DIARY OF A PRIVATE INVESTOR

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Nvidia announced bumper earnings in the final quarter of last year, but the market largely shrugged.

AI has driven investors to hallucinations

Competing visions on the next big technological revolution are discombobulating markets

Share buybacks are more beneficial if management believes that the company's shares are undervalued, or when it wants to signal confidence in its long-term prospects.
BT EXPLAINS

Special dividends or share buybacks: How companies decide and what each means for investors

Income-focused shareholders may prefer special dividends, while value investors may favour buybacks

Software companies have suffered big sell-offs on concerns that the emergence of AI agents may unravel their businesses
MARK TO MARKET

Citrini’s dystopian AI narrative may be wrong, but it could catalyse deeper thinking, policy change

The research firm imagined a tax on the use of AI, and the establishment of a public claim on the returns from AI infrastructure

The possibility of prolonged turmoil in the Middle East and the ripple effects of higher oil prices are giving money managers fresh reasons to sell equities and shift into safety.

Wall Street turns to ‘haven-first’ strategies amid Iran attacks

All eyes will be on energy markets when trading fully re-opens on Monday

Investors have been grappling with concerns around the additional trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump following the recent Supreme Court ruling.
RETHINKING MATTERS

Trading in the ‘Year of Geopolitics’

Asian investors should take a more nuanced approach than either pure complacency or panic selling

South Korean stocks on Thursday added another 3.8%, having already leapfrogged French and German markets to become the ninth largest in size globally.

World’s top money managers favour emerging markets, Citi says

The shift is a consequence of policy uncertainty and blowout fiscal deficit in the US

Schonfeld has around 200 employees in the region, with its largest office in Hong Kong.

Schonfeld to start second equity unit focusing on Asia-Pacific

Triwood Asset Management’s operations will be spread across Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore and New York

The figures highlight how Singapore’s lenders are relying more on wealth fees as loan margins narrow.

Singapore banks draw S$77 billion in new wealth from Asia’s rich

Stability draws the wealthy to Singapore as shifting global policies spark a rethink on asset homes

Large policies like indexed universal life are a tool in legacy planning as their cash payout makes it possible to equalise the distribution of an estate to heirs, unlike real estate or a business.
MIND THE GAP

Indexed universal life plans hit the sweet spot among wealthy and mass-affluent clients

Demand for such jumbo policies is driven by rising wealth creation in Asia-Pacific