Times are tough for financial analysts. Fundamental analysis is under pressure as equity markets pay little attention to it. The polarization of the market is extreme in terms of valuation: there are both very expensive stocks and very cheap stocks. Tesla is and should remain a textbook case for a long time to come. How […]
Countries with a trade deficit are supposed to be problematic. In France it would reflect a lack of competitiveness, in the United States it would be the result of an inadequate economic policy, favoring production abroad to the detriment of domestic production. D. Trump wanted (believed?) to address this problem with his “America First” policy. […]
Australia’s trade balance for August is a good illustration of the macroeconomic impact of the current commodity price boom. Exports jumped (left chart) pushing the trade surplus to unprecedented levels (right chart). Australia is a very large producer and exporter of iron ore. Economists tend to consider that the volatility of its economic cycle and […]
Innovation is key for economic growth. Many economists agree on this point. Although the link between innovation and growth is unclear, it appear that a specific expertise is an undeniable comparative advantage for a country. This is why research and development is at the heart of economic policies in many countries. Recently we heard in […]
INTRODUCTION Like a sports club, the performance of the team is linked to the performance of its members. And team members change over time. They mature, they are transferred, and they can change their playstyle as well. The Eurostoxx 50 index in 2021 is very different from what it was ten years ago. It has […]
To avoid offending anyone, we won’t say that Europeans are getting older, but rather that they are gaining experience … To say it precisely, 2019 represented a pivotal year for European demography since for the first time in history, the number of people over 65 has exceeded the number of young people under 19. This […]
Smartphone sales reached 1.28 billion units last year (source IDC). At the same time, sales of refurbished phones exceeded 225 million units. 5G-enabled phones accounted for 20% of sales in 2020 but 37% in the first quarter this year. Finally, the average selling price of new smartphones varies quite significantly from one country to another: […]
All time low! If we look at the price-to-earnings ratio (PER), the equity Italian index looks extreme since its discount against the Eurostoxx 50 index is at its lowest. This is striking enough given that we are neither in 2009 during the financial crisis, nor in 2012 during the public debt crisis in the euro […]
FACTS Equity valuation has always been a well commented subject in our industry. The notion of fundamental value is dear to many investors who refuse to believe that the equity markets can be just a casino. Historically, we see that equity valuation ratios move quite erratically. With a macro approach we find variables with more […]
This graphic is one of our favorites. He tells a lot of stories. It shows the evolution of housing starts in 3 very different countries. We normalized these data by the labor force size in order to make relevant the comparison between the series. The real estate bubble of the 2000s in Spain impresses with […]