Thomas Barwick/DigitalVision via Getty Images April represented a step back following March’s gains, aside from Managed Futures being the star of the show this month. Commodities demonstrated resilience, posting a modest +0.95% growth despite the turbulence induced by the prospects of normalizing financial conditions. This volatility led to portfolio recalibration across sectors. Managed futures strategies…
$100 U.S. banknotes in stacked bundles. photoman/iStock via Getty Images As my investment philosophy, I believe in picking quality businesses operating in industries with trends on their side. That is because, over the long run, such companies tend to deliver revenue and earnings growth. The global alternative asset management industry is one industry that appears…
blackred/E+ via Getty Images The following segment was excerpted from this fund letter. ENDI Corp. (CrossingBridge Advisors, OTCQB:ENDI) Over the past nine months we have been able to build up a decent size position in ENDI Corp at around $4 per share, or two times earnings net of cash. It has since climbed to above…
SusanneB This article is part of a series that provides an ongoing analysis of the changes made to Yacktman’s 13F stock portfolio on a quarterly basis. It is based on Yacktman Asset Management’s regulatory 13F Form filed on 5/2/2024. Please visit our Tracking Yacktman Asset Management series to get an idea of their investment philosophy…
Beck & Bulow, a nationally acclaimed meat and seafood company based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has announced its decision to accept Bitcoin as payment online and in-store, as well as include it in their employee 401k program. The company has also committed to holding Bitcoin and revenue generated in Bitcoin in its reserves indefinitely….
Supatman/iStock via Getty Images To our clients & friends, For the first quarter and year ended March 31, 2024, the Giverny Capital Asset Management (“GCAM”) model portfolio performed as follows:1 We’ve had an extended stretch of strong performance, with our model portfolio rising nearly 40% over the past year. Obviously, this feels pretty good. The…
FG Trade The last few weeks have been a really interesting time for shareholders of Medical Properties Trust (NYSE:MPW). The company, which operates as a REIT that owns and leases out medical properties for other firms to run, saw its shares spike after the market closed on April 12th. That move higher, about 12.3% as…
pixelfit Deckers Outdoor Corporation (NYSE:DECK) brought a quarterly direct to consumer net sales increase of 38% y/y, and better EPS than expected. I believe that the company is doing much better than peers out there. If we also take into account internationalization efforts, the stock repurchase program, and the total amount of cash in hand,…
naphtalina Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE:PLTR) is positioned well for long-term success, and it is also vital for U.S. defense tasks, which both add security in the immediate future for recurring revenue stability but also lead to some potential vulnerabilities in the case of larger wars and defense demands. I consider the investment to be a…
fcafotodigital In mid-December, CapitalSpectator.com mused: “Are Commodities A Compelling Contrarian Trade For 2024?” The answer so far this year continues to be “yes,” as a rally for prices of raw materials continues to bubble after a rough 2023 in this corner of global markets. Two weeks ago I noted that commodities had overtaken US stocks…
SmileStudioAP/iStock via Getty Images The humble t-bill has become one of the most popular investments in recent years, as Federal Reserve hikes have caused yields to spike to 5.3%, highest in decades. Few asset classes yield as much as t-bills, fewer have comparable risk and volatility. Although t-bills are fantastic investments for short-term investors looking…
A U.K. judge ordered to freeze $7.6 million (£6 million ) worth of Craig Wright’s assets worldwide after finding that he falsely claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin. The order comes after Wright’s decisive loss in a landmark lawsuit against the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA). Earlier in March, Judge James…
Nikada Elevator Pitch CK Asset Holdings Limited (OTCPK:CHKGF) [1113:HK] is rated as a Hold. On its corporate website, CK Asset calls itself a “multinational conglomerate” that is “one of the largest property developers in Hong Kong.” With my previous write-up published on June 29, 2021, I touched on CK Asset’s capital allocation moves in terms…
Torsten Asmus/iStock via Getty Images Capital Markets Highlights In Q4 2023, U.S. stock1 and bond2 markets rallied on improving inflation data, strong economic growth, and comments from Fed Chair Powell suggesting the Fed’s interest rate hiking cycle is over and the prospects for a rare economic soft landing are improving. The quarter started poorly with…
Torsten Asmus Dear Clients and Friends: As 2023 draws to a close, we find ourselves reflecting on a year that vividly embodied the German phrase “Sturm und Drang,” which translates to “Storm and Stress.” Although the term is now used to describe turmoil generically, it originally identified a late 18th-century movement in German literature and…
The creator of BRC-20 (Bitcoin Request for Comment 20), Domo, has announced his non-profit foundation is now dedicated to the governance of the BRC-20 protocol. This organization, known as the Layer 1 Foundation (L1F), will collaborate with Ordinals companies such as Unisat and Best In Slot to oversee the protocol’s maintenance, according to a press…
