GS Tactical Fund Flows 2021 - some interesting tidbits:

We are set up to see a massive wave of inflows [in 2021]. The “January Effect” will be exceptionally strong this year. Investors are looking to buy the dips, but they remain shallow as there is competition for dip alpha.

Global stocks are now worth equal to 116% of Global GDP, the highest level since 2007.

AAIIBEAR Index “Da Bears” just logged a reading of sub 22.00, the lowest reading since January 2nd. The Bulls logged their longest euphoria reading since January 2018. Euphoria is high.

The month of January see’s a 37% of yearly inflows as a result of 401k and asset allocation rebalancing. Can see financial advisors recommending a portfolio shift back into equities given the current defensive allocation.

Over the last 25 yrs, 25bps of AUM of new money comes into the market each January. This is a big number on $20 Trillion worth of fund assets. This would be about +$50B worth of buy demand, and 2021 could see at least double this year.

The Nasdaq hit its 55th record close of the year on Monday and has gained almost 44% this year. There may be some FOMO.

This flow of funds shift will get exacerbated this year given the heavy positioning in money markets and bonds, aka TINA, or lack of alternatives.

The excellent ECB Financial Stability Review, https://t.co/k8HcqpryDF illustrates well the 2 main risks I see for the EA economy next year: possible insufficient fiscal stimulus and weakening of bank credit supply. The FSR mentions “a slightly tighter fiscal stance" in 2021 1/

The FSR correct statement “fiscal tightening at a time when output gaps are still projected to be negative could exacerbate the current economic situation.”, caused some stir and many comments in social media. The same regarding the accompanying chart 2/

The FSR uses the Commission forecasts showing a slight increase of the cyclically-adjusted primary budget balance from -3.2% this year to -2.9% in 2021. 0.3% is a small change not comparable with the mistake of 2012/13 when it went from -0.6% in 2011 to +0.5 & +1.4 in 2012/13 3/

I think the primary balance will end-up higher than those forecasts because families and firms will continue to need a lot of support in the first half of the year. Moreover, growth in 2021 is dependent on public expenditure as other demand components will not be very buoyant. 4/

As the FSR says: “A premature withdrawal of policy support and a protracted pandemic could prolong the recession and have permanent scarring effects.” Besides extending income transfers to families and firms, more public investment is indispensable for a robust recovery 5/

1) "Funded by hundreds of millions of dollars from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and other high-tech interests, activist organizations created a two-tiered election

Weird feeling. After 10.5 years and roughly £21,000 of debt- I finally paid off the last instalment of my student loan today.

Next month, for the first time- I’ll receive my full post tax salary, for the first time since I graduated.

Sharing as an example of how the system works in practice. In truth I only seriously started paying off the capital in the last few years, when I started to earn a good salary, paying roughly £400 a month off. I suspect many will never significantly eat into the capital.

That’s especially the case for those those under the new regime, who have over £50k of debt. I was lucky in a) lower fees (3k not 9k) and maintenance grant (not loan) still existed.

Indeed IFS forecasts that 83% of students from PST 2012 reforms won’t fully pay back their loan.

Of course those who don’t pay off their fees, the cost will eventually have to be absorbed by the Treasury. Having 17% pay back all and the rest some will still be cheaper for HMT than no loans at all. But we should recognise the a) odd conceit that we have a system of loans...

...which the vast maj will never pay back and that instead b) that graduates are paying in effect a topped up rate of income tax for many, many years.

1/ A thread on $APY @apyfinance. I believe this could become a major DeFi bluechip, and I’ve been waiting since the 10th Feb for the price to settle before posting this! But it just won’t. So I’ll post it now, but please go slowly if you buy it. It just did a 5x in 2 days!

2/ So the APY platform is a yield farming aggregator that uses a single pool of liquidity and automatic rebalances the portfolio among different strategies to optimise risk adjusted yield revenues. It is basically like having an automated fund manager managing your portfolio.

3/ Today, if for example, you have funds in a yearn vault and you realise another vault launched with better returns, it can cost 100’s of dollars in ETH fees to switch between them. For anyone not investing huge amounts, this makes switching strategies completely unpractical.

4/On APY, with a single deposit, users funds will be spread across multiple yield farming strategies and automatically rebalance over time to optimise risk-adjusted returns. So users won’t need to keep track & switch between strategies (+pay for fees!) to optimise yield over time

5/ The genius step here is that the $APY algorithm will track not only the strategies % yields, but also risk scores taking into account financial, liquidity or smart contract risks, so funds will be re-allocated over time in order to maximise yield but also manage risk.

Want to know why Bill Gates has acquired 242,000 acres of farmland across the U.S.? That's more than anyone.

Let's explore the aspects of the End Game plan.
Agenda 21

A

It's a beautiful Saturday on this Corona riddled planet. It's a good day to do the following:

1. Open your account statement and find out how much commissions you are paying. You'd be paying anywhere between 0.7% to 1.3% extra over direct plans.

