Markets were mixed during the week, with U.S. edging up (S&P 500 +0.4%) to new highs, while MSCI All World Index is down -0.3% (Hang Seng -0.7%, China CSI -1.1%, MSCI China -1.5%). This week saw U.S. Treasuries 10Y Yields drop 10bps – the biggest weekly drop in a year since last June and the…
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Markets continued their choppy advance with mixed trading in Asia during the week, with MSCI All World Index +0.8%, S&P 500 +0.6%, NASDAQ +0.2% but Singapore -0.9%, Hang Seng -0.7%, China CSI -0.7%. Weaker-than-expected jobs growth eased concerns about the economy running too hot and causing an early tightening of monetary policy. Nonfarm payrolls increased…
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Markets advanced during the week ahead of the Memorial Day holiday weekend, with MSCI World Index up +1.4% and S&P 500 +1.2%, with sentiments lifted by Biden’s unveiling of a massive stimulus plan. Biden sent Congress a $6 trillion budget plan that would ramp up spending on infrastructure, education and combating climate change, which includes…
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The crash of cryptocurrencies during the week, partly attributed to China reiterating that their use in transactions is forbidden, spilled over into the overall U.S. and global markets to weaken sentiments, with S&P 500 down -0.4%, NASDAQ +0.3%, MSCI World Index +0.1%, Stoxx +0.4%, DAX +0.1%, FTSE -0.4%, China CSI 300 +0.5% and Shanghai Composite…
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Inflation fear engulfed the markets in flames during the week, with heavy losses inflicted upon tech (NYFANG+ index -4%, ARK Innovation ETF -4.9%) to emerging markets (MSCI China -3.1%, extending losses from its mid-Feb highs to more than 20% and entering a bear market, Taiwan TWSE -8.4% in biggest crash in its 54-year history, STI…
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Extreme rotation into Cyclicals (Materials/Commodities/Energy, Banks, Transport, Homebuilders) during the week led to tech stocks tumbling in its worst sell-off in months, sparked by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s comments on Wednesday that interest rates may have to rise moderately to keep the economy from overheating. The losses in tech sustained even as Yellen attempted to…
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Markets declined to close out April with a whimper and were unusually choppy and spooky beneath the surface during the week despite a strong earnings season, which saw Microsoft and Apple down 3.4% and 2.1% despite reporting better-than-expected earnings, as a wave of profit-taking swept across the market, resulting in many popular stocks – both…
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Markets bounced on Friday to pare back losses for the week, as traders digest a triumvirate of events weighing on market sentiments: (1) Biden’s capital-gains tax hike, (2) Double-mutation virus surge in India and Japan, (3) Netflix’s dismal quarterly results with horrific plunge in subscriber growth and weak guidance. Long-term capital gains and qualified dividends…
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Treasury yields slide during the week despite a parade of positive economic data in which U.S. retail sales rose nearly 10% in March, the second largest increase on record, to the chagrin of speculative traders in the reflation/reopening trade of the Cyclicals. With yields retreating, gold rose 1.9%, heading for its best week since December,…
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Markets rose to new highs while equity trading volume plunged, with the five-day average across U.S. exchanges dropping to the lowest since October. The lull felt especially abrupt after 13 months of frenzied trading brought the fastest bear market ever and a furious rally not equaled in 90 years. Inflows to stocks past 5 months (US$576bn) exceed…
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Fear fades and greed rules in a dramatic quarter. The haloed promised end of the pandemic supposedly draws closer with every vaccine shot in the arm. So in the first three months of 2021, traders lunged to position themselves for a post-COVID world by girding for higher inflation and super-charged economically-sensitive cyclical growth poised to…
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Markets were choppy and rocked by messy price swings that whipsawed traders during the week, capped by an extraordinary spree of block trades on Friday which erased US$35 billion from the values of bellwether stocks ranging from Chinese technology giants to U.S. media companies, spurred speculation of forced selling by a massive fund being liquidated.…
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Tech, Commodities/Energy, Financials, Bonds and China/EM all suffered during the week. After Fed’s chair Powell appeared to pull off the impossible balancing act in calming the markets with his ultra-dovish remarks on Wednesday, it all reversed sharply with the 10-year treasury yield spiking up to the new highs of above 1.75%, while the 30-year broke…
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A sudden selling bout pushed the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield to suddenly spike up on Friday and break above the 1.6% level to end at 1.635%. The world’s most watched bond rate has failed to close above 160 bps in more than a year, though has surpassed that level in volatile intraday trading several times…
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Havens, emerging markets, credit (LQD, EMB), China tech and global tech stocks are hammered heavily this week, pressured by the stronger USD and rising interest rates to 1.56%, up from 1.2% a few weeks ago and less than 1% at year-end 2020. The U.S. dollar surged to its strongest since Thanksgiving (with its biggest week…
