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Jordan vs. Maradona… What the King would say?

March Madness… It has to be said that the term is certainly not overused this year! A prestigious “Mannshaft” victory against France (we were no longer used to seeing Germany win, whether in sport or economics), the Prancing Horse overtaking again its rivals with an unexpected double for Ferrari at the F1 Australian Grand Prix, […]

Banking on?

Let’s speak about losers today… I will directly skip the mortifying defeat of Cagliari Calcio against Monza this week-end (superb free-kick from Daniel Madini, the son of Paolo and grand-son of Cesare) or the elimination of Inter Milan from the Champion’s league, to focus on the sector investors love to hate, or rather have learned […]

Banzai!

It took 34 years, 2 months and 20 something days… but it finally made it. The Japan Nikkei 225 stock index posted indeed a new all-time high (ATH) last week, snapping symbolically one of the longest journeys through the disdain of global investors, but also breaking somewhat off my favorite provocative question to investors looking […]

The Year of the Draggin

It begins with a “C”, it is struggling and it is at the bottom of the performances ranking… Have you got it? I am referring to China of course! While billions of people in China and around the world are celebrating the beginning of a new Lunar year, there is still little to celebrate about […]

The devil is in the details

At first glance, there’s no doubt about it: the US jobs report for January, released on Friday, showed more than a resilient US labor market. Nonfarm payrolls increased 353K, largely beating expectations (185k). Furthermore, prior two months readings were revised by a total of +126k, bucking the recent trend of downward revisions. Last but not […]

About sports & investments

As we said in French “Après la pluie, le beau temps”… So, after the sadness and the tears related to the loss and mourning of Gigi Riva (Italy’s soccer record goal scorer on top of a legendary and faithful player of the Cagliari Calcio), Italian sport’s fans enjoyed and celebrated the great historical achievement of […]

Does the end justify the means?

In a recent press release, the SNB published a preliminary version of its accounts for 2023. After losing CHF 132bn in 2022, it lost again circa CHF 3bn last year. To put these losses in perspective, they represent more than 15% of Swiss GDP and almost 4 times the AuM of Compenswiss (Swiss retirement compensation […]

A difficult art indeed

“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future…”. Like every year at the same time, I have indeed to admit it as I look back at my own predictions made at the very beginning of each year. So, it’s now time to see how I scored on my 10 predictions for 2023 (even […]

The Kangaroo’s jump

The latest US employment report put a dent in the Fed’s pivot narrative with somewhat higher than expected nonfarm payrolls (+199k, in line with the last 6 months average) and, more importantly, a lower unemployment rate (-0.2% to 3.7% in November). Indeed, this decline in unemployment rate invalidated, at least theoretically, a recession signal from […]

Beware of the Grinch

Latest US data and some Fed members statements reinforced the current optimistic views made of resilient growth and ongoing disinflation. Consumers income and spending are indeed still expanding, manufacturing activity is holding well according to latest ISM, while the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge, the PCE deflator, decelerated further in October. The headline reading was actually […]