- Philips (PHI1 TH) +6.3%
- *JOHN ELKANN’S EXOR BUYS 15% STAKE IN PHILIPS; NO TERMS
- Hexagon (HXG TH) +1.1%
- Rio Tinto (RIO1 TH) +1%
- Metals at Risk on China Property Ructions
- Vodafone (VODI TH) +1%
- Anglo American (NGLB TH) +0.7%
- Copper’s Supply Gap Needs Shorter Greenfield-Project Timelines
- Bechtle (BC8 TH) +0.4%
- Bechtle Raised to Buy at Hauck & Aufhaeuser; PT 54 euros
- Porsche AG (P911 TH) -1.1%
- Thyssenkrupp (TKA TH) -1.1%
- Thyssenkrupp Reader Interest Increases
- Eni (ENI TH) -1.1%
- TotalEnergies (TOTB TH) -1.3%
- Kazakhstan Oil Output Falls After Power Unit Shutdown Last Week
- Rolls-Royce (RRU TH) -1.5%
- Motley Fool UK: Can I potentially double my money with Rolls-Royce shares?
- Fresenius Medical (FME TH) -2%
DAX:
- No major mover
MDAX:
- Gerresheimer (GXI TH) +0.5%
- Gerresheimer Gets Another Buy as Jefferies Sees Strong Growth
- Bechtle (BC8 TH) +0.2%
- Bechtle Raised to Buy at Hauck & Aufhaeuser; PT 54 euros
- Hella (HLE TH) -1.3%
- ProSieben (PSM TH) -1.5%
- Fresenius Medical (FME TH) -1.7%
- Sixt (SIX2 TH) -1.8%
- Stock down 5.5% last week
SDAX:
- Adtran Holdings (QH9 TH) +5.7%
- Stock down 13% last week
- Bilfinger (GBF TH) +2.1%
- Bilfinger 2Q Sales EU1.12B Vs. EU1.08B Y/y, Confirms 2023 View
- SUSE (SUSE TH) +0.8%
- Suse Names Ian Halifax as New Chief Financial Officer
- Traton (8TRA TH) -1.6%
- Nagarro SE (NA9 TH) -6.9%
Paris 2024 : vers une flambée sans limite des prix des locations et hôtels durant les JO ?
DÉCRYPTAGE - Sur les plateformes en ligne, l’augmentation des prix des locations et hôtels sur la période des jeux olympiques atteint des sommets. L’État et les acteurs du secteur étudient les moyens d’y faire face.
Faudra-t-il donc dépenser une fortune pour poser ses valises à Paris le soir de l’ouverture des Jeux olympiques ? Depuis quelques jours, de nombreux médias soulignent l’explosion du prix des logements dans la capitale et ses alentours lors de cet événement qui s’étale du 26 juillet au 11 août 2024. Alors que des millions de visiteurs sont attendus, les chiffres, partagés notamment par nos confrères du Parisien, donnent le tournis.
Sur internet, une chambre double dans un hôtel à Belleville, dans le 20e arrondissement de Paris, s’affiche ainsi à 803 euros la nuit sur Booking.com, le jour de l’ouverture des Jeux. Un prix 453% plus élevé qu’en août 2023 pour la même chambre, dans le même établissement. Une chambre supérieure dans un hôtel cinq étoiles du 9e arrondissement voit son tarif flamber, en onze mois, de 408 à... 10.008 euros. Un hôtel deux étoiles du 8e arrondissement passe de 133 à 379 euros pour une chambre standard. Près de Saint-Denis (93), une chambre double dans un établissement moyenne gamme passe de 95 à 242 euros, quand, à Saint-Ouen, une chambre de 15m2 dans un trois-étoiles s’affiche à 5003 euros, contre moins de 100 euros en ce moment.
Même constat pour louer un appartement sur Airbnb. Pour un studio à Pigalle, il faudra débourser 50 euros de plus, le soir de la cérémonie d’ouverture, par rapport au même jour, faisant grimper la note au-dessus des 230 euros. Un 35m² à Marcadet-Poissonnier s’affiche à près de 300 euros, contre moins de 150 euros d’autres week-ends.
Un phénomène habituel durant les Jeux
Les hôteliers ont-ils flairé le bon coup ? Une chose est sûre, ce phénomène, habituel dans les villes hôtes des Jeux, était attendu. À Londres, une étude de Santander avait relevé une augmentation massive en 2012, de l’ordre de 189% en moyenne dans le centre de la ville, et jusqu’à 300% ailleurs. Même constat à Rio de Janeiro : en 2016, les statistiques officielles relevaient une inflation plus forte sur la nourriture et les logements dans la ville qu’ailleurs dans le pays. Elle était même devenue la destination la plus chère du monde sur Airbnb. Plus tôt, en 2002, le comité olympique alertait sur le «risque d’inflation excessive des prix pour les hôtels», en vue des jeux d’Athènes, qui manquait cruellement d’établissements. Et, en 1991, le Los Angeles Times mettait déjà en garde ses lecteurs sur des hausses de prix pour les Jeux de Barcelone...
