Investors have poured record sums into exchange traded funds this year, even before a buying spree that was ignited by the election of Trump. As of October 31, global net flows into the ETF industry had hit $1.4tn, according to data from BlackRock.
TikTok revenue increased 60% to about $17bn in the first half of 2024, which would make it about half the size of YouTube.
Meta Platforms plans to give European users of Instagram and Facebook the option of receiving what it says are “less-personalized ads,” a concession to regulators that risks hitting the company’s revenue in one of its largest markets. The less-personalized format will show European users what Meta calls contextual ads based on content that a user sees during a given browsing session, rather than a user’s broader activity history.
US Inflation Ticks Up Slightly. The Consumer Price Index rose 2.6 percent in the year through October, a sign that inflation remains stubborn. The report serves as a reminder that the Federal Reserve still has work to do.
The Fed's Powell said recent signs of economic health would allow the central bank to take its time in deciding how quickly to continue reducing interest rates. Major U.S. stock indexes slipped after Powell spoke, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both losing 0.6% and the Dow retreating 0.5%.
“At the start of the week—as long ago as it may seem—the focus in EU circles was on a “new and comprehensive horizontal strategy” for its flailing economy. Though that sounds like something either a yoga instructor or a brothel owner might have in mind, it was in fact what the leaders of the bloc’s 27 member states had agreed to recommend to boost competitiveness during a meeting in Budapest on November 8th.” - The Economist
“I once asked [Warren] Buffett what he could have done to improve his performance,” Gerstner told Faber earlier this month. “He said, ‘Slept more and gone into the office less.’ He said when you do all the work as an investor and you do all this analysis, everything looks like signal. You want to do something. But, 95% of the time, you have to do all your homework, you have to study, you have to think — and, then, do nothing. It was that high-conviction, qualitative insight that led you into the investment [in the first place] so don’t let little data points along the way scare you out of the investment.”
1986, Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting: During tulip mania, single tulip bulbs were exchanged for houses and businesses. If you could buy a company that owned twelve tulip bulbs for a 20% discount to the value of those tulip bulbs, would that be a bargain? Buffett’s point is that a 20% discount from an irrationally high price does not necessarily equal good value.