Nordic Business Insider (November 17)
“Norway’s $1 trillion pension fund wants to ditch all oil and gas stocks.” The irony of the proposed move is that the Government Pension Fund of Norway has become the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund by investing Norway’s oil and gas revenue. The move is not being proposed as a bet against petroleum, but rather to mitigate risk through diversification. “The fund’s exposure to fossil fuel markets is currently double that of a standard global fund.”
Tags: Diversification, Fossil fuel markets, Gas, Norway, Oil, Pension fund, Risk, Sovereign wealth, Stocks
Wall Street Journal (August 21)
“Investors are running out of reasons to keep buying U.S. stocks, exposing a growing number of warning signs. The historic calm that enveloped U.S. stocks for much of this year has been upended twice in the past two weeks…. It is too soon to call the end of the eight-year bull market, investors, traders and analysts say, but many agree the indiscriminate optimism that characterized the postelection rally is evaporating.”
Tags: Analysts, Bull market, Indiscriminate, Investors, Optimism, Rally, Stocks, Traders, U.S., Warning signs
Bloomberg (June 22)
“In the culmination of a long-running saga, MSCI Inc. yesterday announced that it would include some Chinese stocks in its widely used benchmark indexes, starting next year.” The decision beggars belief. “China is undeniably an increasingly important market…. But lowering the standards of what constitutes a market and obfuscating real problems just exposes unknowing foreign investors to elevated risks. If Chinese investors and even regulators are so wary of Chinese stocks, why encourage foreigners to enter the fray?”
Tags: Benchmark, China, Foreign investors, Index, MSCI, Problems, Regulators, Risks, Saga, Standards, Stocks
Bloomberg (May 22)
“Investors dumped Brazil’s stocks and currency Thursday as the country’s ever-proliferating corruption scandal spread to President Michel Temer. This latest twist in a seemingly endless saga not only threatens to stall vital economic reforms but also comes close to showing that the corruption in Brazil’s government is literally beyond control.”
Bloomberg (May 11)
“It’s not making headlines yet, but wages in Japan are rising the fastest in decades, in a shift that’s poised to divide the nation’s companies — and their stocks — into winners and losers…. Consumer-focused sectors with low salary bills as a percentage of revenue are best positioned. Logistics and some health-care companies will be most negatively impacted,” according to a report from Morgan Stanley.
Tags: Consumers, Healthcare, Japan, Logistics, Morgan Stanley, Revenue, Rising, Stocks, Wages
Washington Post (February 8)
“Nordstrom broke the curse of the Trump tweet.” Donald Trump may have been able to tank some stocks with critical tweets, but shares in the upscale department store are up. Nordstrom “seems largely immune to the president’s public bashing. On Wednesday morning, he criticized the retailer for dropping Ivanka Trump products — and its stock value climbed.”
Bloomberg (March 7)
“After Japanese stocks capped their best three weeks since 2014, investors see plenty of reasons to believe the rally will stick.” Since Feb. 12, Japan has been “the world’s best-performing developed equity market.”
Tags: Best-performing, Equity market, Investors, Japan, Rally, Stocks
Institutional Investor (February 1)
There are some “stabilizing trends” underlying the recent market turbulence. “Stocks have taken a beating, but economic fundamentals in the U.S. remain strong. Look for volatility, and a rebound.”
Tags: Economy, Fundamentals, Market turbulence, Rebound, Stabilizing trends, Stocks, U.S., Volatility
Bloomberg (January 4)
“For the first year since 1989, foreigners sold Japanese stocks and missed a rally.” The TOPIX index gained 8.9% in dollars and 21% in euros, but overseas investors missed out on some gains by offloading more than 250 billion yen in Japanese shares last year. “The Topix capped a 9.9 percent gain in local-currency terms last year, its fourth straight annual increase. Combined with the yen’s resilience, that meant that the Topix outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index in dollars for the first time since 2008” and its “gain in euros was triple that of the Stoxx Europe 600 Index.”
Tags: 1989, Dollars, Euros, Foreigners, Gains, Increase, Japan, Offloading, Rally, S&P 500, Stocks, Stoxx Europe 600, Topix, Yen
Institutional Investor (May Issue)
“The secret weapon of Abenomics” is the rebalancing of Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF). “The GPIF is diversifying at a pace that’s astonishing for a fund of its size…. In the last six months of 2014, while slashing its JGB holdings, the fund increased its exposure to Japanese stocks by ¥5 trillion, to foreign equities by ¥7 trillion and to foreign bonds by ¥4 trillion.”
Tags: Abenomics, Bonds, Diversifying, Equities, GPIF, Japan, JGBs, Rebalancing, Stocks