Chip Somodevilla Blackstone Has Almost $200B In Dry Powder I updated Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) investors that the easy money in BX was likely over, even as BX surged and attempted to break through the $130 resistance level. However, the market has spoken, as BX has underperformed the S&P 500 (SPX) (SPY) since my previous update…
Wong Yu Liang/Moment via Getty Images Written by Nick Ackerman, co-produced by Stanford Chemist. The last time we touched on the Western Asset High Income Fund II (NYSE:HIX), I noted that the fund looked to be unappealing due to valuation. I highlighted a couple of potential opportunities that seemed a bit more attractive. That included…
deepblue4you Below is an updated look at our popular table that highlights the performance of various asset classes using key ETFs (or ETPs) traded on US exchanges. For each asset class, we show its performance since COVID hit on 2/19/20, since the current bull market began on 10/12/22, and since the low last quarter on…
Liens Overview Yellow Cake (OTCQX:YLLXF) is an investment vehicle that owns physical uranium, with its primary listing in the UK. The stock has along with the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (OTCPK:SRUUF) been one the better performing uranium stocks over the last year. I have over the last few years covered Yellow Cake frequently and I…
SusanneB This article is part of a series that provides an ongoing analysis of the changes made to Yacktman’s 13F stock portfolio on a quarterly basis. It is based on Yacktman Asset Management’s regulatory 13F Form filed on 2/2/2024. Please visit our Tracking Yacktman Asset Management series to get an idea of their investment philosophy…
champpixs Investment Thesis Artisan Partners Asset Management Inc. (NYSE:APAM) just reported its Q4 numbers. I wanted to give an update on the company’s performance since my last coverage of the company, where I assigned it a buy, and since then the share price has appreciated 46% (dividends included) against the S&P 500’s (SPY) 24% appreciation….
BrianAJackson/iStock via Getty Images 2023 was another good year for Lyrical. Our CS composite returned 27.2%, outperforming the S&P 500 (SP500, SPX) by 90 bps. It was a particularly difficult year to outperform given the outsized performance contribution of the Magnificent Seven mega-cap growth stocks. We, as value investors, do not own any of the…
borzaya/iStock via Getty Images To Our Clients and Friends: For the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2023, the Giverny Capital Asset Management model portfolio, which is a Poppe family account 1, performed as follows 2: GCAM Performance Quarter ending Year-to- date ending One-year ending Three years ending *Annualized Since Inception 12/31/2023 12/31/2023 12/31/2023…
peepo Performance Moderating inflation and softening labor market conditions contributed to both falling interest rates and investors’ growing belief that a hard landing economic recession will be avoided. This optimistic scenario propelled a risk on investor mindset and a strong equity market rally during the quarter. Most sectors closed higher, led by Information Technology (IT),…
MicroStockHub The Blue Tower Global Value composite returned 10.83% net in Q4 2023 (11.11% gross) bringing our full year 2023 return to 32.44% net (33.81% gross). Sanctions have frozen our Russian investments, leading to high levels of dispersion among accounts in the composite, so please rely on your account statements for your individual investment performance….
Fly View Productions We continue our Q4 earnings coverage of regional banks today with another sizable firm in M&T Bank Corporation (NYSE:MTB). The stock from a valuation perspective is relatively attractive, and offers investors a 4% yield with a growing dividend to wait for operational performance to improve. We believe that at first, rate cuts…
Pgiam/iStock via Getty Images The J.P. Morgan Guide to the Markets is exactly what it says on the tin: a comprehensive, in-depth guide to global investment markets. It includes a treasure trove of quantitative information regarding U.S. and international equities, bonds, and other investment securities, as well as broader macroeconomic conditions. The guide includes detailed…
Olivier Le Moal In reflecting upon 2023’s performance results across asset classes, it is apparent this year posed considerable challenges for capital markets amidst the ongoing macroeconomic transition. Persistent inflationary pressures and central bank tightening created headwinds for many segments throughout the period. While equities maintained respectable full-year gains, considerable monthly volatility was witnessed as…
DKosig Introduction Despite wars in Europe and the Middle East, escalating tensions in Taiwan, recent attacks in the Red Sea, and eleven successive US Fed rate rises since March 2022, equity markets have reached new highs. It is as if nothing happened. The recent reversal of longer-term interest rates (the US 10-year Treasury (US10Y) yield…
In a notable statement, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has expressed a positive perspective on Bitcoin during an interview today with CNBC, affirming that it “is an asset that protects you.” “I believe it goes up if the world is frightened, if the people have fearful geopolitical risks, they’re fearful of their own risks,” said Fink….
