Kategorie: Stefan’s Weekly

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

Finally, the sleepless nights are over, time to declare our year-end competition winner. Many thanks to all of you for participating. The bulk of the estimates came in within a decent range of the closing prices. I am truly impressed! Congrats to all of you!

Now, as every year I have sourced the data from: Finanz und Wirtschaft (fuw.ch).

Gold:

According to the above source, Gold closed the year at USD 1’829.50, somewhat below last year’s price. However, more than 50% of my readers were too optimistic and forecasted higher prices. Mark’s estimate came in at USD 1’830.00 and therefore was the closest. Mark won the competition before and is a highly regarded investment professional. Thanks for participating, Mark!

Bitcoin:

According to the above source, Bitcoin closed the year at USD 46’322.70. People were relatively bullish on Bitcoin with estimates going up as high as USD 123’500.00. The closest call in Bitcoin came from Waldemar with USD 47’000.00. Waldemar is a lawyer and apparently gifted in foreseeing the future (certainly also assisted by his lovely wife), congrats Waldemar!

S&P 500:

According to the above source, the S&P closed the year at 4’766.18. Most of you were reasonably optimistic and estimated the S&P 500 to go up versus last year, and it did. The closet call in the S&P came from Rainer with 4’750.00. Rainer is a professional wealth planner, congrats Rainer!

The winner of the entire competition and thus of the one-ounce Silver coin is Waldemar. Congratulations! Waldemar won because he was one of the only ones foreseeing lower prices in Gold and, at the same time, higher prices in Bitcoin and the equity markets and his calls were very, very close. Well done! I will hand over the Silver coin to Waldemar when I will see him at the end of January, beginning of February. I hope this is fine for you, Waldemar?

Most probably, there will be another competition in 2022 and I hope you will keep participating.

As always, please share your opinion with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to: smk@incrementum.li
Many thanks, indeed!

I wish you an excellent start to the day and the year, a wonderful weekend, and above all, good health!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG – we love managing assets

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

Many thanks for all your great comments and for sharing your views and valuable thoughts with me throughout the year. Sometimes I am almost overwhelmed with messages and I might not always be able to reply to all of them, which I deeply regret. I still have many links to speeches and videos, sent by readers that I so far was unable to consult. Yet I hope to find the time during the festive season to go through them and get back to you.

Now, there will be one more Stefan’s weekly before the year-end, however not next week but rather between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

I already wish a Merry Christmas to you and your beloved ones and hope you will have some peaceful and relaxed days ahead of you.

At Incrementum we will enjoy our Staff Christmas Lunch today and I am very much looking forward to it!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish you an excellent start to the day, a wonderful weekend, and above all, good health!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG – we love managing assets

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

This year’s year-end competition still shows an interesting picture, and since we are going quickly towards the year-end, we should look at where we are standing.

Extremes

As you will see, the volatility in the individual underlying’s market prices is somewhat represented in the spread between the highest and lowest of your estimates for gold, Bitcoin and the S&P 500, and it also shows that forecasting is not so obvious.

Gold

The range in gold still stretches from USD 1’650 to USD 2’066, with roughly half of the estimates hovering around 1’850. Thus, my readers seem not too bullish on gold but slightly optimistic. However, the current market price of gold stands at USD 1’775 and is a big disappointment. For the first time in decades, we see something like inflation and gold is going down. So far, our assumptions were utterly wrong, and this is a major blow. Nevertheless, gold has proven to be an excellent inflation hedge in the long term, and this is why I do not want to give up on it just now.

Bitcoin

The range of your estimates for Bitcoin stretches from USD 23’000 to USD 123’000. Now, for Bitcoin, the picture is different from gold. So far, more than half of the estimates still lie above USD 70’000, which shows my readers‘ great confidence for higher prices in Bitcoin, and so far, my readers have been pretty close to reality with their estimates. However, Bitcoin got hit badly last weekend, and I personally believe this shows that an asset class with no intrinsic value is entirely dependent on its buyer’s confidence.

S&P 500

The estimated range in the S&P 500 stretches from USD 3’835 to USD 5’100. Almost two-thirds of the estimates came in lower than today’s market price, and therefore the rest came in at above current prices. This is interesting,especially as this year again, the S&P 500 performed very well. However, the high-performance drivers came from a limited amount of companies.

Conclusion

Three more weeks to go and with inflation at the highest levels in more or less ten years, gold not living up to its expectations this year, Bitcoin almost seems like the new inflation hedge; however, after last weekend’s cryptocurrency crash, I am asking myself if cryptos offer a sustainable inflation hedge. But now, Ladies and Gentlemen, for over 100 years, a mixed basket of equities offered outstanding performance and inflation hedge; maybe it is time to take this consideration in the equation?

