What we’re reading (3/23)
“Day Traders Finally Retreat After Standing Firm Amid Stock Market Rout” (Bloomberg). “In what looks increasingly like an uncharacteristic bout of bad timing, retail investors who hung tough during the selloff in January and February are now taking money off the table just as stocks are rallying. Evidence of a retail pullback was visible in data from several Wall Street banks and the U.S. options clearing agency. Data from JPMorgan Chase & Co. showed their flows have slowed from a torrid pace earlier this year. Bank of America Corp.’s retail clients were net sellers of U.S. stocks for the first time this year.”
“Russian Stock Market, Crushed By War, Will Partially Reopen” (ABC News). “Russia plans to reopen its stock market for limited trading on Thursday, nearly one month after shares plunged and the exchange was shut down following the invasion of Ukraine. There will be heavy restrictions on trading intended to prevent the kind of massive selloff that took place on Feb. 24 in anticipation of crushing financial and economic sanctions from Western nations.”
“How ‘Shock Therapy’ Created Russian Oligarchs And Paved The Path For Putin” (NPR). “[Mass privatization] entailed transforming a nation whose almost entire economy consisted of state-controlled industries — manufacturing plants, oil refineries, mines, media outlets, biscuit factories, you name it — into private enterprises. It was, to date, surely the biggest transfer of state assets to private owners in world history.”
“Chinese Stocks: The Road To Nowhere” (Morningstar). “Whether Chinese equities have lost money in real terms, as MSCI’s numbers indicate, or have eked out a modest profit, as reported by S&P/IFCI, matters not. The key point is that, despite the country’s unprecedented economic boom, its stocks have flopped. Investors were better off owning U.S. Treasury notes.”
“An Alleged Fraud Uncovered By A Short Seller Ends In Gunfire” (Wall Street Journal). “The strategy promoted by Mr. Judd was ‘the most obvious Ponzi scheme we’ve ever seen,’ said Nate Anderson, founder of the investment firm that investigated it. In a notice seeking out victims of the alleged fraud, the FBI also called it a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes are investment frauds where early investors are paid with funds raised from later investors. The money raised is generally not invested.”
