Posted inFSA Spy

The FSA Spy market buzz – 23 December 2021

Spy reviews the year in verse.

In what seems the blink of an eye to Spy, another year comes to an end. We are indeed, depending on your point of view, blessed or cursed, to live in “interesting times”. Extraordinary change has taken place in 2021, not least of all in our own industry. The wheeling and dealing, buying and selling, trading and hustling, lockdowns and openings, bankruptcies and successes, the shouting and raging, the squabbling and bickering, the vaxing or anti-vaxing and so much more, have woven a fascinating tapestry for historians to muse over for decades to come.

For Spy and our team, this is the last issue of the year. Thank you for sharing it with us and for all of your support. We hope you have a very happy Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. Settle back and enjoy something a little more unusual as Spy presents, 2021 in verse.

The year of two thousand and twenty-one

Had only just woken and begun

Before Spy knew it, the markets soared

And buyers, yelled, “We want more”

While Trump was making a welcome exit

Biden came to replace the bandit

Late night Twitter ceased to be as much fun

Jack Dorsey took away Trump’s loaded gun

The vaccine arrived to excited fanfare

With pundits yelling from every armchair

“It’s good for you”; “No it blooming ain’t”

To divine the truth would require a saint

ETFs arrived in a screaming torrent

The new funds wore every garment

Recovery, travel, cinemas, too

A fund was launched in every hue

Meanwhile, Evergrande did default

Alas, no money was left in the vault

Other Chinese properties failed

Investors’ hearts and nerves quailed

China said, “Crypto mining: no, no more”

The coins crashed hard, traders swore

Fear not, ye young resilient buyers

Bitcoin rose again from the fires

The supply crunch came out of the blue

With chips and everything else brand new

Hard to get; price inflation roared

Everyday things we can’t afford

Elon’s wealth went through the roof

Adding to some strange universal truth

To make a fortune requires not profits

Only an army of loyal Reddit poppets

In Singapore, so squeaky clean

It does appear a fraud so keen

Ng Yu Zhi stands so accused

Of others’ money he has abused

Blackrock’s assets neared 10 trillion

Larry Fink, muttered, thanks a billion

Assets soared around the world

The rich’s riches swirled and swirled

Franklin Templeton did some M&A

T. Rowe Price joined the frenzied fray

Vanguard also did some acquiring

PGIM added to the crazy buying

And so our year is almost done

Brief history written in a pun

What fate in store in Twenty-Two?

One hopes, good tidings, for Spy and you.

And so dear readers, the year is up. May the wine flow, the cocktails shake, the dim sum platters heave with the finest goodies and joy spread as fast as a dodgy conspiracy theory left to late night Weibo chatterers who have drunk too much Moutai.

Until next year…

Part of the Mark Allen Group.