Seeking Alpha (January 17)
America has become “an attractive sponge to absorb capital from everywhere. As a result, the US stock market capitalization currently represents 61% of the global stock market capitalization, despite the fact that US GDP is only 23% of global GDP.” US equities also “now represent about 200% of US GDP, which is an all-time high.”
Tags: Absorb, Attractive, Capital, Capitalization, Equities, GDP, Global, Sponge, Stock market, U.S.
Bloomberg (May 21)
“The world’s biggest businesses were doing fine until Covid-19 arrived. Now they’re doing even better. The top 50 companies by value added $4.5 trillion of stock market capitalization in 2020, taking their combined worth to about 28% of global gross domestic product. Three decades ago the equivalent figure was less than 5%.”
Tags: 2020, Businesses, Capitalization, Companies, COVID-19, Stock market, Top 50, World's biggest
New York Times (April 28)
“California is awash in cash, thanks to a booming market. In a single year, the state’s financial outlook has gone from surplus to deficit to surplus as capital gains tax collections have risen amid a soaring stock market and I.P.O. boom.” At the worst, the state “anticipated a $54 billion shortfall,” but it now expects a $15 billion surplus in the fiscal year that starts July 1.
Tags: Booming, California, Capital-gains, Cash, Deficit, Market, Outlook, Soaring, Stock market, Surplus, Tax collections
Bloomberg (October 2)
For an entire trading day, a “piece of hardware took down Japan’s $6-trillion stock market,” marking the longest shutdown “since the exchange switched to a fully electronic trading system in 1999.” Besides drawing criticism, the malfunction “shone a spotlight on a lesser-discussed vulnerability in the world’s financial plumbing — not software or security risks but the danger when one of hundreds of pieces of hardware that make up a trading system decides to give up the ghost.”
Tags: Danger, Financial plumbing, Hardware, Japan, Malfunction, Security risks, Shutdown, Software, Stock market, Trading, TSE, Vulnerability
Financial Times (September 11)
“To global portfolio managers, the Tokyo stock market has spent the past few years looking ever more like an old curiosity shop. Everyone knows there are bargains galore in there but who can be bothered to study the cluttered and poorly labelled shelves.” Perhaps Warren Buffett will finally show money managers the way into “overlooked Japan.”
Tags: Bargains, Bothered, Buffett, Cluttered, Curiosity shop, Global, Money managers, Overlooked Japan, Portfolio managers, Stock market, Tokyo
Wall Street Journal (September 7)
“The stock market barely faltered in the 1918-20 pandemic,” but history is not repeating itself. The similarities are misleading. “Yes, the markets have bounced back, just as they traded higher in the months after the pandemic’s start 100 years ago. But a careful analysis of the two periods shows that economic uncertainty has been far higher during the current pandemic than it ever was then.”
Tags: 1918-20, Economic uncertainty, Faltered, History, Misleading, Pandemic, Similarities, Stock market
Institutional Investor (August 25)
“ESG investments have proven effective at reducing risk and delivering returns comparable to those of non-ESG oriented funds. During the stock market collapse in the first quarter of 2020, Morningstar found that all but two out of 26 ESG indexes suffered fewer losses than their conventional counterparts. Studies from Morgan Stanley and MSCI have found no financial trade-off in the returns delivered by ESG funds relative to traditional funds.”
Tags: Collapse, Effective, ESG, Funds, Investments, Losses, Morningstar, MSCI, Reducing risk, Returns, Stock market, Trade-off
Wall Street Journal (June 10)
“Growing fears of a surge in coronavirus infections sent the stock market tumbling Thursday, pulling the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 1,800 points for its worst day since March.” In recent days “investors have gotten more signs that the smooth reopening they have been hoping for may be increasingly difficult to achieve—throwing into doubt their hopes for a nascent economic recovery.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Dow Jones, Economic recovery, Fears, Infections, Investors, Stock market, Surge, Tumbling
Barron’s (June 3)
“The stock market’s rally in recent weeks has felt awfully disconnected from the grim reality on the ground. And that only felt more true as protests erupted around the country…. Investors, however, are motivated by fear and greed, and right now both are helping—fear of missing out and greed as the market goes higher.”
Tags: Disconnected, Fear, Greed, Grim, Investors, Missing out, Motivated, Protests, Rally, Reality, Stock market
Wall Street Journal (February 24)
“The stock market’s steep drop on Monday reflected fears that as the coronavirus spreads to other countries, the reaction may be as draconian as it has been in China.” We are in unchartered waters as “Epidemiologists say there is no precedent for such a drastic response.” Nor can we accurately forecast their economic impact.
Tags: China, Coronavirus, Draconian, Drop, Epidemiologists, Precedent, Reaction, Stock market
