Category: Daily in Portfolio Management

Nov 29th, 2023 - On Wednesday, markets closed the day with a decrease in the S&P500 and Nasdaq by 0.09% and 0.16% whereas Dow Jones closed near flat with an increase of 0.04%. Fed Governor Christopher Waller, who is known as a hawkish figure expressed his confidence in the current policy’s ability to bring back the inflation the the 2% target. The third quarter's gross domestic product increased at a faster rate than anticipated, rising to 5.2% annualized growth, according to figures released on Wednesday. Changes to government expenditure and investments in nonresidential structures were the main sources of the increase. New chips have been released by Amazon Web Service’s cloud division, which enables users to create and execute artificial intelligence (AI) apps. There are plans in the announcement to…

Nov 28th, 2023 - Today marked a very important moment in Bff Bank’s (BFF) history, as its stock price rose to the highest level ever since the Italian company went public in 2017. In fact, BBF closed at 10.43€ today, with a daily percentage increase of 5.14%. Also, Mediobanca’s research confirmed the outperform rating of BFF shares, mainly due to the advantages the bank gained through the approval of an european regulation regarding payment delays.   Leonardo (LDO) just signed a very remunerative agreement with Omni Helicopters  International, according to which the italian company will deliver 2 AW189 and a AW189K to  its portuguese counterparty, increasing its presence in Latin America. Furthermore, Leonardo entered into another deal with Leman Aviation which will receive 10 units of the new AW09 helicopter. Both…

Nov 27th, 2023 - Tesla has filed a lawsuit against the Swedish Transport Agency after postal workers of the country stopped delivering license plates connected to the U.S. carmaker: the company claims that such negligent behavior constitutes an “illegal and discriminatory attack”. However, the legal action filed on the 27th of November, is part of a broader conflict between the carmaker and the Swedish unions. The tension between the two started coming out a month ago, on October 27, when 130 members of the powerful Swedish metalworkers’ union “IF Metall”, went on strike at seven workshops across the country advocating for a collective labor agreement. Indeed, since Tesla isn’t unionized as a company, Swedish workers have been striving for better salaries, pensions and insurance systems. Mechanics then joined the “protests”,…

Nov 26th, 2023 - Portfolio holding Apple (AAPL)(0.6 units @ 183.96) shares dropped by 1% Friday, as iPhone sales during China's 2023 Singles Day fell 4% from the previous year. Singles' Day is a major global online shopping event, comparable to Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the U.S. Apple trailed behind local competitors Huawei and Xiaomi, with the latter experiencing a 66% sales increase. iPhones contribute nearly 50% to Apple's total revenue. Investors closely monitor iPhone sales, and the global smartphone market rebounded in October, driven by releases like Huawei's Mate 60 and Apple's iPhone 15, marking the highest sales since January 2022. Deere & Co. (DE) saw a 3% decline this week as the farm equipment manufacturer's guidance fell short of estimates. Deere & Co, also known as…

Nov 25th, 2023 - Ahead of the coming year,  a possible shift in investment strategies has been discussed, particularly in relation to fixed income products like bond funds and cash. Despite investors favoring these options due to higher interest rates and sticky inflation, experts suggest reconsidering these allocation strategies, in anticipation of potential changes in interest rates. Money market funds have attracted significant investments this year, approximately $1.2 trillion flowed into them, far surpassing the inflows into bond and equity funds. However, Matt Bartolini, head of research at SPDR Exchange Traded Funds, foresees a potential reduction in the popularity of fixed income products, as interest rates will probably fall. He suggests that investors could shift their allocations either into equities or focus on the 1 to 10- year fixed income…

Nov 24th, 2023 - Today’s indices performances: Nasdaq closed at 14,250.85 (-0.11%), S&P 500 at 4,559.34 (+0.06%) and Dow Jones at 35,390.15 (+0,33%).  Portfolio holding Nvidia (NVDA) (0.215 units @ $462.20) shares fell 1.93% today after international news organization Reuters reported that they will delay to Q1 2024 the launch of their new AI chip H20, that was developed to be sold to Chinese companies while complying with US export restrictions. H20 is being delayed due to issues server manufacturers are having in integrating the chip, as Reuters's source said. The delay could have negative consequences for Nvidia’s performances in the Chinese market, and local competitors such as Huawei may take advantage of the situation. Nvidia is working on two other chips to comply with US export rules: L20 and…

Nov 23rd, 2023 - Today the New York Stock Exchange is closed, as it is Thanksgiving Optimism towards Black Friday, happening this week, is decreasing as retailers cast doubt on holiday spending. Many companies reduced their outlooks or forecast after dynamics of a slowdown in spending came to light. There’s a widespread sense of uncertainty in consumer spending, after months of persistent inflation, which cast an overwhelming feeling of volatility and lack of confidence in consumer markets. This comes around just at the beginning of holiday spending, which in the last years saw an incredible growth following expansionary fiscal and monetary policies. (G.Fonrouge)In the last couple of days the drama surrounding OpenAI and the departure and return of Sam Altan have been in the headlines of all news’ outlets. This…

Nov 22nd, 2023 - On Wednesday, Dow Jones gained 0.53%. The S&P 500 climbed 0.41%. Nasdaq composite increased by 0.46%. Yield rates fell to the lowest level since September! On Wednesday morning, the yield on the 10-year Treasury dropped to 4.369%. Later on, it bounced back and was last trading at 4.433%. The investors remained optimistic about FED not raising the interest rates in December. However, the FED indicated that they are decisive on keeping the restrictive monetary policy, which means that a rate cut is not expected any time soon.  One of our Portfolio holdings, NVIDIA (NVDA) (0.215 @467.57) reported their quarterly earnings which beat Wall Street’s expectations. They announced $4.02 earnings per share compared to expected $3.37. They also topped revenue expectations with  $18.12 billion announced vs $16.18…

Nov 21st, 2023 - One of the main news related to the US defense sector today is the 27 million dollars  contract, signed by the joint venture Bell-Boeing (TXT/BA), according to which the two  companies will provide platform engineering assistance during the development of the V-22  aircraft in Texas and Pennsylvania. Thanks to this important agreement, Boeing’s stock price  rose by 1.05% tuesday. A 3.6% growth was recorded by Metallic Minerals Corp. (MMG) shares. This change in price was mainly due to an important project carried out by the company: acquiring the Khoemacau copper mine and its previous owners, Cuprous Capital Ltd., for a total of $2 bln This investment is coherent with the increasing importance that MMG, whose main shareholder is China Minmetals, is giving to copper's future world…

Nov 20th, 2023 - The world of artificial intelligence looks very different today, indeed, after the extraordinary upheaval at OpenAI of the weekend, Microsoft (MSFT), the OpenAI’s biggest investor, announced on Sunday night that it would have hired Mr. Altman, the former CEO of the AI giant, to run a new advanced research lab. Microsoft late-night announcement restored its stock price, which had dropped after Friday’s news: Altman’s hiring can be considered as a major win for Microsoft and should lead to further gains for stock. The massive shakeup of the weekend affected Nvidia (NVDA)(0.215 units @ $462.20) as well since OpenAI and Microsoft are both big buyers of Nvidia’s GPUs but the company continues showing strength with a further accomplishment: it will keep selling their chips to the Chinese…