This week was one of those times where we experience once in a while. It was hard to figure out where the various asset classes were heading as prices were all over the place.
It seems like there were multiple diverging views as investors try to grapple with the “what’s next?” million-dollar question. The stock markets were jumping up and down the whole week trying to figure out if the pandemic was over yet. Vaccinations in the developed countries are going well in the US and UK while Europe fumbles. China and Japan are also not really near their herd immunity targets at all. Developing countries are seeing vicious 2nd waves hitting them. India just hit a new world daily cases record and news coming out there about hospitals running out of oxygen while body bags are piling up.
Coinbase started trading the week before with a bang which led cryptocurrencies to a rally. Bitcoin hit a new high of just under 65k before correcting a spectacular 25% to 48.5k by the end of the week. ETH also hit new highs and seems to be maintaining its levels. XRP prices exploded briefly before dropping like a brick again. I sold the rest of my XRP too soon before it broke above $1 though. Have started to slowly accumulate BTC again at current levels. Just trying to trade the range in these volatile swings.
Gold was a missed opportunity as it suddenly gained in these chaotic times while all asset classes whipped sawed the whole week. It seems that the whole market was trying to come to an agreement on what will be happening going forward and has not reached an equilibrium yet. Very confusing now to figure out the macro theme being played out as various news seems to contradict each other too.
A third of 2021 has already passed us by. Biden’s first 100 days is approaching and he has provided a lot of strong leadership to correct the 4 years of mistakes created by the orange one. More has to be done on the pandemic front as the issue continues to play out. Normal overseas travel seems to be a thing of the past which we cannot foresee to return any time soon with many countries still experiencing the worst of subsequent waves.
A quiet week for me as I prepare for my Cloud Computing exam next week, having completed a third of my 6 months full-time IBM AI course to date. While I learnt a lot of new things about this topic, there is so much more to absorb if one wants to dive deeper into this evolving technology. It would be a good new to-do item for me after my course ends in Aug. Amazon AWS, Google and Microsoft Azure are the ones I should learn more about, besides picking up Python.
The Myanmar situation doesn’t look to improve soon and the economy is going through death by a thousand cuts after the military coup on 01 Feb. Without a functioning banking system for almost 3 months, financial institutions are going into survival mode now. Lenders’ covenant breaches are happening everywhere and tough calls have to be made to stop or defer loan repayments now as cashflows are severely impacted. I worry for the company that I had been providing Treasury consultancy for the last 3+ years and now seeing the whole country crumbling before my eyes every day.
An interesting week ahead for me after 2 subdued weeks of not much happening and staying at home studying. We are all becoming domesticated homebodies thanks to the pandemic. Perfectly happy to just be in our little comfort zones and forgetting what the old norm is like where we used to have vacations that had overseas travel plus flights. Sad or the new norm?
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