Professional Pensions (March 27)
“Market turmoil, inflation shocks, high interest rates, and rolling geopolitical crises spurred many investors to stay on the sidelines last year” across all asset classes. “Yet investor appetite remains strong,” especially for real assets. “Globally, nearly two-thirds of investors expect to increase their allocation to real assets over the next two years, with investors in Asia most likely to add to their portfolios.”
Tags: Allocation, Appetite, Asia, Geopolitical crises, Inflation, Interest rates, Investors, Market turmoil, Real assets, Sidelines
New York Times (March 23)
“Investors in the futures market had expected the Fed to cut rates up to six times this year, but have recently come around to the central bank’s view that only three cuts are more likely. It hasn’t seemed to matter for the stock market’s barnstorming rally.”
Tags: Central bank, Fed, Futures, Investors, Rally, Rates, Stock market, Three cuts
Wall Street Journal (March 19)
“Foreign investors have increasingly shifted their investments to India from China in recent years, partly because of concerns over Beijing’s unpredictable policy moves and China’s sputtering economy.” The shift doesn’t necessarily shield them. “A recent clampdown on one of India’s biggest financial technology companies rattled investors and serves as a reminder that New Delhi can also make sudden moves with a hefty impact on companies and market value.”
Tags: Beijing, China, Clampdown, Concerns, Economy, Financial, Foreign, Impact, India, Investments, Investors, Shift, Shifted, Sputtering, Technology, Unpredictable
Reuters (February 28)
China’s housing market seems to be approaching a paradigm shift. “The broad idea is to create a two-tier system. Local governments will rent out or sell flats below market prices to most residents, including some 300 million Chinese migrant workers who live far away from their hometowns in the mainland. Upgraders and investors could settle for a smaller private residential market, where regulators meddle less.”
Tags: China, Flats, Housing market, Investors, Local governments, Market prices, Migrant workers, Paradigm shift, Regulators, Rent, Residential, Residents, Sell, Two-tier system
New York Times (February 24)
“Investors often see Berkshire as a bellwether of the American economy, given the breadth of its business.” Marking a sharp reversal from a $22 billion loss in 2022, the conglomerate recorded net earnings of $97.1 billion in 2023, “its highest-ever annual profit last year.” Moreover, “Berkshire also reported $37.4 billion in operating earnings, the financial metric that Mr. Buffett prefers because it excludes paper investment gains and losses, for the year, up 21 percent from 2022.”
Tags: 2022, 2023, Bellwether, Berkshire, Conglomerate, Economy, Investment gains, Investors, Loss, Net earnings, Operating earnings, Profit, Reversal, U.S.
Institutional Investor (February 23)
“We found claims that impact funds must be concessionary — meaning investors give up some returns when they also pursue social goals — to be wrong. In fact, funds designed to solve some of society’s problems can produce returns comparable to non-impact funds and they can lower risks. Impact-aligned industries also can outperform others.”
Tags: Claims, Concessionary, Impact funds, Industries, Investors, Lower risks, Outperform, Returns, Social goals, Wrong
Washington Post (February 20)
“As it stands today, even the most heralded investor activism has done next to nothing to move the needle…. Somehow activists missed that each share a green investor sells is purchased by somebody with lesser green credentials, less interest in climate change. This substitution could actually lead to more rather than fewer carbon emissions.”
Tags: Activists, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Green investor, Heralded, Investors, Sells, Share, Substitution
Bloomberg (February 19)
China’s Communist Party appears poised to “play a bigger role in steering its vast technology industry, the latest sign that Beijing intends to exert more influence over swathes of the world’s No. 2 economy.” In response, shares in the nation’s listed chipmakers “slid more than 2% as investors pondered the ramifications of greater state control, which has yielded mixed results so far.”
Tags: Beijing, China, Chipmakers, Communist party, Influence, Investors, Mixed results, No. 2 economy, Ramifications, Shares, State control, Steering. Technology industry
The Economist (February 10)
“This year investors in Chinese stocks have been on a hair-raising ride. Even as America’s S&P 500 index reached record highs, markets in China and Hong Kong shed $1.5trn in January alone…. The decline signals a fundamental problem. Investors abroad and at home once saw China’s government as a dependable steward of the economy. Now this trust has seeped away, with severe consequences for China’s growth.”
Tags: $1.5trn, China, Consequences, Decline, Dependable, Economy, Government, Growth, Hair raising, Hong Kong, Investors, Markets, S&P 500, Steward, Stocks, Trust
Markets Insider (February 8)
“The takeover of passive and algorithmic trading has made value investing significantly harder, with overvalued stocks now more likely to win out.” The shift from actively managed investment has “led to fewer investors trading on the merits of individual stocks, making it harder… to find undervalued companies that will eventually close the gap between them and the rest of the market.”
Tags: Actively managed, Algorithmic trading, Investment, Investors, Market, Overvalued, Passive, Stocks, Takeover, Undervalued, Value investing
