Investment Week (September 29)
“Which companies are actually ‘doing AI’ is the question that has to be answered.” Just as “a lot of fund houses are making a big show of talking about AI as it puts them ‘in’ this next big trend, the same is true for many of the companies they are looking to buy.” Hype abounds and the Financial Times “discovered a disparity between the AI leaps CEOs were buzzing about in their company’s investor calls and the actual investment the businesses were making into this space.” To keep “AI in check just from a risk management basis” and to separate “the winners from the churn,” active mangers are essential. “The value of active management cannot be underestimated, not just for the necessary diversification but to actually play a role in making this new era not be as ‘terrifying’ as people are predicting.”
Tags: Abounds, Active mangers, AI, Big trend, Buy, CEOs, Churn, Companies, Disparity, Diversification, Fund houses, Hype, New era, Predicting, Risk management, Terrifying, Winners
The Guardian (June 9)
The pandemic supply chain disruptions are “still rumbling on thanks to China’s drastic zero-Covid strategy.” This is prompting “a major rethink of how companies should organise themselves. Amid the buzzwords such as ‘reshoring’ and ‘diversification’ is the basic need to make western economies less reliant on China and other far-off manufacturing centres.”
Tags: China, Companies, Disruptions, Diversification, Drastic, Pandemic, Reshoring, Rethink, Supply chain, Zero-Covid strategy
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
Euromoney (August Issue)
“Mexico’s strategy of diversifying its investor base is succeeding… following the sovereign’s multi-tranche samurai transaction which was priced on July 15 and included a 20-year tenor,” the first of any Latin American country. The highly oversubscribed placement also marked “the first emerging market sovereign to place a 20-year bond in Japan’s domestic market since 2008.”
Tags: 20-year tenor, Diversification, Emerging market, Investor base, Japan, Latin America, Mexico, Oversubscribed, Placement, Samurai bonds, Sovereign, Strategy
Wall Street Journal (November 18)
Burton G. Malkiel author of the investing classic A Random Walk Down Wall Street says traditional methods of investing are even more important today. Buying and holding beats skillful timing. Diversification is still essential. Those who invested according to these principles between 2000 and 2009 would have seen their portfolios nearly double. Those who didn’t would have seen their initial investment shrink. Mr. Malkiel urges investors to follow “time-tested techniques” so they come out ahead, “even during the toughest of times.”
