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As of the latest summer update, the S&P 500 is trading at 21.2 times forward 12-month earnings, which is 1.1 standard deviations above its 10-year median. Among the sectors, Information Technology stands out as the most expensive, with the sector trading at 9.3 times sales. On the other end of the spectrum, the Energy, Financials … Continued

The collapse of the main bridge crossing Baltimore’s outer harbour after a large container ship had crashed into it showed that infrastructure matters and needs investment. As Bloomberg columnist John Authers rightly pointed out “Listed infrastructure, despite the painfully great demand for it, is evidently not delivering returns for shareholders” and “Getting big infrastructure built … Continued

Interesting chart brought to my attention by my colleague Boris Cukon, co-manager with Vincent Vandamme of the Isatis global natural resources flexible Fund specialized on commodities and managed by ECP. The ratio of the market value of gold stocks to gold is currently nearing a record low last seen in 1980 and 2015. If history … Continued

European natural gas prices are back to levels last seen before the war in Ukraine. This is partly due to the relatively mild winter we have seen. More importantly, Europe has made attempts to reduce its energy dependence towards Russia by shifting to LNG and other alternatives and boosting its transport and storage infrastructure. The … Continued

Defence stocks are on the rise, also in Europe. Rheinmetall AG stock increased 376% since December 2021, Dassault Systèmes +244%, Leonardo +200%, BAE Systems +126% and SAAB +90%. These returns are comparable to NVDIA (+146%) over the same period. Defence spending is increasing with the geopolitical threats Europe is facing and a needed catch-up in … Continued

The European consumer is not in good shape. Since the initial recovery after Covid, retail sales volumes are indeed on a downtrend. A combination of factors, from inflation, higher interest rates reducing disposable income to lack of confidence are at play. We remain cautious on consumer discretionary stocks focussed on European markets and focus instead … Continued

Investors are waking up to geopolitical risks. In the widely followed BofA Merrill Lynch Global Fund Manager survey, this tail risk appears in January 2024 as the biggest concern keeping institutional investors awake at night. It has dethroned the risk of an economic hard landing or higher inflation as the biggest concerns. Time to stay … Continued

82.5% ! That is the return you would have got by investing into MSCI World USD TR ( in USD ) over 5 years. So why bother about active management and pay a management fee to someone trying to beat Mr Market by allocating to countries, sectors and stocks? Think twice as past performance is … Continued

The 2 main pharma companies heavily involved in weight-loss drugs, namely Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, currently trade at 100% to 200% premiums in terms of price-to-earnings ratio to their peers. Growth in obesity drugs is spectacular as analysts predict obesity drug could reach 100 bn USD of yearly sales by 2030. Over the next … Continued

While the S&P 500 is up 18.5% y-t-d in 2023, it is all driven by the so-called Magnificent 7 Big-Tech companies, namely Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, NVDIA and Tesla. These 7 companies are up 80% in 2023, while the remaining 493 are basically flat. According to the Chief Economist of Apollo, these 7 stocks … Continued