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Category: Daily Instagraph

Final thoughts for 2025

By leon

Before we pause our Daily Instagraphs for the festive season, today’s Daily Instagraph is a little different. It features again an excerpt from Warren Buffett’s message to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders dated 10 November 2025 (“To My Fellow Shareholders”). In that note, Buffett wrote that he is “going quiet,” i.e., stepping back from writing Berkshire’s annual … Continued

Hurt but not out

By leon

After a very tough period for Novo Nordisk’s share price, we finally have some better news on the product side. Novo Nordisk achieves a major milestone in obesity care: the U.S. FDA has approved Wegovy as oral GLP-1 pill for chronic weight management in adults with obesity, or overweight with at least one weight-related condition. … Continued

Actively retreating

By leon

Active equity investing continues to retreat. Over the last 12 months, cumulative outflows from actively managed global equity funds have reached a record $605bn. At the same time, passive strategies keep gaining market share and increasingly dominate equity markets. This trend may ultimately create an opportunity for investors who pick individual companies: fundamentals and valuation … Continued

The biggest risk

By leon

According to a Deutsche Bank dbDataInsights survey, investors see the biggest risk to market stability in 2026 as a sharp repricing of technology—driven by plunging tech valuations and waning AI enthusiasm (57% of respondents). Donald Rumsfeld, former US Secretary of Defense under the Bush administration, captured the logic of risk well when he said: “There … Continued

Stay alert

By leon

As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee cut the fed funds rate yesterday from 4.0% to 3.75%, taking it back to the lowest level since October 2022. The market can take some comfort from the fact that only two members argued against any cut at all – there is, for now, still a broad consensus … Continued

The right message ?

By leon

According to the graph below, based on an analysis by David Fant using EU fine data and company filings, EU regulators collected about €3.8 bn in fines from large US tech companies in 2024, while Europe’s listed internet and software companies paid roughly €3.2 bn in income taxes over the same period. The contrast is … Continued

Under the surface

By leon

Today’s chart from Apollo’s Chief Economist shows that close to 40% of the companies in the Russell 2000 index currently report negative earnings over the last 12 months. Investing via a broad small-cap index therefore means having a meaningful exposure to businesses that are not yet profitable. In an environment of slower growth or higher … Continued

Too calm ?

By leon

As we approach year-end, implied volatility across equities, bonds and FX has fallen back towards 12-month lows. This likely reflects a certain complacency among investors who, after a generally good year for equity and balanced portfolios, hope to be “saved by the closing bell”. We should, however, be careful not to mistake this calm for … Continued

Time to be selective

By leon

Today’s graph from MarketDesk shows the median next-12-month P/E ratios across the S&P 500, sorted by market-cap buckets. The headline index trades around 22x earnings, but the Top 10 names are much richer at 27.4x 12-month forward earnings. As you move down the index, valuations become less stretched, with the smallest 200 stocks in the … Continued

Patience required

By leon

The stock market has turned the global obesity and diabetes epidemic into a two-horse race between Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. Today, almost all investor focus is on the market shares of their GLP-1 franchises and on the potential success of oral versions of these anti-obesity drugs. Today’s graph shows Novo Nordisk’s P/E ratio versus … Continued