1.5 You can download your statement on CAMS, KARVY, NSDL etc.

2. If you are one of those Robinhood Traders and you started mistakenly investing in mutual funds instead of trading mutual funds, commissions can kill you! A simple 1% difference in commissions can add over 10-15 years. This comparison has been done to death but once more.

3. Figure of if whoever sold you these things, be if your advisor or distributor are providing value equal those commissions or not. This is an incredibly hard thing to figure. You need to do deep research, understand money yourself and then ask your advisor/distributors

3.5 This is an incredibly hard thing to figure. You need to do deep research, understand money yourself and then ask your advisor/distributors the right questions. Beware these guys are prone to bullshitting. So, interrogate them as a cop would a criminal.

I find it very strange that the same sort of people who look back on the financial crisis and austerity as catalysts for great change now seem to see Brexit and Covid as catalysts for great stability.

Partisanship is one helluva drug. Financial crisis = bad crisis. Brexit = good crisis. Even Covid, unequivocally a bad crisis, is characterised in parts as a good crisis (world beating vaccine etc).

A different reading (which spans Labour, Coalition and Conservative governments) is that 2008-2021 has been one continuous period of crisis punctuated by shorter periods of calm.

Crises aren’t the exception. Scottish independence and the future status of NI look ahead. They are the rule. More specifically, whether the crises are endogenous or exogenous the state has proven woefully ineffective at dealing with them.

We are meant to try to learn from this. And do our best not to apply partisan blinkers. The problems are deeply rooted. And, very obviously, Brexit isn’t the fix. It’s an attempt at a cure but in the same way as a radical therapy that solves some problems but creates others.

Our Targeted Income Grant Scheme (TIGS) offers desperately needed support to millions of business people who have been frozen out of Covid support, but … /

…it represents a beginning not an end. It’s an important first step in the right direction, but by no means delivers parity for those who find themselves unfairly excluded from help in these difficult times.

We will continue to fight for justice for all those who have fallen through the gaps.

A one-off TIGS grant will offer some groups desperately-needed help in the short-term, and allow the Treasury a little time to examine additional proposals in more detail /

If adopted by government, TIGS would be a huge step forward. But people are excluded from help for countless reasons, and we are happy to aid the Treasury in identifying solutions that reach everyone who needs support /

1/ There are a ton of books about Financial & Fundamental Analysis, Scuttlebutt and Technical Analysis. But there aren't many books 'taking risk'.

Among the few that exist, 'Zurich Axioms', written in 1985, is the best. Here are my key takeaways from the book.

2/ A bit about Max Gunther's (The Author) background. He was an Anglo-American journalist and writer, who wrote 26 Books.

His father, Franz Heinrich, was the New York Head of Schweizerischer Bankverein, which later merged into the famous Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS).

3/ The 'Zurich Axioms' were a set of unwritten rules followed by a informal group of Swiss Bankers and Traders who used to socialize around Wall Street after World War II. Mr. Heinrich was one of the founding members.

Max Gunter formalied these 'Axioms' by writing about them.

4/ There are 12 'Major Axioms' and 16 'Minor Axioms' (Corollary to the Major Axioms) in the book.

But remember, this is MY key takeaways from the book and not an exact summary. So you might find quotes, phrases and links inserted here and there by me (Not from the Author).

5/ Axiom #1: In order to earn returns, you must take risk. Risk will make you worry.

Risk-taking and worrying go hand-in-hand. If you're not worried about an investment, you're not taking risk.

Spend half your energy towards earning an income and the rest towards speculation.

Irresistible to leave this moment alone - a thread to share some investment lessons:

1/ Size matters.
Melvin entered 2021 circa $12 billion in AUM and runs a highly levered balance sheet. That’s a lot of short exposure to move around if needed.

2/ WSB/Reddit captured a market inefficiency.

Stocks are not supposed to have over 100% short interest. Naked short selling is illegal. This set-up should never happen. Kudos to those who took advantage.

How it happened and what it means has rampant ramifications, but in this moment the individuals captured the anomaly.

3/ Be careful dismissing “in theory” for those rare moments when it becomes “in practice.”

Keynes said “markets can be irrational longer than you can be solvent.” I suspect this won't take down any significant hedge fund, but it definitely hurts.

3b/ Be careful dismissing “in theory” for those rare moments when it becomes “in practice.”

Academic finance teaches that “a short sale has unlimited downside and limited upside. Those events almost never play out, until they do.

This is your daily pension announcement. Lots of you have heard back from your MLA with the the statement below👇. This one is from @JasonCoppingAB, but they are all the same. You need to go back at your MLAs HARD because this is some Stalin level disinformation. #AbLeg #abpoli

In no particular order I will run through the errors:

1. "the Alberta Government ...holds the liability of the ATRF plan.."

Absolutely, unequivocaly false. Read the Teachers' Pension Plan Act. Any liabilities are paid off 49% by the GOA/51% by the teachers. #AbLeg #abpoli

This is a risk shared plan, teachers pick up 51% of the financial risk. This is a benefit to the taxpayers. Not all plans in Canada are risk shared but ATRF sure as hell is.

