Daily Column – 22nd January 2022


Not sure if you’ve looked at your investment portfolio in a while. Don’t do that. For riskier assets like tech and crypto, it’s been a rough couple of weeks in the markets. The Fed’s decision to start raising interest rates has scared people away from these types of assets. Let’s look at the damage.

Tech

The tech-heavy Nasdaq has fallen even further into “correction” territory, which means it has dropped at least 10% from its peak last November.

If a stock has dropped at least 20% from its recent high, it’s in a “bear” market.

It’s so bad that there isn’t even an animal name for it. More than half of the stocks on the Nasdaq are down 40% or more.

Last night, Netflix’s 21.8 percent drop on the Nasdaq was its worst day since 2012. Investors are worried about the company’s slow growth. But it wasn’t like everyone else could brag: Amazon had its worst week since 2018. Meta and Tesla were also down.

Crypto

It’s been a cold winter on the blockchain. Bitcoin’s value has dropped by $1.17 trillion since it hit its high point in November. Token: The value of the token has dropped 40% from its all-time high. It hit a six-month low yesterday. In the same way that Matt Damon always gets the blame, this time too.

As for the meme coins that became popular last year, I don’t know what to say about them.

It was when everyone started losing money that they stopped being funny. There was a record high for Dogecoin before Elon Musk was on SNL. It has since dropped about 80%.

SPACs

They are reconsidering their plans to list on stock markets through SPACs in this bad market. A lot of blank-check companies that want to buy other businesses and then make them public have cancelled their IPOs since January 1. Seven of these companies have done this since then.

As a comparison, in 2021, there was a lot of excitement about SPACs. In the first 11 months of that year, only three SPACs scrapped their IPO plans.

What’s going on now? This big selling of risky, expensive assets may be linked to rising bond yields and the Federal Reserve’s decision to stop pumping money into the economy to fight rising prices.

Next week, Apple and Tesla will try to avoid becoming Netflix 2.0 when they report their earnings. And at the end of its meeting on Wednesday, the Fed will give an update on its plan to raise interest rates.


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