The Volan upgrade brings significant alterations to the on-chain inflation parameters of INJ, aiming for a long-term goal of enhancing the deflationary nature of INJ. Injective, a Layer 1 blockchain built on the Cosmos network, has rolled out a significant mainnet upgrade named Volan. This upgrade is anchored in the integration of a software module…
tadamichi By Todd Jablonski, CFA, CIO, Asset Allocation; Seema Shah, Chief Global Strategist; Brian Skocypec, CIMA, Director, Global Insights & Content Strategy; Han Peng, CFA, Director, Quantitative Strategist; Ben Brandsgard, Insights Strategist Key themes for 1Q 2024 • Global growth is coming off the boil. Economic growth is now cooling as global monetary tightening gradually…
With the planned launch in Q1 2024, Libre’s founder Dr. Avtar Sehra said the protocol would expand its business offerings in the future to include services such as collateralized lending and automated rebalancing of private investment portfolios. WebN Group, a fintech and Web3 incubation hub, in collaboration with Nomura-backed Laser Digital, has unveiled Libre, a…
georgeclerk My bullish thesis on BlackRock, Inc. (BLK) is simple. It’s the world’s largest asset manager with AUM that grew 14% YoY in the third quarter or FQ3 to $9.1T. It has diverse asset classes across several themes and strategies, allowing BlackRock to capture potential upside and mitigate risks. As a result, it can leverage…
cynoclub/iStock via Getty Images I think people forget that there are exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, that are one-stop shops for overall portfolio allocations that are balanced and largely appropriate for one’s own risk tolerance. To that end, the iShares Core Aggressive Allocation ETF (NYSEARCA:AOA) is worth focusing on. This is a fund-of-funds that provides investors…
William_Potter Real estate securities rebounded sharply in December, leading the broad-based gains for the major asset classes in the final month of 2023, based on a set of ETFs. Commodities, by contrast, were the downside outlier for December and for the calendar year that just ended. Vanguard US Real Estate Index Fund (VNQ) surged 9.4%…
Remanz/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Introduction Brookfield Corporation (BN) spun off shares of Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE:BAM) in December 2022. My thesis is that there is logic in holding onto BAM shares. The Numbers Looking back at the earnings call transcripts, it seems the BAM dividend has remained 32 cents per share per quarter or…
anyaberkut Thesis Calamos Global Total Return (NASDAQ:CGO) is a closed end fund. The vehicle contains a mix of equities and convertibles, with a small bond sleeve to finance the cash on the dividend distributions. The fund aims to provide a total return, through a combination of capital appreciation and current income. As per its literature,…
Photomick/iStock via Getty Images DigitalBridge Group (NYSE:DBRG) at a nearly $3 billion market cap is a small alternative asset manager focused solely on investing, building, and operating digital infrastructure assets and businesses. DBRG has a storied history, previously known as Colony Capital before a rebrand, the firm would switch from being elected as a REIT…
Roman Tiraspolsky Tesla, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) Cybertruck met a lot of contention from investors when it was first being brought to market. CEO Elon Musk announced that the electric vehicle (“EV”) would not be profitable until around 2025. Pilot production of the vehicles has begun at Tesla’s Gigafactory, but there are concerns about the Cybertruck generating…
A court has frozen the assets of the Three Arrows Capital founders. The company owes $3.3 billion to creditors and filed for bankruptcy after the collapse of the Terra ecosystem last year. One of the most notable events in the crypto industry last year was the collapse of the Terra ecosystem. After Terra failed, many…
This registration will let Ripple offer its certain digital assets services to clients within Ireland. Ripple has officially revealed that the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) added its Irish entity Ripple Markets Ireland Limited (Ripple Markets) to the list of registered VASPs (Virtual Asset Service Providers). Now, after gaining this registration in Ireland, Ripple be…
To uphold the token’s value, stablecoin issuers often reserve cash or liquid assets. Amid rising interest rates, DWS is poised to manage the reserves for the new stablecoin. Deutsche Bank’s DWS Group, along with Dutch market maker Flow Traders Ltd. and crypto fund manager Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd, is set to establish a new entity…
Industry watchers see the development advancing not only Ripple’s XRP token but also benefiting the wider crypto sector by adopting trusted financial industry models for security and cooperation. In a move viewed as transformational for cross-border cryptocurrency storage and transfers, blockchain company Ripple‘s Metaco custody network has partnered with digital asset custodial provider Zodia Custody….
Bitcoin has become one of the top 10 assets in the world by market cap. This places it higher than Tesla, Visa, and Berkshire Hathaway stock. Crypto watchers might remember that a few years ago, Bitcoin was declared the top-performing asset of the 2010s, even beating out competitors like gold and stocks like Apple Inc…
Business intelligence firm MicroStrategy (MSTR) may be living up to its reputation as the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin (BTC). Business intelligence firm MicroStrategy Inc (NASDAQ: MSTR) may be living up to its reputation as the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin (BTC). This follows a recent announcement by the company where it claimed to have…
Thomas Barwick/DigitalVision via Getty Images Introduction For a long time now, investors have been seeking more ways to play the sports business market. Historically, public market investors looking for Sports exposure were limited to large sporting goods chains, media companies that held sports rights or partially owned teams and/or fringe sports technology plays. Recently, investor…
Pando has named the Bank of New York Mellon as the official administrator of the ETF. Swiss asset management company Pando Asset has joined the race for a spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States. On November 29, the company filed with the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), becoming the 13th…
The new partnership with Taurus suggests that Banco Santander anticipates a greater role for crypto in traditional finance. Spanish banking giant Banco Santander is partnering with cryptocurrency asset management platform Taurus to offer its customers custodial services for their digital assets. Banco Santander recently emerged as the only Spanish bank to appear on the 2023…