I can’t believe I’m agreeing with George Soros of all people, but what he writes here is correct (except for the part about ESG investing). What’s incredible to me is George Soros has spent the last years of his life fighting tooth and nail against America. Why the change of heart? Perhaps he’s got some money stuck in China? BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has begun a major initiative in China. On Aug. 30 it launched a set of mutual funds and other investment products for Chinese consumers. The New York-based firm is the first foreign-owned company allowed to do so. The launch … [Read more...]

GMO's second-quarter letter to investors, written by Ben Inker, is a master class on value investing and why value shares today look especially attractive relative to growth, aka glamour stocks. Most will likely brush off GMO's letter as the musings of a firm that has lost touch with a new paradigm in investing. "Today's growth stocks are different than your father's growth stocks," the growth bulls will explain. "It's all about innovation and disruption," as if innovation and disruption are new phenomena. Inker provides many insights on the Value vs. Growth debate, including why the … [Read more...]

If you are still scratching your head as to how a near bankrupt movie theater company (AMC) and video game store (GameStop) can still be trading at levels that are many multiples of their true value or how a handful of technology stocks can be priced as if they can perpetually grow at 20% per year or how investors could push the valuation of the stock market to within a whisker of its dotcom high, despite witnessing the subsequent collapse, MagnifyMoney may have the answer. According to a MagnifyMoney survey, 32% of investors admit to trading drunk and 59% of Gen Z investors admit to buying … [Read more...]

Has technology helped or hurt markets? That's the question Rana Foroohar examines in The Financial Times. She writes: First, consider the asymmetry of power. We have no idea of the true value of the personal data that is sold by platform giants like Facebook or YouTube to advertisers as the hidden charge for the supposedly “free” services we enjoy online. In the same way, the users of Robinhood have no idea that the reason that they and their fellow retail bros can trade “free” online is that their order flows are being shared with bigger, richer fish. They are, meanwhile, being induced to … [Read more...]

James Mackintosh makes the case in the Wall Street Journal that today's market looks awfully similar to that of 1999-2000. He writes: Is the dot-com bust happening again right under our noses? It might seem an odd claim, but there is a remarkable resemblance between the speculative boom-to-bust of late 1999 and the first half of 2000 and what’s happened over the past nine months in the fashionable areas of clean energy, electric cars, cannabis stocks and SPACs. If the parallel continues it bodes ill for investors who joined the excess late. The trendy stocks—led by Tesla—are already down a … [Read more...]

For most of history, initial public offerings have been a walled garden for many investors, who were unable to gain access to their benefits. That may start to change if Robinhood and SoFi Technologies get their way. Telis Demos reports for The Wall Street Journal: Small investors seem more influential than ever these days. So as the initial public offering market heats up, efforts to get those investors a bigger seat at the table is a hot idea. It’s also not a new one. Upstart brokerages Robinhood Markets and SoFi Technologies recently said they would give their customers access to IPOs. … [Read more...]

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has reached 125 years old. The index was created in 1896, and has evolved through Great Depressions, recessions, and booms to take on its current form. Karen Langley and Peter Santilli report in The Wall Street Journal: One hundred twenty-five years ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average made its debut. The index of 12 smokestack companies closed that first trading day, May 26, 1896, at 40.94. It included General Electric Co. as well as long-forgotten names like American Cotton Oil and Distilling & Cattle Feeding. Since then, the Dow has evolved with … [Read more...]

Gary Silverman interviews legendary Silicon Valley investor Sand Roberston for the FT. Silverman writes of the interview: Sandy Robertson is worried about what’s happening in the markets these days, and that matters. Few people in the financial world have seen more than he has. Robertson is best known as a pioneering dealmaker in Silicon Valley, where he helped start two of the “Four Horsemen” investment banks that dominated technology underwriting in the 1990s — Robertson Stephens and Montgomery Securities. But his career dates to the 1960s, when as a Smith Barney broker covering Nebraska … [Read more...]