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“Dude, Get Back to Your Desk!” – this is the week that roiled bond markets in a bloodbath with bond traders around the world instructed to keep vigil at their screens after the speed and ferocity of the selloff caught nearly everyone off guard as the yield on 10-year Treasuries – arguably the most important…
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Skate to where the puck is going to be – the value chain profits in the electric vehicle (EV) revolution will be shifting towards addressing the bottleneck in the critical charging infrastructure, as evident from how the Nordic countries are leading the way when it comes to the adoption of EVs, led by Norway and Sweden. Norway is…
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The battering ram of the steepening yield curve has mercilessly pummelled the gilded castle of havens and defensives during the week, with gold, bonds, REITS and yield-based structured-notes products down significantly in a blood bath rout – and the downward trend that portend further losses looks likely to continue at least till mid-2021. Gold slumped…
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Markets rose to new highs in a choppy U.S. session even as 10-year Treasury yields steepened further this week to 120 bps after Fed’s Powell pledge of a ‘patiently accommodative’ policy to boost the pandemic-ridden US labour market. Gold fell after Powell moved to damp down inflation expectations by saying that any rise in prices…
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It’s bigger and more social than ever! At US$180 billion in revenue, videogames have grown exponentially to become a bigger moneymaker than the global movie and sports industries combined, evolving from being a fringe activity for teenagers into a mainstream form of entertainment as they become a gathering place for friends and families to stay in…
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U.S. markets jumped to recover from last week’s Reddit-induced losses and the largest hedge fund de-grossing in a decade on Biden’s push of his proposed US$1.9 trillion stimulus plan, as the Senate voted 51-50 on Friday to approve the massive fiscal stimulus package with vice president Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaker. MSCI ACWI All World…
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Markets collapsed in the worst and most volatile week since October 2020 as hedge funds had to carry out forced selling of their long positions to offset heavy losses incurred from their heavily-shorted stock positions that were short-squeezed by the hordes of retail day traders on Robinhood ganging up in Reddit and other social media…
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Where do doctors, surgeons, oncologists and medical professionals go to learn about the latest medical practices and information? In Japan, they have formed a habit to sign into their Netflix-like paid-subscription account to stream thousands of fun and useful video programs by leading lecturers who are active at the forefront of clinical practice explain information useful in…
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“We will have a few weeks of extra money and a few weeks of putting your last, desperate chips into the game, and then an even more spectacular bust. When you have reached this level of obvious super-enthusiasm, the bubble has always, without exception, broken in the next few months, not a few years,” GMO’s…
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During the time in teaching management accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU), I would ask the class to think of an example of a global monopoly so as to illustrate the dynamics between cost/profit behavior, capex budgeting, innovation and the total addressable market. Sure, there are market leaders like Google in search engine and…
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Macroeconomic Commentary U.S. markets experienced its largest weekly decline since 30 Oct 2020, the week before the presidential elections, after the euphoria over Biden’s $1.9 trillion fiscal stimulus plan that was unveiled on Thursday fizzled with growing doubts on how much of the package will realistically and ultimately get passed by Congress, and over the…
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From a single store in Finland’s Tampere, Europe’s largest lake district wedged between two beautiful lakes, this quiet innovator has held firm to its mission “to support and safeguard the furry everyday life of pet lovers” to grow to become Nordic’s #1 pet care e-commerce and omni-channel retailer. The first store that was opened in 1988…
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During the week ended 8 Jan 2021, the the Portfolio of Global Dividend-Yielding Innovators gained around 0.8% nett in SGD, vs MSCI ACWI All World index +3%, S&P 500 +1.8%, Gold -2.6%, Microsoft -1.3%, Apple -0.5%, Facebook -2.1%, Amazon -2.3%, Adobe -3%, Visa -1.5%, Nestle -2.8%. Since the recent inception on 28 August 2020, the Portfolio…
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“There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.” – Barry Lopez Since her recent inception on 28 August 2020, the Portfolio of Global Dividend-Yielding Innovators has generated double-digit returns in SGD terms and overall…
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Goodbye virus-ridden 2020, Hello hopeful 2021. As we cross into the new year, the virus is still raging, with new infections near peaks in the U.S. and much of Europe, where millions of people are living under strict lockdowns. Yet, global stocks added around US$15 trillion in market cap in 2020, pushing above US$100 trillion…
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