Ladies and Gentlemen

As always, please share your opinion with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to:
smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

I wish you an excellent start to the day, a wonderful weekend, and above all, good health!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG – we love managing assets

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

There are probably three simple reasons that make us think, communicate, act and behave the way we do. Now, I know, this may seem somewhat simplistic and I agree, it is but not without purpose.

Reason Number one – Simplification

Most people can not and/or do not want to spend enough time understanding complex topics. Even more so, if complex issues do not offer immediate and simple solutions because maybe there are just no such simple solutions readily available at any given moment, but instead imaginably a range of scenarios at the most. In such moments, people may be attracted to simplified reasoning perhaps offered by politicians, bloggers, religion, or in financial markets, investment gurus.

You know, in financial markets (but definitely not only in financial markets), absolutely nothing is ever crystal clear; no matter what one thinks and/or believes, investment decisions always require a certain humbleness and the acceptance of unknowns. However, financial markets have a self-regulating mechanism. If market participants push things too far, which at times they tend to do, it is usually followed by a (significant) correction.

Reason Number two – Ego

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, our ego makes it so difficult for us to admit to having missed a point, been wrong, change our views, overturn a decision and even worse, admit to peers, family, and friends to have made a mistake. We are just humans and want to shine, be successful, and admired. Fair enough! And you know what?

Reason Number three – Social Context

And yes, the regular Stefan’s weekly readers would not be surprised to notice that I am once again an advocate of this view I feel urged to stress again and again. Social context influences our thinking, communicating, acting, and behaving big time, more than most people may realise.

Awareness

I think it is challenging to change the way we think, communicate, act and behave. However, if we are aware of why we think, communicate, act and behave the way we do, we perhaps can reach a point where we can somewhat more easily tolerate and respect other people’s thoughts and views, but also take a step towards becoming less stubborn on views and issues that make our lives miserable.

Ladies and Gentlemen

As always, please share your opinion with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to:
smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

I wish you an excellent start to the day, a wonderful weekend, and above all, good health!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG – we love managing assets

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

No, this is not going to be a Black Friday special. I am not into this Black Friday thing too much, even if I see the benefits for specific industries. Just imagine it is Black Friday, and no one goes there. That would be a shock for some economies.

Awards

Today I would like to share an article with you. I wrote the article for a magazine after we had been honoured with some awards by ACQ5 for Liechtenstein. It is only for Liechtenstein and I am fully aware that Switzerland, Luxembourg or the U.K. are, of course, much larger financial centres and yet we still had to do a decent job somehow.

Marketing

You know, Ladies and Gentlemen, I did not want this article to sound too tacky, but I had to take the chance and do a little bit of marketing for Incrementum, and especially for our Wealth Management Business. Sorry about that and thanks for your understanding!

Link

Please feel free to click on the link below to see and read the article:
https://mcusercontent.com/b268a38a165b03979d95268dd/files/9b8d7425-eceb-62e3-c1eb-82938f70a47f/ACQ5_Awards.pdf

Ladies and Gentlemen

As always, please share your opinion with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to:
smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

I wish you an excellent start to the day, a wonderful weekend, and above all, good health!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG – we love managing assets

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

My Partner Ronni Stöferle just held a keynote at Deutsche Goldmesse in Frankfurt. His slides contain some exciting aspects, and this is why I would like to share the presentation with you today. In addition, there will be a video of him holding the presentation, which I intend to share with you as soon as we receive it from the conference’s organiser.

Topic

Now, Ronni’s presentation’s topic was «the monetary tipping point», i.e. „the point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change.“ a definition according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Ronni’s Inflation Picture

As I have pointed out to you in my last edition of Stefan’s weekly, I currently do seem to have a somewhat blurred inflation picture. However, Ronni, on the other side seems to have a pretty clear picture. Moreover, his conclusions are the following.

Conclusions

In Ronni’s view, higher inflation rates are not going to be transitory. Furthermore, he believes that while we are moving from an era of monetary dominance to a new era of fiscal dominance, real interest rates will remain negative for years to come, which in the past was a perfect ground for higher gold prices. Ronni also gives an outlook on mining stocks and the price of gold.

Link

Please feel free to have a look at Ronni’s presentation via the following link:
https://mcusercontent.com/b268a38a165b03979d95268dd/files/18f0dd2e-c48f-eabb-9e72-eb1416aaeced/Monetary_Tipping_Point_Nov_2021.pdf

Ladies and Gentlemen

As always, please share your opinion with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to:
smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

I wish you an excellent start to the day, a wonderful weekend, and above all, good health!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG – we love managing assets

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

This summer, it seemed many and prominent short-term oriented market participants were speculating on rising interest rates and maybe even some short-term Fed action in their favour. Short-term interest rates increased, the Federal Reserve did not act. Yes, they announced the beginning of a tapering mode but no increase in interest rates. Maybe we should one day go back to look at the Fed’s mandate. I sometimes do get the impression market participants get carried away while performing their daily tasks and forget what the Fed’s role really is.

