In his Notes from the Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky writes, “What makes a hero? Courage, strength, morality, withstanding adversity? …Who are these so-called heroes and where do they come from? Are their origins in obscurity or in plain sight?”
In The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien writes, “Wasn’t friendship its own miracle, the finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely?” Mary Shelley will remind us in Frankenstein that the friends and heroes always possess a certain power over our minds.
Are our lives crowned with heroes and true friends or are we contributors to an unfolding tragedy of a world without heroes, as George Roche elaborates in his book A World Without Heroes: The Modern Tragedy? Where is Valkyrie, the heroine (daughter of Wotan) who will defy the gods in order to save Sieglinde and the unborn child, as in Wagner’s opera?
Could it be that our heroes are the celebrated technology disruptors? History teaches us that the amount of institutional coercion in any society (and for that matter the self-inflictions with painful pleasures) is a perfect measure of an internal collapse that will manifest itself in the not-so-distant future.
As the end of Q1 for 2021 is approaching, we are celebrating estimates of the return to normalcy that are translated to higher growth projections, as shown below.
At the same time, the rising savings of US households (given the helicopter money) as shown below, indeed could become a significant source of an upswing in spending that could propel GDP growth rate upwards, as portrayed above.
The following figure represents the monthly performance between February 8 and March 8 of three funds: ARKK which in turn reflects the epitome of disruptors, XLE that represents conventional energy stocks, and XLF which is made up of stocks in the financial sector. The period between February 8 to March 8could possibly be characterized as a time period when market dancing (to the music produced by an avatar of bond vigilantes) disrupted the disruptors.
The rising yields was one of the most important factors in the almost 30% drop of the ARKK disruptors during that particular period. The heroes became villains, while some of the “victims” of the pandemic start celebrating healthy gains. A reversal of fortune signifying the not-so-stochastic nature of markets, tells us that the market is neither our heroic friend nor our enemy/villain. The impersonal and amoral nature of the market reflects (among other things) the reality of an avataristic embodiment of fundamentals.
It was the disruption (due to Covid-19) of those fundamentals last year which made the net asset value of a well-known aggregate ETF bond fund divert significantly from the ETF’s quoted price, as shown below.
The market by itself may not be our heroic friend, however, solid fundamentals – like a good friend – will stand with a portfolio through thick and thin, and like a hero will help us find the good, the bad, and the potentially ugly overvalued holdings in a portfolio that desires to stand the changing winds of times.
Heroes, Heroines, Villains, and Disruptors: Market Dancing to the Music of an Avatar Reproduction
Author : John E. Charalambakis
Date : March 16, 2021
In his Notes from the Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky writes, “What makes a hero? Courage, strength, morality, withstanding adversity? …Who are these so-called heroes and where do they come from? Are their origins in obscurity or in plain sight?”
In The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien writes, “Wasn’t friendship its own miracle, the finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely?” Mary Shelley will remind us in Frankenstein that the friends and heroes always possess a certain power over our minds.
Are our lives crowned with heroes and true friends or are we contributors to an unfolding tragedy of a world without heroes, as George Roche elaborates in his book A World Without Heroes: The Modern Tragedy? Where is Valkyrie, the heroine (daughter of Wotan) who will defy the gods in order to save Sieglinde and the unborn child, as in Wagner’s opera?
Could it be that our heroes are the celebrated technology disruptors? History teaches us that the amount of institutional coercion in any society (and for that matter the self-inflictions with painful pleasures) is a perfect measure of an internal collapse that will manifest itself in the not-so-distant future.
As the end of Q1 for 2021 is approaching, we are celebrating estimates of the return to normalcy that are translated to higher growth projections, as shown below.
At the same time, the rising savings of US households (given the helicopter money) as shown below, indeed could become a significant source of an upswing in spending that could propel GDP growth rate upwards, as portrayed above.
The following figure represents the monthly performance between February 8 and March 8 of three funds: ARKK which in turn reflects the epitome of disruptors, XLE that represents conventional energy stocks, and XLF which is made up of stocks in the financial sector. The period between February 8 to March 8could possibly be characterized as a time period when market dancing (to the music produced by an avatar of bond vigilantes) disrupted the disruptors.
The rising yields was one of the most important factors in the almost 30% drop of the ARKK disruptors during that particular period. The heroes became villains, while some of the “victims” of the pandemic start celebrating healthy gains. A reversal of fortune signifying the not-so-stochastic nature of markets, tells us that the market is neither our heroic friend nor our enemy/villain. The impersonal and amoral nature of the market reflects (among other things) the reality of an avataristic embodiment of fundamentals.
It was the disruption (due to Covid-19) of those fundamentals last year which made the net asset value of a well-known aggregate ETF bond fund divert significantly from the ETF’s quoted price, as shown below.
The market by itself may not be our heroic friend, however, solid fundamentals – like a good friend – will stand with a portfolio through thick and thin, and like a hero will help us find the good, the bad, and the potentially ugly overvalued holdings in a portfolio that desires to stand the changing winds of times.