Category: Daily Instagraph

Under the surface, the US equity market is doing less well than the headline performance numbers may suggest. The so-called magnificent seven, Nvidia, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft Apple, Alphabet and Tesla, explain indeed most of the performance of the S&P 500. A lot of the investor excitement is driven by the AI theme. The equal-weighted S&P … Continued

Exor, the holding company of the Agnelli family, currently trades at a holding discount above 45% to its Net Asset Value. This Net Asset Value is measured daily by Mister Market as around 80% of the portfolio are listed assets traded in the stock market. Main holdings are Ferrari, Stellantis (with the Fiat and Jeep … Continued

In case you are just back from a late and long Summer break without access to financial news ( lucky you ), here is the big picture of what happened over the last weeks. Interest rates are up, the USD continues to strengthen and stock markets have been weakening since July. Nasdaq is down more … Continued

Central banks in developed market have increased interest rates between 4% and 5.5% since the beginning of the tightening cycle ( ex Japan ). The Fed is now pausing and there are increasing signs that central bankers believe the job is close to done as the restrictive monetary policy shows effects. The increase in bankruptcies, … Continued

As we learned at business school, valuations and interest rates are joined at the hip. The higher interest rates are, the higher the discount rate is and the lower valuation multiples investors should pay for a future earnings. With the US risk free rate as measured by the 1 month US T-bill up from 0% … Continued

All eyes were yesterday on the Fed as it decided to leave rates unchanged and will now “proceed carefully”. Meanwhile on the Old Continent, inflation is set to be coming down. Germany’s Producer Price Index, or PPI — for August tumbled at the fastest rate since 1949! We agree this sharp downward trend was mainly … Continued

Debt defaults are on the rise in the US: 69 firms missed debt payments y-t-d, up from 25 firms in the same period of 2022 and above the levels seen since the financial crisis. This is due to the stress put by higher interest charges on the P&L’s of the companies. While the absolute number … Continued

It is now 15 years ago that Lehman Brothers has gone bankrupt. The repercussions of the fall-out of a systemic bank have been felt worldwide with a detrimental impact on growth, a push towards re-regulation of the banking sector, a major debt crisis and ultra-low interest rate policies pushed by central banks. One of the … Continued

World oil demand (including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, LPG, …) is back to pre-covid levels and continues to grow. This is despite the well mediatized and noticeable efforts made to develop alternative energy sources. Fact is that renewables are not (yet) making a noticeable economic difference on a global scale. With the investments in finding … Continued

Bond defaults are on the rise in the US. The new credit cycle is the direct result of the rising interest rates. We believe the situation will worsen over the coming months even if the Fed will pause hiking rates. In fact, as the economy will start to slow down, corporate debt will eventually need … Continued