Reste que ces chiffres stratosphériques écornent l'image des Jeux «inclusifs» et «populaires» que l'organisation de Paris 2024 promeut. Impossible, même pour les représentants des professionnels, de défendre de telles hausses, surtout constatées en Île-de-France. Une chambre passant de 90 à 1300 euros, «cela choque tout le monde», a reconnu cette semaine Frank Delvau, le patron de l'Umih Île-de-France, organisation patronale des hôteliers. «Oui, quelques hôtels ont fait exploser leurs prix, relève David Zenouda. J’ai regardé les prix des hôtels, je me suis dit qu’ils ne vendront jamais», sourit le vice-président de la branche francilienne de l'Umih, également représentant de l'Umih pour les JO.
Encadrer les prix semble toutefois pour le moins délicat, la liberté du commerce étant un droit constitutionnel. Juridiquement, si l’État peut en théorie intervenir sur les prix - comme il l’avait fait pour le gel hydroalcoolique -, il ne peut le faire que d’une main tremblante. En l’espèce, la régulation «ne peut pas s’appliquer. [...] Le pouvoir de contrôle des prix est très encadré», déclare-t-on du côté du gouvernement, où la question a été explorée. Les pouvoirs publics n’utilisent cette possibilité que lorsque les variations de prix sont «motivées par une situation de crise, des circonstances exceptionnelles, une calamité publique ou une situation manifestement anormale du marché dans un secteur déterminé», dispose le code du commerce. Des éléments absents ici, juge-t-on. Cette stratégie virerait également au bras-de-fer avec les professionnels, serait politiquement risquée et représenterait un casse-tête pour fixer un juste prix.
Vers un contrat de filière avec l’hôtellerie pour des «prix raisonnables»
À la place, l’exécutif compte sur deux outils, explique au Figaro le cabinet de la ministre déléguée chargée du Tourisme, Olivia Grégoire. D’une part, une «charte d’engagement», conclue avec les plateformes de location de logements, comme Airbnb. Selon ce texte, l’État prendra des dispositions, comme un «observatoire des prix», qui publiera des tendances à l’instant T. De leur côté, les entreprises devront avertir leurs clients, sur internet, qu’un lieu est proposé depuis peu en location. Un moyen, notamment, de pallier l’absence de notation avant les Jeux. En outre, une alerte s’affichera «lorsque le prix établi est supérieur au service rendu». Comprendre : trop cher. L’État espère toper avec les professionnels «d’ici fin 2023», pour une mise en place de ces outils dans la foulée.
D’autre part, le gouvernement négocie avec les représentants des hôteliers pour conclure un «contrat de filière» en vue des Jeux. Celui-ci demandera aux professionnels de prendre des engagements sur plusieurs points, comme l’information des touristes, leur accueil, l’accessibilité des logements... et les prix. Un point particulièrement conflictuel, l’État souhaitant que les hôteliers acceptent de mettre en place des «prix raisonnables», par exemple comparables aux années précédentes, à la même saison. En échange, les syndicats de la profession espèrent obtenir l’appui de l’État, par exemple pour mettre en conformité un maximum de chambres, du point de vue de l’accessibilité.
S’il n’y a pas de «blocage», les échanges sont difficiles. Éprouvés par les crises antérieures, dont la pandémie, les «gilets jaunes», les grèves contre la réforme des retraites et l’explosion des coûts de l’énergie, les hôteliers comptent bien profiter des Jeux pour se refaire une santé. L’État n’a pas à s’immiscer dans la fixation des tarifs, argumentent-ils aussi. «Sur le prix, les discussions n’ont pas encore abouti, car qu’est-ce qu’on appelle “raisonnable” ? On demande de baisser les prix ?», s’interroge ainsi David Zenouda. Des prix trop élevés risqueraient de décourager les visiteurs, rétorque Bercy, qui plaide la «protection des consommateurs, l’attractivité française» et rappelle que les établissements ont pu profiter d’excellentes saisons récentes pour remplir leurs caisses.
Pas de sanction prévue, mais des contrôles renforcés
Les échanges doivent reprendre à la rentrée. Pour l’heure, aucune sanction n’est prévue pour les logeurs qui fixeraient des tarifs hors norme. La répression des fraudes va toutefois multiplier les contrôles, priorisés sur les restaurants et les hôtels, pour traquer les fausses annonces, les offres de mauvaise qualité et s’assurer de «la véracité des prix par rapport à la prestation rendue». Parallèlement, un onglet consacré aux restaurants et hôtels sera ajouté dans l’application SignalConso, permettant aux consommateurs d’alerter la DGCCRF sur des abus.
