What a strange world we live in. Party leaders don’t seem to remember parties and apparently ‘dead money’ sectors don’t want to die. Market analysts will not want to be compared to the credibility bonfire that is Boris Johnson and the Prime Ministry of Sound but who wants to hazard a guess as to the best performing industry sectors over the past 12 months? If you had volunteered tech or healthcare you’d be wrong. However, if you’d ignored climate crisis, the work-from-home revolution plus a tech invasion of financial services and hesitantly picked banks, bricks and barrels you’d be spot on. Dead money and leaders, eh! At least Fred West knew how many people were in his garden. The data, like the Downing Street garden parties, is damning. Clearly, oil, real estate and financial firms are very much alive in the following chart (source: Finviz) highlighting the relative performance of the major industry sectors compared to the S&P 500.
It is easy to be dazzled by the fantastic success of new economy companies and the huge financial milestones hitting the headlines on a daily basis. And…who could not be impressed by the following this week:
- Irish hospitality technology start up, Flipdish, hit unicorn status and a $1 billion valuation after a Tiger Global led (again!) funding round.
- Changpeng Chao or “CZ’ is the founder of Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange platform, and now the richest man in Canada with a net worth approaching $100 billion.
- The FT has reported Chainalysis research showing almost $41 billion of NFTs were sold in 2021. That compares to a 2020 total NFT sales of just $250 million and a global art market of circa $50 billion and built over centuries!