Rightmove report out for February on UK and London house prices.
“London’s recovery continues with new-year momentum pushing up prices and sales numbers, and finally encouraging more sellers to come to market … Better market encourages new sellers, with the 1.6% increase in the number of newly marketed properties being the first rise compared to the prior year for 16 months.”
Americans’ optimism about their personal finances has climbed to levels not seen in more than 16 years, with 69% now saying they expect to be financially better off “at this time next year.”
We have previously written about the risks building form the rising popularity of bond ETFs.
This article argues the opposite – more ETFs = more trading in bonds = liquidity.
We take issue with these arguments. An inspection of two bond etf prices shows you that they have mostly marched upwards (e.g. LQD, VCIT).
As ETFs go up they create more units and are willing buyers in bond markets. This of course creates liquidity.
The main issue will be on the downside – if something goes wrong, ETFs, en masse as they follow pre-set rules, will sell and there won’t be anyone on the other side.
A bit off topic for Snippet but these guiding principles from Jim Simons, the founder of one of the most successful funds ever – Renaissance Technologies, are worth a quick absorb.
Wide ranging discussion including thoughts on trading charges (see table page 5), tirade against value investing (page 7), and comment on Woodford (page 10) .
This is a chart of the top app downloads in US. Check out Disney.
“The launch of Disney+ in mid-November was unprecedented in the U.S. Its 31 million downloads in Q4 2019 was more than double the total for the next closest app, TikTok.”
It was still top despite launching Nov 12 – some way into the quarter.
Source: Sensor Tower (lots of good app stats inside report).
This chart from Soc Gen shows that over the past two years out of a total of 16,000 public companies world wide only 20% have outperformed the S&P 500.
It really gets to the crux of the country’s success.
In 1993 they ran a $20bn deficit and now that is a surplus of over $200bn (inflation adjusted).
Worth a read for any economist and puts into perspective the trade-war going on right now.
“The takeaway — from this whole 6,000 word essay — is that Germany has done insanely well for itself since the creation and adoption of the Euro and the European Single Market by pursuing a strategy of Export-driven Industrial production that is considered impossible in any other developed, high-GDP, high-population, high-wage-paying nation.“