My Inflation Picture

Anyway, as was the case at the beginning of October, excessive interest rate speculation seemed somewhat exaggerated. However, interest rates had and still have not yet shifted dramatically towards inflation at the long end. Thus, my picture on inflation is/was (my vision seems somewhat blurred at this moment) still showing a one-off increase in prices for daily goods, salaries, etc. Maybe I will have to adjust my inflation picture over the weeks to come. But, so far, I am still not entirely convinced we will see lasting inflationary pressure. So, let us see, I am definitively more cautious than I was some months ago.

This week

This week, market participants reacted to the just-published U.S. October inflation numbers with an upward adjustment of the key interest rate path. Up to now, three rate hikes are priced in for the Fed meetings between June 2022 until February 2023.

A different perspective

Nevertheless, in my opinion, so far, the long end bond yields show and showed us either that market participants do not yet quite believe in a sustained rise in inflation or that they show confidence in the actions of central banks, which at this stage would surprise, if not irritate, me somewhat.

What happened during summer until October?

However, as it happens, I just read a piece of market research giving a slightly different perspective on what happened in the bond market between summer and October. The writer suggested that indeed many and prominent short-term oriented market participants were betting on rising interest rates. This is no surprise, but now it comes. At the same time, considerable and traditionally long-term oriented bondholders began unwinding some of their positions in the market, which apparently brings their holdings to the lowest in years if not decades.

Conclusion

If large and traditionally long-term oriented bondholders are selling instead of buying fixed income products and around the same time the Federal Reserve starts tapering its bond purchasing program, where will all the bonds issued daily go? If we go back to an unmanipulated bond market where offer and demand set the price, in my opinion, there can only be one direction for bond yields; they would most probably have to go up, no?

…and yes, this would impact my personal inflation picture, depending on the actual increase, maybe more, maybe less.

Ladies and Gentlemen

As always, please share your opinion with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to:
smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

I wish you an excellent start to the day, a wonderful weekend, and above all, good health!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG – we love managing assets

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

Barry, a regular reader of «Stefan’s weekly,» sent me the following quote:

„You buy Cryptos to get rich… you buy Gold to stay rich.“

Now, this quote made me think. It made me think of the question of why do we believe in the things we believe? I mean, I do like the quote; after all, Incrementum also makes money thanks to its research business about gold and also thanks to managing digital assets in combination with other assets, and yet, I still asked myself why I liked the quote and could even see some truth in it.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 

Among the many philosophers who have examined identity, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) concluded that any society’s ideas define its social being, which means that the progress or evolution of ideas determines the identity of a social group/or an individual.

Wait a Minute

If Hegel is right, social context may be more important to identity than knowledge. Wow, what about individual beliefs? What about truth, then? Maybe Hegel can help again; according to his thoughts, knowledge is simply the current truth along the path towards a distant (more) absolute truth.

Social Context a Definition

Social context has been a fascination to me for many years. I would therefore like to share with you this concise definition of social context. «Social context, also known as „milieu“, is how someone reacts to something depending on their immediate and past social or physical environment. Thus, social context can influence how someone perceives something.»

So What?

So what? You may think, why is this important to people reading about financial markets, managing assets, producing research, etc.? It is massively important, Ladies and Gentlemen! Because the identity of every writer of every piece of research, the identity of every portfolio manager, the identity of every speaker at every investment conference is being influenced, maybe consciously, most probably unconsciously, by her or his social context.

Conclusion

Our identities are impregnated by the social context in which we live, and therefore our identities are likely to change probably more or less in proportion to the progressive change in our social context. This can only lead to one conclusion. So by reading, listening, watching about financial assets, research, investment advice, asset management (anything in life, really), firstly always ask yourself about the writer’s or speaker’s personal motivation behind a given statement, conclusion. I know; I did mention this many times before. But now it comes, I honestly think, it is time to ask yourself a second question: what is the writer’s/speaker’s social context? If you get a feeling for the answers to those two questions, you will be able to gauge statements, conclusions, and this again should lead to a more custom-tailored overall picture for yourself, and this is what it is all about. Your personal picture, not someone else’s.

More Hegel

Never forget to distance yourself from what seems obvious. Take a step back or, as G.W.F. Hegel put it: «the more time allowed away from everyday toil, the more the chance of thought and enlightenment.» Wonderful!

Next week

Next week we should look at inflation, bond yields and what is to be expected over the months to come?