(even the Fraser Institute admits this) #AbLeg #handsoffmypension

If @JasonCoppingAB would read the latest ATRF Annual Report he would see that we (teachers 51%/49% GOA) are currently paying off a deficiency that is equal to 3.28% of pay. #AbLeg #handsoffmypension

2. Next false statement: he says that section 3.8(c), giving AIMCo the right to refuse instructions from ATRF, is "a standard provision" in these types of agreements. Nope.
Just nope. #AbLeg #handsoffmypension This is a backdoor overreach into the ATRF's affairs.

What a privilege it was to host @Gautam__Baid for my first ever Twitter Spaces event along with @dadalife369 and @Finvents.

While we wait for the YouTube recording. Here are 8 of my biggest takeaways from today's session.

#investing

1 - Start by coming up with a portfolio allocation strategy based on your aims and objectives for investing. Include flexibility, tracking and rebalancing as part of your strategy.

2 - Learn from those who succeeded before you to ultimately develop your own investing style

Here are three books that influence @Gautam__Baid's investing style - They are some of the best books in investing along with Gautam's The Joys of Compounding.

3 - Develop a robust repository of sources from which you can generate investment ideas.

Here are the ones @Gautam__Baid uses.

It is a super-comprehensive list.

4 - Focus on the process as opposed to the outcomes. This is very important.

Developing a superior process leads to the repeatability of exceptional outcomes.

We have a habit of looking west and thinking what they do must be right. With all the craziness going on in the US capital markets, I thought it will be a good time to share some of the reasons why India is way better in terms of capital market regulations. 1/n

In US, hedge funds can leverage unlimited & run positions worth hundreds of $billions bringing in systemic risk. In India, no one can hold overnight positions more than ~5 times leverage (SPAN+Exposure for F&O, VAR+ELM for stocks). Even intraday leverages are now capped 2/n

In US your stock holdings are held by the brokers (held in book or street name, also the reason for the large stock lending market). If a broker goes down, your securities is at risk as well. In India, they sit in your Demat with NSDL/CDSL, ring-fenced from any broker risk 3/n

In the US your broker has an option to send the order placed on the trading platform to the exchange or a high-frequency trading firm that pays for the order. As you’d guess most orders are sent to HFT firms. In India, all order matching has to happen on the exchanges 4/n

In US a broker can act almost like a bank. Hold your funds for as long, take risk & lend them to other clients as well. In India, a broker can lend only their own funds and not client funds. Also, all unutilized funds need to be returned back once a quarter to the client bank 5/n

The Review: GW 19 - A thread

Hi everyone, welcome to the latest edition of “The Review” where I look at the double GW gone by, De Bruyne and Vardy replacements in detail:

#FPL #FPLCommunity @OfficialFPL

(Data taken from @FFScout and @FFH_HQ with consent)

Before I start, I'd like to introduce you to this game called Fantasy5. It’s free to enter, with a £10k weekly prize. All you have to do is to pick 5 players that you think will beat their Fantasy points target. I find it to be a lot of fun! Link

At this point, I’d also like to mention that I post about FPL on my Instagram too, so if you have an Instagram account, follow up here!

Q: Is Son the obvious De Bruyne replacement? Is it worth doubling up on Spurs attack and if not, who to choose if picking one?

I think we’re at that point where avoiding Heung Min Son despite having the option to get him for De Bruyne if you don’t own him already has to be...

... classified as overthinking. I say that because Son over the past three GWs is top for xG and big chances in the league which is incredible given that Son featured only thrice during that period while some other players played four times. Son is averaging two big chances...

Way to #Financial freedom

1) Rule of 72 (Double Your Money)
2) Rule of 114 (Triple)
3) Rule of 144 (Quadruple)
4) Rule of 70 (Inflation)
5) 4% Withdrawal Rule
6) 100 - Minus Age Rule
7) 10, 5, 3 Rule
8) 50-30-20 Rule
9) 3X Emergency Rule
10) 40% EMI Rule
11) Life Insurance Rule

1) Rule of 72
No. of yrs required to double your money at a given rate, U just divide 72 by interest rate
Eg, if U want to know how long it will take to double your money at 8% interest, divide 72 by 8 and get 9 yrs

At 6% rate, it will take 12 yrs
At 9% rate, it will take 8 yrs

3) Rule of 144

No. of years required to, quadruple your money at a given rate, U just divide 144 by interest rate.

For eg, if U want to know how long it will take to quadruple your money at 12% interest, divide 144 by 12 and get 12 yrs

At a 6% interest rate, it will take 24yrs

4) Rule of 70

Divide 70 by the current inflation rate to know how fast the value of your investment will get reduced to half its present value.

The inflation rate of 7% will reduce the value of your money to half in 10 years.

5) 4% Rule for Financial Freedom

Corpus Reqd- 25*Annual Expenses

Eg- the annual expense is 500,000 then the corpus required to retire is 1.25 cr.

Put 50% into fixed income & 50% into equity.

Withdraw 4% every yr, i.e.5 lac.

This rule works for 96% of the time in 30 yr period