

The economic dependence of Europe on Russian oil and gas, and soon, grains and metals, is exactly akin to the American dependence on Chinese consumer goods.   The demand, in economic terminology, is completely inelastic.   

 

In the last two weeks, the Euro has collapsed to just above a ten-year low.   If the current economic standoff between Europe and Russia continues, for all its admirable resolve, the EU economy will crumble.   We have analysed that situation in earlier Weekly Commentaries and don’t need to repeat it here.   The Euro will go lower.  

 

There is now an additional reason for this outlook.   Whether the EU succumbs to “gas for rubles” or paying for Russian gas through corrupt brokers in third countries or worst, pay for US LNG at ten times the Russian cost, it will send energy prices higher.   That’s a certainty.  

 

At the same time, the Euro will go lower because all the costs to be incurred by the EU will keep increasing, including the immense burden of supporting Ukraine and its corrupt oligarchs and officials, its military and its refugees.  The Europeans will even have to bear the cost of the Lend Lease weapons provided by the United States.  This will end up in a vicious cycle, with more and more Euros being used to pay for an essential commodity appreciating in price, which will in time extend to more commodities including grain, fertilizer and metals.   

 

To put it simply, a lower Euro rate for oil and gas priced in Dollars will weaken the Euro more and more, as in local currency terms, the Dollar price of energy gets to become larger and larger.  The Euro will spiral downwards.   

 

The economic war is lost, but that’s not how it will be presented to EU citizens, even if every Western politician perfectly understands it to be that way.  

 

Now we are back to answering the opening question.   How will the global economy be affected by all these events and how will our trading methodology do in these circumstances?

 

This is a no brainer.   The economic situation is not presenting a different trading environment than we have seen in the last four years.   Throughout the covid crisis, the global economy went through a shock that has not been seen in a century.   We prospered with record trading profits in that year, 2020.   That has been our greatest test, unlikely to be repeated in another hundred years.

 

Of course, there is now inflation higher than it has ever been in forty years.  But this, including a resultant recession, will not be worse than the 2020 economic crisis.   This inflation will lead to a roller coaster in interest rates in the different countries as central banks everywhere have to make an effort to be seen controlling inflation even though they actually can do shit about it, given the huge national debt burdens created by the 2008 GFC and the massive covid governmental budget deficits.   Higher interest rates on that debt creates an unsustainable situation and inflation fighting has its limits.

 

Different countries will have different responses according to local economic conditions as well as local political circumstances, as the inflation fight is as much a political exercise as it is economic.  As such, currencies will be very volatile, with the currencies swinging in wide ranges, up as well as down.   

 

And our technology has been proven conclusively over the last four years that we thrive in that kind of an environment – Brexit, covid crash, bond crash, and now inflation, recession or swift changes between that.    In the absence of surprises that calm the markets (surprises by definition do not calm markets), we should do well.

 

 

Wai Cheong

Investment Committee

The writer has been in financial services for more than forty years. He graduated with First Class Honours in Economics and Statistics, winning a prize in 1976 for being top student for the whole university in his year. He also holds an MBA with Honors from the University of Chicago. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst.