Category: DAILY INSTAGRAPH

Only 24% of the members of the S&P 500 have outperformed their benchmark over the last 12 months. The last time such a situation arrived was in 1999, just before the Internet bubble burst. Combined to the fact that the US market is now extremely concentrated on a few mega-techs, it is more and more … Continued

The consensus view amongst economists is that Germany will hardly be able to grow its economy in 2024. At the same time, the view is getting more and more positive on the US. Europe overall, and Germany in particular, has a long list of reasons why the Old Continent underperforms going from the geopolitical situation, … Continued

Vacancy rates for offices are reaching new highs in the US as 1/5 of the available space is now empty. While the emergence of home office since Covid has certainly an impact, we are alarmed this comes at a moment where the US economy remains relatively strong. It is apparent the ultralow interest rates with … Continued

Thomas Callum from Top-down Charts shows in the graph below global oil demand. Not only has demand fully recovered from the fall during the Covid pandemic, but it is also reaching new all-time highs. Unfortunately, it appears the world remains hooked on oil while humanity desperately attempts to move away from fossil fuel. On the … Continued

Here is a sector view of the US equity market in terms of valuation. All sectors in the S&P 500, from real estate to materials, trade currently at a discount to their 10 years average based on the most common valuation measures. There is only one notable exception and that is information technology trading 1.7 … Continued

French operator of call centres Teleperformance painfully experienced yesterday what the AI disruption can do to investor confidence. At one stage the stock tumbled 29% intraday after Swedish payments and shopping service, Klarna, said that its OpenAI-powered assistant would handle two thirds of the company’s customer service chats. Teleperformance felt obliged to issue a statement … Continued

Technology and tech related sectors now represent ½ of the value of the US stock market index. The weight of defensive sectors, like food producers, food retail, utilities or pharma, is down to 20%. Cyclicals, as industrials, energy, financials or commodities, have fallen to 30%. While technology has worked extremely well for investors over the … Continued

Warren Buffett presented solid annual results of Berkshire Hathaway over the weekend. The below diagram gives the overview on the strength of the underlying businesses and demonstrates how the holding realized 97 bn USD in net profit. The cash balance reaches now 168 bn USD. The company bought back 9.2 bn USD last year as … Continued

In our ECP house-view we had formulated the opinion that, by the end of last year, investors got too optimistic on future rate cuts by the Fed and that the bond market had gotten slightly ahead of itself. That proved correct as for example the US 10 year bond government bond yield is up from … Continued

NVIDIA shares jumped 11% in late trading yesterday on results and sales forecasts above consensus. Japanese Nikkei 225 is back to a level reached last time 35 years ago. But there are also some signs that not every investor is sharing the current optimism. Corporate insiders are currently selling stock at record pace…