Spy was asked to sit through an options fund presentation by a Swiss portfolio manager so mind-numbingly dull this week, he was reminded of a scene in the classic sitcom, Frasier. The comedic radio psychologist has a caller named Roger phone in for advice and his response was, “Roger, at Cornell University they have an incredible piece of scientific equipment known as the tunnelling electron microscope. Now, this microscope is so powerful that by firing electrons you can actually see images of the atom, the infinitesimally minute building blocks of our universe. Roger, if I were using that microscope right now… I still wouldn’t be able to locate my interest in your problem. Thank you for your call.” By the end, Spy was not able to locate a single ounce of enthusiasm for the Swiss maestro’s strategy.
Spy, like everybody else this week, was captivated by SpaceX’s successful Polaris Dawn rocket launch and subsequent first ever spacewalk by a private person, Jared Isaacman. There is currently only a single space-themed listed strategy, which is the VanEck Space Innovators Ucits ETF. It has the magnificent ticker, JEDI. While the fund has done okay this year, up 7.24%, the strategy has only managed to attract a paltry $9.1m in assets. That AUM is only enough to buy about 8 payloads on SpaceX’s falcon nine rocket, which charges $1.1m per 200 kilogram load. Despite all the media coverage on the modern-day private space race, it seems investors are staying firmly on the ground.
Spy hears it all the time from friends and industry colleagues: “It has been a long week”, said with sincerity, while they sip cold beers at a Mid-Levels bar on a Friday afternoon. Spy is only too happy to point out that during the 19th century, the average worker used to put in between 50 and 70 hours of work per week, which was between 2,700 and 3,500 hours per year. In developed countries, that figure has basically halved to between 1300 and 1800 hours per year or about 25 to 35 hours per week. We are working fewer hours per day, fewer days each week and fewer weeks per year. But, trust Spy, we can all still have a good moan about it.
Would you have been better off investing in DBS or Standard Chartered’s top three performing focus funds during the past year? With DBS, the top three are Ninety One’s GSF Global Gold Fund, up 26.51%, Franklin’s Technology Fund up 25.7% and Capital Group’s New Economy Fund up 24.56%. At Standard Chartered, Goldman Sachs India Equity is up 31.94%, Franklin Technology up 25.7% and AB’s American Growth up 25.31%. Not much in it overall notes Spy, but Standard Chartered would take the gold.
Spy has seen a number of scary charts over the years, but if I was a Chinese policy maker, or indeed growth investor, this would be the one to truly terrify me. It is the total and utter collapse of the Chinese startup ecosystem. In the same way that babies are the lifeblood of any nation, startups are the lifeblood of an economy. According to Preqin data, Chinese entrepreneurs have gone on strike (or perhaps moved to the US). From a peak of more than 50,000 in 2018 it has plummeted to fewer than a thousand in 2024.
Is there a prize for most spectacular share price collapse ever? Spy has a contender. A company named Mullen Automative, is “a Southern California-based company that owns and partners with several synergistic businesses, all working towards the same goal of creating clean and scalable electric vehicles and energy solutions.” After enduring that word salad, get this: on 5October 2012, the shares were $19,260,000 each. (Yes, $19.26m). Today they trade at $0.17, just seventeen cents.
Last week Spy wrote that Schroders has selected its CFO to be its next CEO and expressed concern that bean counters don’t have amazing innovation track records. This week, abrdn said “Hold my beer” and made a similar choice. abrdn has decided that Jason Windsor, its former chief financial officer, who has been interim CEO since Stephen Bird left in May, will take the role permanently. If history is anything to go by, expect more cost cutting at the Scottish firm.
For those people who can stomach watching the American election, with its bizarre claims and counter claims, most said that Kamala Harris won the much-hyped debate with Donald Trump this week. Still, Spy would caution armchairs pundits to ignore the talking heads and look at Trump’s Electoral College chances. According to leading psephologist, Nate Silver, Trump still has a 61.6% chance of winning the College and that is all that counts. Don’t write the Orange One off just yet and, perhaps, keep your pets locked up. It helps to never forget Thomas Jefferson’s wise words, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.”
Spy’s quote of the week comes from Morgan Housel, a partner at The Collaborative Fund and a former columnist at The Wall Street Journal. “An index investor can earn 8% per year but with an experienced and savvy fund manager you can easily improve that to 6% per year.” Ouch!
Until next week…
