Analyser af ledelse, geopolitik, AI og digitalisering

Goldman Sachs: How the world’s record share of elections will ripple through the economy. “A record share of the world’s population will vote this year, with elections in more than 60 countries. The polls will have a notable impact on economic policy around the globe: Goldman Sachs Research finds that government spending tends to increase, central banking policies tend to ease, and economic uncertainty drifts higher in the runup to election day. “Elections will therefore be an important, if not the most important, macro story in 2024,” Goldman Sachs economist Joseph Briggs writes in the team’s report. In addition to the US presidential election, the EU will hold parliamentary elections in June, and the UK will likely hold a general election sometime in the second half of the year. A number of major emerging economies will see voters go to the polls.” Læs hele analysen her.

Danske Bank: Boosting European wind sector key as climate targets and Chinese competition loom: “However, it is not all rosy. While 2023 was a year of growth records, it was also one where several wind developers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) were under severe pressure. The Covid-19 pandemic, a global supply chain crisis and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to high inflation – for example the average price of seven critical minerals needed in wind power technology increased by 93% between January 2020 and Q1 2023 – with cost of wind turbines reaching decade highs in 2022. Add to this rising interest rates that increase financing costs, coupled with much discussed permitting delays – 80GW of capacity was as of April 2023 stuck in permitting procedures across Europe including projects capable of producing 65TWh per year in Sweden alone – and you get a perfect storm. As such, OEMs such as Vestas, Siemens Gamesa and General Electric have struggled with steep losses – although Vestas bucked the trend and returned to profitability over 2023 – while Ørsted announced last week that it will suspend dividends, cut jobs and exit wind markets to become a “leaner and more efficient company.” Læs hele analysen her.

ABNamro: Prisen på europæiske CO2 kvoter fortsætter nedtrenden pga. mere alternativ energi. ”EUA prices (CO2-kvotepriser.red) keep their downward trend and hit pre-(energy) crisis levels. The decrease in EUA prices is driven by structurally lower demand for power generation as more renewables are deployed and efficiency measures seem to be sustained. Recovery in prices in the short run is unlikely, with the next MSR decision – which could potentially change the picture – not until May. EUA prices have stayed on a downward trend during the month of February. In a new development, the market reached 53.5 EUR/tCO2 level. Although the market has not seen such levels since October 2021 (see figure below), the current levels should not be surprising as this trend has been driven by multiple factors, some of which are structural and call for action by the Market Stability Reserve in May. If we look at the graph below on the right, we see that the EUA price was around the current levels before the energy crisis which started in 2022. The energy crisis in Europe was mainly visible in soaring gas prices that induced a shift to coal for power generation, which has higher emission intensity than gas fired power plants, driving the demand for allowances upwards.” Læs hele analysen her.

Goldman Sachs: 22 siders analyse af “Global Automation: Humanoid Robot: The AI accelerant”: A year after we laid our initial expectations for global humanoid robot TAM of US$6bn, we raise our 2035 TAM forecast to US$38bn resulting from a 4-fold increase in our shipments estimate to 1.4mn units with a much faster path to profitability on a 40% reduction in bill of materials. We believe our revised shipment estimate would cover 10%-15% of hazardous, dangerous and auto manufacturing roles. AI acceleration, technology breakthroughs, greater capex investments are the key drivers of our forecast changes.

– Improved technological viability is supported by incorporation of end-to-end AI and multi-modal AI algorithms enabling much faster product iterations, leading players’ sooner-than-expected progress (e.g., Tesla Optimus Gen 2), and better capabilities of the robots though possibility for a general purpose AI robot is still a question; • BOM cost trended down likely by 40% to $150k per unit in 2023 from c. $250k a year ago for high spec robots mainly driven by availability of cheaper components with broader scope of domestic supply chain options from the best performance components used in labs previously, implying a likely acceleration in factory application viability timeline by one year and consumer applications timeline by 2-4 years vs our prior estimates.” Læs hele analysen her.

Morten W. Langer