Forbes (April 9)
“Watching Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management hedge fund stumble triggers more traumatic memories than global finance veterans like to admit.” The parallels with “the 1998 blowup of Long-Term Capital Management and Hwang’s forced liquidation of more than $20 billion worth of stocks on March 26” are clear. “The underlying forces—heavily leveraged positions colliding with the hubristic belief that past crises can’t happen again—are essentially the same.”
Tags: 1998, Archegos, Blowup, Finance, Hedge-fund, Hubris, Hwang, Leveraged, Liquidation, LTCM, Stocks, Traumatic
Bloomberg (February 21)
“The American love affair with stocks is deepening as everyone from frenetic day-traders to staid institutions dive further into the market…. While aspects of the craze—the growing obsession with penny stocks and options, primarily—are the basis for daily warnings about a bubble, bulled-up positioning is proving a sturdy backbone for the rally.”
Tags: Backbone, Bubble, Craze, Day-traders, Institutions, Market, Options, Penny stocks, Staid, Stocks, U.S., Warnings
Reuters (September 3)
“Publicly listed family-owned firms, defined as those where the founder of their family owns 20% of shares or votes, returned 3 percentage points more than non-family owned stocks during the virus-struck first half of 2020.” It might be a coincidence, “but the same thing happened after the last crisis…. The effect persists across sectors, regions and company size,” perhaps because the firms have less debt and invest more in R&D.
Tags: 2020, Crisis, Debt, Family-owned, Founder, Listed, R&D, Regions, Sectors, Shares, Size, Stocks, Virus
Barron’s (August 19)
“Apple is the first U.S. company to achieve a valuation of $2 trillion,” a valuation that Saudi Aramco has also achieved. There are three other “stocks with a valuation above $1 trillion.” Amazon.com and Microsoft are each about $1.6 trillion with Alphabet trailing at $1.0 trillion. “Facebook (FB) is the next-closest U.S. stock to the 13-digit level, with a valuation of $748.1 billion.”
Reuters (June 26)
“World stocks have been on a rollercoaster ride in the first half of 2020. Having slumped 35% from Feb. 20 to March 23, they are now within 10% of February’s record highs thanks to lashings of fiscal stimulus, interest rates slashed to 0% or below in most major economies, and massive amounts of QE. Borrowing costs for high-grade U.S. companies have in fact fallen below January levels.” The rest of the year could bring more roller coaster. “Much depends on whether another coronavirus wave comes crashing down,”
Tags: Borrowing costs, Fiscal stimulus, High-grade, Interest rates, QE, Rollercoaster, Slashed, Slumped, Stocks, U.S.
NBC News (June 9)
“Stocks soar despite coronavirus and a recession. It’s time for a reality check, and a crash. Psychological factors are making markets poor gauges of the U.S. economy’s strength. We should wrench our eyeballs from the ticker tape before it’s too late.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Crash, Economy, Markets, Psychological, Reality check, Recession, Stocks, U.S.
Jerusalem Post (June 9)
“Following “a very steep increase in morbidity” in Israel, “the coronavirus cabinet decided on Monday to freeze nearly all easing of restrictions that were expected in the coming days as the number of active cases continues to climb across the country.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Crash, Economy, Markets, Psychological, Reality check, Recession, Stocks, U.S.
Business Insider (May 2)
“April was the best month for stocks since 1987. But this stand-out performance” may be misleading. “History is rife with many examples of bear rallies that give way to even deeper losses.”
Tags: April, Bear rallies, History, Losses, Misleading, Performance, Stand-out, Stocks
New York Times (February 27)
“Freaked out by the stock market? Take a deep breath.” This is not a time for drastic portfolio moves unless “there have been drastic changes in your life, like a big new job or consequential medical news.” Otherwise, remember that if you “hold on long enough to a diverse collection of stocks…the system has tended to generously repay patient people over six or seven decades of working, saving and drawing down a portfolio.”
Tags: Deep breath, Drastic, Freaked out, Market, Patient, Portfolio, Saving, Stocks, Working
Wall Street Journal (February 2)
“Investors are betting the volatility that has rattled markets over the past two weeks is here to stay. Many are bracing for dramatic swings in stocks as the U.S. presidential election season ramps up and investors assess the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on global economic activity.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Election, Impact, Investors, Markets, Outbreak, Rattled, Stocks, U.S., Volatility
