@stevehou@citrini But was the strengthening enough to justify 50%+ spike in 30 days?
Or a company like QCOM, which its earnings is estimated to be down this year and next year, its CPU chief architect left, and most of its business still relying on smartphone, to be almost doubled few days ago?
This is a true story, which tells you a lot about investor habits and home-bias in the US.
Last week, I attended an investor meeting with a group of 20-30 portfolio managers in New York.
I outlined why we are in the middle of a historical asset allocation shift away from US assets (as seen in the break-down of correlations, the flow evidence, feedback from our CIOs network, and impulsive USD weakness vs other major currencies and gold).
Towards the end of my remarks, when we had spelled out a likely scenario of continued downside risk to US equities, pressure on the US long end, and logically, sustained pressure on the USD, one of the portfolio managers summarized and said:
"so you are saying that the only trade is to hold t-bills?"
Something to reflect on...
According to Wikipedia, "When Microsoft was incorporated in 1981, Ballmer owned 8% of the company. In 2003, Ballmer sold 39.3 million Microsoft shares for about $955 million, reducing his ownership to 4%."
Ballmer would also have been a lot richer ...
Here's one of the craziest stories I've ever heard in finance.
Bill Gates is worth about $140 billion.
Steve Ballmer is worth about $100 billion.
Gates had A LOT more stock than Ballmer. But he was selling it like he was going to the electric chair. Ballmer held onto his.
If Bill Gates held onto all his MSFT stock, he'd be worth HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS.
Mind-blowing.