According to the weather report, it is the hottest day of the year in Hong Kong today. Perfect for a bottle of ice-cold Chablis on a roof top bar overlooking the harbour and contemplating the dramas playing out across the world.
Markets, of all types, are as volatile as a teenager’s love life. There is much swooning, sighing and heavy breathing. Angst over inflation has reached dramatic proportions with even the most economically unaware people now recognising price jumps in everything from the daily chicken rice to cars and everything in between.
Spy was not surprised to hear this conversation this week in the US Senate: Q: “Do you believe that the $1.9 trillion spending package last year had any effect on inflation?” Jerome Powell: “It’s really not our job to pass judgment.” No, Chairman Powell, but the people will.
Hat tip to the marketing team at UBS for the most delightful widget promoting the New Economy as an investment proposition. Their techies have implemented a spinning globe that allows the visitor to manipulate it in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree fashion seeing the different opportunities presented across our extraordinary world.
It is utterly compelling and rather like one of those stress-relieving scrunchy balls that one feels the need to keep squishing and squashing. Go, on, you know you want to.
Spy can always trust DBS to sit on the rather uncomfortable fence when it comes to equity investing. Out of 110 stock recommendations, 31 are a currently a Hold, 79 a Buy.
Despite the gloom descending on the world economy, DBS cannot bring itself to find a single investment to recommend as a Sell. Spy finds that a tad odd, to say the least.
Independent analysis that is not afraid to offend is really rather useful for investors at any time, let alone a time like this.
If a stock market collapses in the metaverse, does one lose virtual or real money? For investors who have piled into the metaverse, buying ETFs to do so, they are licking their very real wounds.
The market has sold off this year, but Korean metaverse ETFs have done even worse. Mirae Asset Tiger Fn Metaverse ETF, Samsung Kodex K-Metaverse Active ETF and KB KBstar iSelect Metaverse ETF are all down about 30% since their respective launches. Perhaps making virtual swords, for virtual armies, in virtual landscapes is not the money spinner we hoped it might be? Well, at least not yet!
The Bitcoin sell off from $69,000 to about $20,000 has been rather relentless for months. For those long-suffering Bitcoin speculators, um, investors, Spy might have a touch of solace.
ProShares has just debuted an Inverse Bitcoin ETF which seeks to profit from further falls in the price of crypto currency. Just as more and more funds tend to launch around a theme just as it peaks, perhaps this is the canary in the coal mine for the opposite.
If further ‘short’ Bitcoin ETFs appear in rapid succession, Spy will take it as the ideal contrarian indicator. The fund, for what it is worth, employs daily Bitcoin futures on the CME to achieve its short position.
Has Meta, formerly Facebook, outperformed the Nasdaq 100 since going public? Up until the beginning of 2022, the answer was a resounding yes. Indeed, the ubiquitous social network made so much money and was rated so highly, it ran ahead of the market.
But outperformance in the long term for stocks, just as it is for funds, is very hard indeed. It has taken a decade, but simply holding the Nasdaq 100 ETF would now have delivered you a better return than the former stock market darling. Is this an argument for buy and hold wonders Spy, or simply an even stronger argument for active management?
When does a research piece look amazing but not help one tiny little bit? Spy would suggest that exhibit A by Barclays is such a piece. This chart was offered a little while back plotting the way forward for likely investment trends. Spy imagines one would have as much luck choosing the right theme by throwing a dart at the Financial Times.
Singapore’s inflation is raging, catching up the with the rest of the world. The latest figures out this week suggest inflation is 5.5%. Someone might need to tell that to CIMB.
The bank is offering what it claims is the “Still one the highest Singapore Dollar Fixed deposits in Singapore.” This whopping rate? 1.68% if you lock up your money for a full 12 months. Spy cannot think of a more compelling reason for investors to consider the asset management industry to help beat those dismal, real money losing returns.
Is it just Spy or have more and more insight pieces by analysts begun to sound like Presidential war addresses? The latest to catch Spy’s eye came from Lombard Odier, whose June outlook piece includes the line “Looking forward, markets feel at an important crossroads.” Spy can almost hear the dramatic music.
Spy’s quote of the week comes from the ultimate tough guy, Arnold Schwarzenegger; “Having more money doesn’t make you happier. I have 50 million dollars, but I’m just as happy as when I had 48 million.”
Until next week…
