“Most male investors think their portfolios are like willies. The more they fiddle with them, the more they will grow,” said a rather sassy wealth manager with a twinkle in her eye to Spy as we watched the Labour Day drone show over Victoria Harbour. “When the truth is: a portfolio is like soap. The more you fiddle with it, the more it shrinks.” Spy wondered if this is the reason that, in general, women outperform men at investing, given half the chance? She added: “Stop checking it all the time and stop comparing yours to others.” Spy assumed she was still talking about portfolios.
Does a company owning Bitcoins indicate that the company is more innovative than its peers? Grayscale, the asset manager behind the original Bitcoin trust, is betting that it is true. The American firm has just launched the Grayscale Bitcoin Adopters ETF, with the ticker BCOR. The strategy, which follows a proprietary benchmark, the Indxx Bitcoin Adopters Index, includes companies across the globe that have adopted Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset. Examples include Metaplanet, Strategy (previously MicroStrategy), Tesla and Block, among others. The fund does not own any Bitcoin itself. Spy can see the logic, but making one interesting treasury decision, does not a profitable company make.
Have you heard of Blue Owl Capital? You probably will do, soon, reckons Spy. The American-headquartered alternatives manager has offices in Hong Kong and Singapore. A year ago, the firm had about $175bn in AUM. After a series of acquisitions and strong inflows from investors, its AUM is up 57%, to a whopping $273bn. What caught Spy’s eye in their earnings results this week, was their co-CEO Mark Lipshulz saying that the private wealth segment of the market is a key to their future growth. The race is on to deliver accessible private market participation with suitable secondary liquidity structures. As Spy has written before, BlackRock is active in the space, as is Schroders. This week KKR and Capital Group got their private / public joint venture up and running. Get out the popcorn.
If you are worried about the White House’s rollback of policy designed to achieve a sustainable energy transition, Lombard Odier has an insight piece on China, which is worth reading in full. “While [China] remains the world’s biggest carbon emitter, accounting for 32% of the world’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2024, it is also the world’s biggest producer of renewable energy, holding a dominant position across clean technologies.” Some of the stats are mind blowing. “Beijing has earmarked $800bn over the next six years to modernise its power grid infrastructure. Chinese EV brands were responsible for 62% of global EV sales in 2024. China has already surpassed its 2030 target for installed solar and wind capacity – six years earlier than planned.” A revolution is taking place before our eyes.
Does anyone want to get contrarian? Many say they do, but in Spy’s long experience, when the chips are down, they all run for the exits at the same time. UBS has some encouragement for those looking for opportunities in the recent market wreckage of Trump’s 100 first days. “Pessimism abounds in other surveys as well. According to the American Association of Individual Investors, only 21.9% of investors believe the S&P 500 will rise in the next six months. Historically, this level of extreme pessimism has been a contrarian indicator. After past readings of this magnitude, the S&P 500 delivered a positive one-year return 90% of the time, with an average gain of 19.7%, since this weekly survey began in 1987.” Is this time different, wonders Spy?
Spy took a quick, extremely unscientific poll at a dinner attended by a motley crew of friends. “Would anyone pay $20,000 for their own personal humanoid robot?” Six out of the eight attendees raised their hands in the affirmative. Clearly Spy was among Star Wars fans that evening. It was Janus Henderson’s report on humanoid robotics that prompted the poll. China has put humanoid robots at the heart of its future industrial strategy and things are paying off. The costs are falling rapidly. “For example, Unitree announced its humanoid robot G-1 at just $16,000, much cheaper than Tesla’s Optimus prototype (circa $50,000–60,000).” Although humanoid robots are targeting factories and businesses first, having your own personal robotic helper will, one day, be as ubiquitous as the washing machine or vacuum cleaner, reckons Spy.
Tomorrow, Saturday 3 May, is Berkshire Hathway’s annual general meeting. Warren Buffet’s many fans will make the pilgrimage to Omaha, Nebraska. This year is significant. The legendary investor celebrates sixty years of helming the firm. Berkshire’s stock is sitting at an all-time high and with a valuation of more than $1.1trn. The most astonishing fact of this storied company? From 1965 until today, Berkshire’s stock could drop 99% and still be outperforming the S&P 500. Buffet’s compounding philosophy, shunning of the complex in favour of the straightforward and being patient when others are greedy, has paid off immensely for him and his legion of loyal fans.
The scale of some of these funds makes Spy’s eyes water (and probably make a few rival mangers drool in envy). Vanguard’s flagship S&P 500 tracker, VOO, gathered nearly $21bn in assets last month. It brings the fund to a whopping $608bn in AUM. Meanwhile, the State Street Global Advisors’ SPDR S&P 500 ETF has $504bn. That is more than $1.1trn in just two funds.
Singapore and Australia go to the polls tomorrow. In both elections Trump, the cost of living and housing loom large. It appears that the PAP will retain its long-standing grip on the Lion City and in Oz, Labor will cling on – but only just. Spy’ doubts the MPs up for election will sleep easy tonight with voters in a fractious, unpredictable mood.
Until next week…
