Stocks in the news

Walmart (offers Amazon Prime lookalike), Nikola (another EV fraud stock), Fedex (up a lot as things move to people), Sin Poong Pharma (Covid treatment hopes), Adobe (44% up YTD, for a product that’s been around since 1991), Snowflake and Unity (tech IPOs), Oracle (flogger of …

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Europe open

Equities in Europe and the Far East seem generally up. Indonesia jumped a lot. Spain slumped. This quarter has been positive for nearly all equity markets, with the exception of Mexico, FTSE, AEX, STI and N225.

So far this quarter has had no clear direction. CB support has …

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FAANG Weighting

I saw this neat chart on the Daily Shot (cheapskate edition):

Of course, history doesn’t repeat, or even rhyme, as stonks only go up nowadays.

Worth a look

George Selgin on supply side shocks.

If inflation rises with this, the Phillip’s Curve will be dead and …

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What links the FAANG to RobinHood and Tesla?

This article explains how RobinHood is able to offer retail investors commission-free stock trading. This article goes a bit further in suggesting that RobinHood is not really in the business of stealing from the rich to give to the poor, at least …

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Open

Equities generally up, e.g. NDX futures up 1.4%. How long this will last … Bonds flat: we are in a fairly torrid possibly-starting bear market in equities and bonds are bouncing around as though there is nothing happening. I can’t help thinking this is bearish for bonds …

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Velocity Drops Precipitously

The mysterious “velocity of money” is just GDP divided by the amount of money, in consistent units. The following is created by looking at GDP and M2 (in real dollars). Velocity takes a dive before (and early during) recessions. Maybe this time will be different.

Markets today …

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Muted start to day

After the fireworks last week, nothing seems to be stirring. Gilt yields are up a bit, the FTSE ($Z) is up 1.5% currently, with average volume. $ESTX50 too. Soybean futures are up. Precious metals seem to be down. Oil is down. The dollar is up …

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FAANG Stocks pumped by OTM Calls bought by Softbank!!

Background: sorry, it’s ZeroHedge again. Not reliable as a source, so caveat lector.

There is a constellation of things happening here:

• retail investors suddenly discovering they can buy calls as lottery tickets that pay out surprisingly often,
• FAANG stocks where …

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UK Leasehold

Another story about how developers are inserting unfair clauses in leasehold contracts. There are a lot of these. The government is consulting on the issue. The current situation is unacceptable, in my opinion. The relationship between Persimmon and the average first time buyer is very asymmetrical. At the …

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Inflation

John Plender argues that central bank action will make treasuries and gilts (so called “safe assets”) less safe, in that it will increase the correlation of their prices with those of corresponding equities. It’s not Plender’s finest work, but it shows how inflation fears are being reported …

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