I was asked today if Bitcoin was a safe haven currency at the moment. Unsure exactly how to answer this one without my mind wondering/wandering around speculative bubbles (and central bank QE policy hedges) in general, I kept reminding myself that understanding when to buy and sell something “safe” can be difficult in any environment, but identifying bubbles (be them tulip bulbs, Japan real estate in the 80’s, Internet stocks, China property, venture capital valuations or NFT’s in late 2021) is…

“Good to see that idiot Quicky’s not lost his touch” I hear you sigh as a return to Snapshot duties (having started writing them to an audience of 7 in the very darkest days of the pandemic before handing over to a far more informed Courteney and others) sees me jinx the (still very promising) Coiled Springs product. A reminder that doing the end of day wrap is a humbling task but hopefully we get it right more often than we get it wrong and at least we have a view. Another day of bumping along…

“I prefer the term coiled cobra….” said an Indiana Jones inspired client today when I was talking him through the new Coiled Springs product that one of our rising star traders (in cc for any questions) has produced in conjunction with our IDEAS team. In a nutshell, it looks at heavily shorted shares that are due to report and screens for where our IDEAS team are flagging improving earnings momentum. They are at a 10 out of 11 success rate currently with an average return on the day of the ea…

Some days are for exclamations of fact, let’s get started.. Mega Bullish patterns throughout Asia, US and European equities led by NVIDIA’s (+15.5%) enormous quarter driving tech shares across the board, with perhaps the most notable you-don’t-see-that-everyday occurrence: Japan rallying past their 1989 all-time highs! (hat tip to Tokyo Electron out there). Not to be out done, our Dutch BE Semiconductor rallied 12% (closed only +5%) on the key Hybrid Bonding adoption – the most important drive…

Moving and shaking in portfolio management the past 24hrs. Some rotation out of growth (Nasdaq now 4.2% below its former all-time high), and into year-to-date underperformers including staples led by Walmart numbers yesterday and into China exposed names ahead of the big NVDA news tonight. With most already involved in large cap tech (over half of the GVIP ETF is weighted in TMT), investors are rightfully anxious of the momentum trade showing any signs of unwinding (and really, a pull-back wit…

A simple search of the top trending topics in the world right now include gorilla mind, blinkit, gellyball, padel rackets, numerade, malatang, magnacut, figma fonts, and pickleball shoes.. As a racquet sports enthusiast I have heard of two of these items. As well, when commentating on markets, a few things also trending for this year include the S&P500, Nasdaq composite, momentum trades, the Stoxx 600, DAX & CAC indices to name a few. They have all achieved bullish price trends with new highs c…

We got an electric drum set for my two kids. Expectations just a little above the ocean floor was a nice setup when my son (7) busted out a John Bonham riff the other night that brought me straight back to my 80’s childhood. Did it sound great, definitely not – but it sure blew me away. As we know, contentment results from situations or outcomes that exceed our expectations.. So with President’s day holiday keeping the stock & bond markets shut in the US, very few earnings (gets going again tom…

Two days in these markets is a long time and it feels a lot longer ago than Tuesday that investors were looking at an Equity market in a bit of a fall and judging whether inflation was on the rise. Yields were rallying, cyclicals getting smacked and today we recovered all of the losses suffered from that day and more as we rallied back with the Stoxx 600, Euro Stoxx, Euro Stoxx 50, CAC, DAX, FTSE MIB and KFX all making 12mo highs at some stage today in the process. Things felt quite squeezy fro…

“One bad day doesn’t make a trend” chimed Ben Denney as we picked up the pieces from yesterday’s fairly lively session but the overall theme for this week remains in Europe – low volumes. It’s very hard to judge what the true market reaction to the various moving parts this week would have been when volumes in Europe have dropped significantly from last week and the rest of the year. Yesterday’s c90% down day in the U.S. was followed by a c75% up day so clearly there is still a lot of chopping…

Shove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday or Pancake day – whatever you call it…. it’s today. A healthy debate on the desk on the topic of Sweet or Savoury though I was very much shot down with my Savoury call. I’ll always leave enough batter for a little lemon & sugar/Nutella chaser and that takes a bit of nous but it has to be ham and cheese crepes for dinner. Flipping a real skill and there is every chance mine ends up flat on the floor. Europe has been flipping between gains on losses on an al…