Ladies and Gentlemen

As always, please share your opinion with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to:
smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

I wish you an excellent start to the day, a wonderful weekend, and above all, good health!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG – we love managing assets

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

This year’s year-end competition still shows an interesting picture, and since we are going slowly but surely towards the year-end, we should look at where we are standing.

Extremes

As you will see, the volatility in the individual underlying’s market prices is somewhat represented in the spread between the highest and lowest of your estimates for gold, Bitcoin and the S&P 500.

Gold

The range in gold still stretches from USD 1’650 to USD 2’066, with roughly half of the estimates hovering around 1’850. Thus, my readers seem not too bullish on gold but slightly optimistic. This matches at least partially with yesterday’s market price of roughly USD 1’801.00.

Bitcoin

The range in Bitcoin stretches from USD 23’000 to USD 123’000. Now, for Bitcoin, the picture is very much different than for gold. So far, more than half of the estimates still lie above USD 70’000, which shows my readers‘ great confidence for higher prices in Bitcoin, and so far, my readers have been pretty close to reality with their estimates. Also, they have until today rightly seen gold underperforming and Bitcoin reaching new highs. Well done! You know what? I could almost conclude that reading my weekly posts regularly develops people into great forecasters.

S&P 500     

The range in the S&P 500 stretches from USD 3’835 to USD 5’100. Almost two-thirds of the estimates came in lower than today’s market price, and therefore the rest of the estimates came in at above current prices.

Conclusion

Two more months to go and with inflation at the highest levels in more or less ten years, gold not living up to its expectations this year, Bitcoin almost seems like the new inflation hedge, even if the correlation is somewhat difficult to take as there are not yet enough data points on the timeline to come to such a conclusion, and finally, equities still performing well.

As always, please share your opinion with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to:… but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to:           smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

I wish you an excellent start to the day, a wonderful weekend, and above all, good health!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG – we love managing assets

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

«Where there is no vision, there is no hope.»

Adrian shared this quote by George Washington Carver (George Washington Carver – Wikipedia) with us, and it fits today’s weekly perfectly!

Catastrophic and Disastrous

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen described the scenario for the economy if Congress would not have raised the debt ceiling by 18 October as «catastrophic» and «disastrous».

You know what, I think «catastrophic» and «disastrous» are the right words; however, not in conjunction with this year’s debt ceiling discussions but with the total amount of debt so far accumulated and handed over to the next generation over and over again.

Debt Ceiling

According to an interview, I read the other day; with Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Harvard University, the USA is the only country besides Denmark with a debt ceiling.

What is a Debt Ceiling?

Investopedia gives us a concise definition: «The debt ceiling is the maximum amount of money the United States can borrow cumulatively by issuing bonds. The debt ceiling was created under the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917 and is also known as the „debt limit“ or „statutory debt limit.“ If U.S. government national debt levels bump up against the ceiling, the Treasury Department must resort to other „extraordinary“ measures to pay government obligations and expenditures until the ceiling is raised again.» Thus, a debt ceiling that can be lifted all the time probably does not make much sense.

Showtime

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is all part of a political show. This time the Republicans will make it look like Democrats have no fiscal discipline. During a Republican presidency, the same argument is being used by Democrats. The enormous debt is sure to be an issue in the campaign for next year’s midterms, and one party can and will blame the other for the high debt.

Not a Question of Spending

Look, this is not a question of spending or budget discipline whatsoever. Congress has already approved all the spending; that is what it costs to run the United States of America the way it is run. You know what? There is no genuine political dispute about it because the spending was already decided. This is why the debt ceiling will be lifted again and again and again (it has been provisionally increased until December of this year).

Do we need to be worried?

Currently, I do not think so. Any political party, this time the Democrats, can manage the debt ceiling increase without the other political party (theoretically: «ies») this time, the Republicans, if necessary, within the framework of a so-called «reconciliation» with a simple majority in the Senate. Now, reconciliation is a complicated emergency procedure that, as already mentioned, only needs a simple majority in the Senate – which the Democrats currently have by a narrow margin. Republicans know that and will fight and make much noise ahead of next year’s midterms to keep the show going, and yet, eventually, they will agree on lifting the debt ceiling on what will be sold to the general public as a great compromise. Do not let yourself be fooled, Ladies and Gentlemen; in the history of rising U.S. debt ceilings, Democrats, as well as Republicans, have shown great passion in keeping the political show going on.

Today’s Quote

If we keep in mind the quote at the beginning of today’s weekly, one could easily argue that where there is no vision in changing the behaviour of both leading parties of continuing to pursue their particular partisan interests, there is no hope.

Ladies and Gentlemen

As always, please share your opinion with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to: smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

I wish you an excellent start to the day, a wonderful weekend, and above all, good health!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
Wealth Management
Incrementum AG – we love managing assets

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li