Financial Times (March 17)
“A strange thing happened this week: calm.” U.S. data revealed higher than expected price inflation. “This time around, however, government bonds wobbled only slightly and both US and global stocks held it together around record highs.” The absence of drama indicates “interest rates are shedding their suffocating dominance over global markets, and that stocks are climbing not because they are huffing the speculative fumes of imminent and aggressive potential rate cuts but because they’re worth it.”
Tags: Calm, Dominance, Global, Government bonds, Inflation, Interest rates, Markets, Rate cuts, Record highs, Speculative, Stocks, Suffocating, U.S.
The Economist (February 10)
“This year investors in Chinese stocks have been on a hair-raising ride. Even as America’s S&P 500 index reached record highs, markets in China and Hong Kong shed $1.5trn in January alone…. The decline signals a fundamental problem. Investors abroad and at home once saw China’s government as a dependable steward of the economy. Now this trust has seeped away, with severe consequences for China’s growth.”
Tags: $1.5trn, China, Consequences, Decline, Dependable, Economy, Government, Growth, Hair raising, Hong Kong, Investors, Markets, S&P 500, Steward, Stocks, Trust
The Economist (December 28)
“It has been a tricky year atop the corporate ladder. Sluggish growth in many markets has set bosses scrambling to rein in costs just as inflation has spurred their workers to demand hefty pay rises. Fractious geopolitics and toxic culture wars have left corporate chieftains feeling like tightrope-walkers. The craze for generative artificial intelligence (ai) has had them fretting over looming technological disruption, too.”
Tags: AI, Bosses, Corporate ladder, Costs, Culture wars, Fractious, Geopolitics, Inflation, Markets, Pay rises, Sluggish growth, Technological disruption, Toxic, Tricky, Workers
Institutional Investor (December 19)
Investors and CEOs using their power to change the world around them provides the best hope for restoring value-creating potential to relationships between public companies and asset owners. But it may not be good enough. Investors and companies that seek to remain in public markets and derive value from their relationships will need ways to find each other in the masses of intermediaries between them, special tools for using this approach, and plans for navigating the inevitable collisions with short-term activists.”
Tags: Asset owners, CEOs, Hope, Intermediaries, Investors, Markets, Navigating, Potential, Power, Public companies, Relationships, Restoring, Value, Value-creating
New York Times (December 14)
“The markets have been climbing since July — and have been positively buoyant since late October — on the assumption that truly good times are in the offing. That may turn out to be a correct assumption,” but the Fed “went out of its way to say that it is positioning itself for maximum flexibility. Prudent investors may want to do the same.”
Tags: Assumption, Buoyant, Climbing, Fed, Flexibility, July, Markets, October, Prudent
Seeking Alpha (December 11)
“As markets gear up for major central bank meetings this week, starting with the Federal Reserve on Dec.12-13, all eyes will closely watch for any change in the policymakers’ tone to predict when rate cuts will begin and by how much.” The consensus is that the Fed keep “federal funds target range steady,” with “rate cuts starting in May.”
Tags: Central bank, Consensus, Federal Reserve, Markets, Meetings, Policymakers, Predict, Rate cuts, Steady
Investment Week (November 6)
“Fixed income markets are currently experiencing a rare irregularity. Short-dated bonds are trading at a higher yield than long-dated bonds, in other words, the yield curve is “inverted”. For investors in short-dated corporate bonds, this provides a unique opportunity to benefit from some of the most favourable forward looking relative return prospects and attractive valuations in recent history.”
Tags: Bonds, Fixed income, Inverted, Investors, Irregularity, Long-dated, Markets, Rare, Relative return, Short-dated, Valuations, Yield curve
Institutional Investor (August 29)
“Ever since ChatGPT burst onto the scene last November…so-called “generative AI” has turned the markets on their heads.” Venture capitalists, “coming off the worst year in recent history,” have “redirected their dollars to AI upstarts. Meanwhile, the stock prices of the big tech names suspected to be the major beneficiaries of this often-called ‘revolutionary’ form of artificial intelligence have skyrocketed.” In 2023, “generative AI and machine learning start-ups raised about $39.4 billion.” The massive inflows are creating an ideal environment for fraudsters and critics “are starting to wonder whether the latest technology is really transformational or merely evolutionary.”
Tags: Big tech, ChatGPT, Critics, Evolutionary, Fraudsters, Generative AI, Machine learning, Markets, Revolutionary, Skyrocketed, Start-ups, Stock prices, Technology, Transformational, VC
American Banker (August 2)
“Investors were in a sour mood Wednesday after Fitch Ratings downgraded the U.S. government’s credit rating, but analysts expect the firm’s action to have little long-term impact on banks. The markets didn’t exactly shrug off the downgrade…. But the main point made by Fitch’s action — that the U.S. political system is messier than it used to be — is one that analysts say has long been obvious to investors.”
Tags: Analysts, Banks, Credit rating, Downgraded, Fitch, Impact, Investors, Markets, Messier, Political system, Sour mood, U.S. Government
Insider (August 2)
“Fitch shocked the markets when it cut the US government’s credit score Tuesday at a time when the economy appears to be in a stable state.” The downgrade from AAA to AA+ has been widely criticized, “from top Biden administration officials to Wall Street,” with “market thinkers” labelling it “bizarre,” “puzzling,” “unwarranted,” “strange” “inept” and “ridiculous.”
Tags: AA+, AAA, Bizarre, Credit score, Criticized, Downgrade, Economy, Fitch, Inept, Markets, Puzzling, Shocked, Stable, Strange, U.S. Government, Unwarranted, Wall Street