RBG

Ruth Bader Ginsberg died this week. She was 87. The liberals in the US are outraged that Trump may get to choose her replacement. I don’t know why she didn’t she didn’t step down while Obama could have chosen a 40-year old to replace her. I guess I’ll never understand US politics.

$NKLA

The mainstream media seem to be waking up to the fact that Nikola is a fraud, after @nikloatrevor admitted that a video of their prototype had no engine but was just rolling down a hill like a physics experiment involving a frictionless block on an inclined plane. The TESLAQ crowd have known that $NKLA was a fraud stock for years, but nobody ever paid attention to them. $NKLA worth more than $F (Ford).

Tik Tok

There is a huge fuss over who will pick up the carcass of this short video app. Trump probably spends more time on it than on bringing peace to the Middle East (on the other hand, maybe that’s an already solved problem). I installed the app and understand that it delivers a quick thrill to the users, and can be a cheap way for ‘models’ to promote their Only Fans pages, but really, does it have any meaningful competitive edge over (e.g.) Facebook bringing out a clone app?

The Week

Europe sectors for the week: winners were retail, health and mining. Losers were banks, autos and oil and gas.

US sectors for the week: winners were energy, industrials, materials and health care; losers were the rest, especially consumer discretionary and communications services. Oddly, real estate was about flat. Energy has had an annus horribilis: the GSCI Energy Index is down 55%.

UK Rental Demand

Looks weak. This has to be pretty negative for Lloyds and Natwest.

Is AUD the new CHF?

Monetary easing is probably going to continue, which logically is negative for the dollar. But all the other countries are easing like maniacs too. My bet is that AUD is a better bet than CHF. It has gold, not in vaults, but in yet to be exploited gold reserves. It has a much lower debt than most countries, and it is a fully functioning democracy which doesn’t spend huge sums on defence. It even has a relatively young population. I’m guessing about the factors, so do your own research.

Commodities and inflation

I think commodities are cheap relative to GBP. So does John Authers. I’m a bit worried about this: whenever Authers says something I agree with, the market takes the opposing view. It is particularly interesting to see UK inflation looking as though it’s about to take off. The traditional method of profiting from this would be to sell gilts, but maybe buying a commodity index (future) and selling GBP.USD to hedge the dollar exposure would be more reliable given that the Bank of England is likely to be rigging the gilts market for some decades to come.

Long gold, short TRY sounds a good bet too.