Welcome to this investment competition update. In week 22 the S&P 500 closed on a positive note closing 0.59% up from Monday, about half of the 1.12% return posted by the EURO STOXX 50. Let’s take a look at some of the headlines from during the week.
The week started off with the U.S. crude oil price shooting up and climbing to its highest level in more than two years. The reason for this was OPEC+ agreeing to continue the current pace of slowly loosening oil supply curbs while at the same time predicting a tightening worldwide market. As some regions in the world are slowly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is expected demand for oil will increase and return to old levels, putting an upward pressure on prices.
Bad news for former president of the United States, Donald Trump. On Friday, Facebook said it will continue excluding Trump from its platform for a full two years. Initially suspended on January 7th this year for urging people to storm the U.S. Capital on the day Congress counted electoral votes for the presidency, Trump will be able to share messages with his 35 million followers again on January 7th, 2023. The announcement was a result of the Oversight Board at Facebook demanding clarity on the exact length of the account ban.
The week concluded with the announcement of the U.S. jobs report for May on Friday. The Labor Department reported only 559,000 jobs were added in May. This number fell short of the 650,000 jobs estimated by economists. The unemployment rate in May decreased from 6.1% to 5.8%, which was slightly better than the 5.9% consensus. The 266,000 jobs reported in April were revised up to 278,000, which slightly improves the bad figures reported last month . The report also shows average hourly wages increased $0.15. The figures from the last 2 months show that as the U.S. is recovering from the pandemic, more demand for jobs has arisen, putting upward pressure on wages.
Let’s now turn to our very own Flow Traders Investment Competition. Some action has been happening in the top rankings last week. Merx has lost its lead and has been overtaken by Conquistadores Capital. However, the gap between these two teams is extremely small, so Merx still has a good chance of coming back on top. CFQ managed to achieve the highest return - 15.91% - and rose 9 spots in the rankings as a result. CMG Investment fell the most in the rankings, albeit it being only four spots.
For the 9th week in a row, there are no changes in rankings to report on in the second B&R Beurs Investment Competition. Das Kapital is still on top and is quite far ahead of number two Aurelia. The highest weekly return at 1.55% was achieved by Æthelstan Investments, increasing its lead to the number four in the competition, New Rotterdam Investments.
