The Big Picture
The 46th US President inauguration was an uplifting ceremony which made history on many levels. The next 100 days will be key to appreciate the direction this administration will take. In his first days in office Biden signed a flurry of executive orders to dismantle several policies which were set in place by his predecessor.
Meanwhile the US markets continued to rally, especially the Nasdaq, off the back of positive Q4 earnings news, vaccine optimism and the prospect of the next stimulus bill. Scratching the surface, however, one finds several counter-arguments to this “risk on” environment: paradoxically, a significant growth in earnings could undermine the monetary expansion; vaccine roll-out is being affected by various glitches in doses delivery; and the negotiations for the stimulus bill are unlikely to result in a smooth ride for the new administration.
Market Performance
All US indices were up this week: in the US the Nasdaq led with a whopping 4.2%, followed by the S&P500 (1.9%) and the Dow (0.6%). The Stoxx finished flat while the Italian index lost 1.3% as uncertainty continues to affect its political environment. The Danish OMX20 gained 1.3%. The US Dollar lost 0.2% on the Euro. Crude oil was softer while $Gold finished 0.8% higher. $BTC-USD had another horrible week and lost 9.7% after the fall of the previous week.
Earnings
$BK beat Q4 earnings but the market did not react well and the stock finished 8% lower. We are still up 13.3% since we purchased it and will take action should there be any further signs of weakness.
Other notable earnings included $NFLX who crushed estimates and exceeded 200M subscribers for the first time and lukewarm Q4 results from $INTC.
Next week two of our stocks will report earnings, $UMC and $SYF, as well as many other well know companies such as $MSFT, $AAPL and $FB.
Dividends
$BK goes ex-dividend next week. Most Danish companies go ex-dividend in March, while Italian stocks traditionally pay a dividend in late May and US stocks distribute quarterly dividends.
Portfolio Performance
Our portfolio was up 1.9% whereas the weighted average of the relevant market indices finished 0.7% higher, which means we have beaten the market this week (+1.2%).
$UMC jumped 17% this week and is now up 72% overall! $TCEHY was up 9.8% increasing the gain of the last 3 weeks to 24%. Our long e-commerce/short bricks and mortar ETF grew 6%. From this week we will start reporting $UG.PA under the new ticker $STLA.MI following the merger with FGA which resulted in the conversion of every Peugeout share into 1.742 shares of Stellantis: the European car maker had an excellent first week of trading finishing 5.3% higher.
Our Responsible Investor portfolio is now up 18.5% (19.4% including dividends) in 34 weeks. We are about 59% in stocks & ETFs and 41% in cash. On my watchlist this week I have $DVA, $CMG, $VIAV, $TRYG.CO and $OCDO.L.
The table below summarises the portfolio performance since inception.
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