Barron’s (April 11)
“The stocks that have performed best over the past few years have seen a turn in fortune, while some of the worst performers are enjoying gains.” Of the 20 best-performing stocks in the Russell 1000 index between 2016 and 2021, “just three have seen gains in 2022” and on average the 20 stocks have “lost 22% so far this year.” At the other end of the spectrum, of the 20 worst-performers, “a majority—11—have gained this year.”
Tags: Best performers, Fortune, Gains, Index, Russell 1000, Stocks, Worst performers
The Economist (April 9)
“Toshiba was once synonymous with Japan’s industrial might.” Over the past decade, it “has become a byword for drama,” which has included accounting fraud and an ongoing “series of ‘slapstick’ struggles between management and shareholders.” A possible buy-out led by Bain Capital has “raised hopes among investors for some sort of resolution to the saga.” This could potentially prove a watershed moment and “be a big deal for Japan.”
Tags: Accounting fraud, Bain Capital, Buy-out, Drama, Hopes, Industrial might, Investors, Japan, Management, Shareholders, Slapstick, Struggles, Toshiba
Institutional Investor (April 7)
“Companies that have gone public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company have underperformed the S&P 500 by eighty percentage points since 2018.” Indeed, “at no time during the recent SPAC boom—except for a few days in early 2021—did these new listings beat the S&P.”
Markets Insider (April 7)
Investors are punishing transportation stocks “in the face of sky-high fuel prices and slowing growth.” Since hitting a November high, the Dow Jones Transportation Average has fallen 20%, “the technical definition of a bear market.” Often seen as “a bellwether for the health of the underlying economy, the index is comprised of “transportation stocks, from logistics companies such as FedEx and UPS, airlines, to railroad operators like Union Pacific.”
Tags: Airlines, Bear market, Bellwether, Dow Jones, Economy, FedEx, Fuel prices, Investors, Logistics, Punishing, Railroad, Sky-high, Slowing growth, Stocks, Transportation, UPS
Wall Street Journal (April 7)
“With inflation high and the job market tight… policy makers are inclined to reduce the Fed’s $9 trillion balance sheet at a much more rapid pace than they did during the quantitative-tightening round that began in October 2017, when inflation was much cooler and the unemployment rate was higher.” The resulting “quantitative-tightening tantrum could go on a lot longer than the taper tantrum did.”
Tags: 2017, Balance sheet, Fed, Inflation, Job market, Policy makers, Quantitative tightening, Tight, Unemployment
Forbes (April 5)
“Deutsche Bank on Tuesday became the first major bank on Wall Street to forecast a recession next year, albeit a ‘moderate’ one, thanks to the combination of surging inflation and rising interest rates.” Expectations are increasing for “a possible economic downturn on the horizon, with alarms growing louder after the widely-observed yield curve inverted last week and indicated a looming recession.”
Tags: Deutsche Bank, Economic downturn, Expectations, Forecast, Interest rates, Looming, Recession, Surging inflation, Wall Street, Yield curve
Washington Post (April 5)
“Two years ago, China was being lauded by the World Health Organization for its success in beating the coronavirus.” Today, clinging to a “Covid Zero” policy leaves the nation “increasingly isolated as other countries … wean themselves off harsh countermeasures and return to a semblance of pre-pandemic life.” China may have little choice. Relaxing the policy would likely result in at least “630,000 infections a day,” a figure which could rapidly overwhelm “China’s patchy hospital network.”
Tags: China, Coronavirus, Covid Zero, Hospital network, Infections, Isolated, Lauded, Overwhelm, Patchy, Pre-pandemic, Success, WHO
BBC (April 4)
“Even if all the policies to cut carbon that governments had put in place by the end of 2020 were fully implemented, the world will still warm by 3.2C this century…. The good news is that this latest IPCC summary shows that it can be done…. But keeping temperatures down will require massive changes to energy production, industry, transport, our consumption patterns and the way we treat nature.”
Tags: 2020, Carbon, Consumption, Energy production, Governments, Implemented, Industry, IPCC, Nature, Policies, Temperatures, Transport, Warm, World
Kyodo News (April 4)
“The Tokyo stock market trumpets its largest overhaul in decades to lure more foreign investors. Still, the bourse is missing something such investors have long awaited — companies with great growth potential.”
Financial Times (April 4)
The Tokyo Stock Exchange received its “biggest overhaul in 60 years,” and left many unimpressed. “The exchange is now divided into three sections—prime, standard and growth,” but “domestic and global investors said the streamlining effort was a squandered opportunity.” Prime section market cap was set at only ¥10 billion while investors had hoped for ¥100 billion. Several hundred companies that didn’t make even that low bar were still allowed exceptional entry. “To widespread disappointment, the reshuffle has not significantly raised the bar for membership, resulting in 1,839 companies qualifying for the prime section.”
Tags: Disappointment, Domestic, Global, Growth, Investors, Overhaul, Prime, Squandered Market cap, Standard, Streamlining, TSE, Unimpressed
