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Big Tech & Impeachment | Flow Traders Investment Competition | Week 11

18/01/2021

Welcome to the third Investment Competition Update of 2021! This week’s headlines we’ll discuss are Big Tech vs. MAGA, the impeachment of President Trump, and the American Rescue Plan.

 

Before we get to the news let’s first take a look at what financial markets around the world did. DAX lost -1.42% and the AEX gained 0.90%. On the other side of the world, NASDAQ gained 1.64% and DJI lost 0.43%.

 

Most news this week came from the west side of the Atlantic ocean. Over the weekend we saw tech companies Google, Apple, and Amazon putting big pressure on social media app Parler. Many Trump supporters who were unhappy with the way their posts were moderated on platforms like Twitter and Facebook fled to Parler as it allowed them more freedom in what content they could post. Google removed Parler from its app store because threats and other violent content were not timely removed. Apple initially gave the app 24 hours to improve its content moderation, but had to remove it after time was up. Amazon also took drastic measures and cut Parler from their hosting platform AWS. 

 

More news surrounding Trump this week was the fact that the House of Representatives reached enough votes for impeachment, making him the first US president ever to be impeached twice. The reason for this was, of course, the incitement of the storming of the Capitol last week. It is unsure when a trial will come, but it will most likely be somewhere after the inauguration of Joe Biden.

 

Speaking of Joe Biden, on Thursday he announced a $1.9 trillion (!) stimulus plan. This means eligible Americans will receive a payment of $1,400 in addition to the earlier agreed-upon $600. After the announcement, a selloff started in the markets as investors had hoped for an even bigger rescue plan. 

 

Last but not least, let’s take a look at what happened in the Flow Traders Investment Competition this week. No big changes took place in the top 3. Fundamenta Fortis is still looking down on the rest of the leaderboard with an M2 of 10.63%. Together with runner-up Metrics Fund they did pass the MSCI World EUR Hedged UCITS benchmark, mostly because the ETF experienced a -1% loss in value. Next Generation had an amazing week, rising 13 places with a stunning 15.51% gain. Although Negotium Novum had a negative return of only -1.5% this week, they did lose 14 positions. This goes to show how competitive things are halfway down the leaderboard!

 

In the second B&R Beurt Investment Competition, things are looking less rosy. Nearly all groups are in the red at the moment. Das Kapital lost its first place to Aurelia, and New Rotterdam Investments had a pretty rough week which put them in last place. However, all is not lost. Things are just getting started in this competition, so anything is possible.

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