De leur côté, les acteurs économiques se veulent tout de même rassurants, estimant que les prix actuels sont éphémères, les chambres et locations pour les JO restant pour le moment limitées. La concurrence jouera et la multiplication des offres fera baisser les prix, assure-t-on. «Nous nous attendons à une forte augmentation de l'offre, qui viendra - de facto - réguler le marché», répond Airbnb, rappelant que «les hôtes fixent librement leur prix». Une analyse partagée par l’Union nationale pour la promotion de la location de vacances - regroupant notamment Abritel, Airbnb ou Leboncoin -, qui appelle par ailleurs ses utilisateurs à «fixer des prix raisonnables».
«Les prix vont redescendre, à l’approche des derniers mois», apaise David Zenouda. Le représentant de l’Umih rappelle qu’une bonne partie des spectateurs des Jeux seront des Franciliens vivant sur place : la demande sera donc peut-être inférieure à l’offre, dégonflant les tarifs. La médiatisation actuelle risque aussi de dissuader des petits malins voulant faire flamber leurs tarifs. «Si un hôtel vend une chambre à 1500 euros contre 150 euros aujourd’hui, croyez bien que le touriste qui aura l’impression de se faire avoir utilisera les réseaux sociaux et avis en ligne pour bien enfoncer l’établissement», note-t-il enfin.
Les clients doivent donc choisir : vaut-il mieux attendre que les établissements comme les loueurs ouvrent leurs réservations, tirant les prix vers le bas, mais au risque de se retrouver sans logement ? Ou faut-il sortir son portefeuille dès maintenant, en payant le prix fort ?
Barron’s Weekend Summary: Thanks to Parlay Bets, Instead of simply gambling on the winner of a game, bettors can wrap predictions for every game
Cover Story:
-Thanks to Parlay Bets, Instead of simply gambling on the winner of a game, bettors can wrap predictions for every game on the schedule into one bet, or create custom wagers that their favorite quarterback will throw three touchdowns and the defense will sack the other quarterback twice. Sports-betting websites and apps are now offering thousands of bets a day and combining the outcomes of several sporting events together into megabets that could cover four years of college tuition if they pay off. They hardly ever do.
Interview:
-Brown University economist John N. Friedman talks to Barron’s about the findings of a new study on the economic consequences of elite college degrees. While less than 1% of Americans attend these schools, their graduates account disproportionately for the nation’s wealthiest citizens, scholars, and leaders, including a quarter of US Senators, half of all Rhodes scholars, and three-fourths of the Supreme Court justices appointed in the past 50 years. Ivy and Ivy-plus graduates are also three times more likely to work for the nation’s most illustrious employers.
Tech Trader:
-Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger is trying to turn Disney around, but investors aren’t seeing much to like as the stock trails the S&P 500 by more than 10 percentage points this year. The company is set on pulling more value out of the company’s considerable entertainment assets, a potential stock catalyst that Barron’s highlighted in a recent cover story about Disney. Despite mixed quarterly results this past week, Disney shares were up after the earnings report because the company is yet again raising prices for its Disney+ streaming service. Disney+ growth in the U.S. and Canada has gone flat, ending the latest quarter with 46 million subscribers in the two countries combined. International subscriber growth was marginally better, up 2%. (That’s assuming you exclude Disney+ Hotstar, which serves the Indian market; that service saw subscribers fall 24% in the quarter, after it lost the rights to stream Indian Premier League cricket matches.)
The Trader:
August is living up to its reputation as a tough month for stocks—but it might also be setting investors up for the next opportunity. This past week was full of false breakouts and aborted breakdowns, ultimately creating a lot of noise without providing much information, particularly with trading volume low in August. But it was required if the stock market were going to be able to continue higher. “A lot of people are in a wait-and-see mode,” says CappThesis founder and market technician Frank Cappelleri. “This was needed to see more constructive bullish patterns form.” It might take a while to get to that point, and investors should use this holding pattern as an opportunity to do some pruning of stocks that have run up while adding to sectors that had been less loved. Healthcare and utilities come to mind.
-H&R Block had a tough start to the year. Its shares had dropped 23% through mid-May amid worries about the prospect of the Internal Revenue Service offering free online tax filings and a lackluster fiscal third-quarter earnings report. The stock has since recouped most of those losses and, at $36.63, is down only 2.4% in 2023 as IRS competition fears have faded. The gains can keep coming. Even with its recent advance, H&R Block shares look cheap, trading at 8.7 times forecast earnings, below its five-year average of 10.2 times. Closing that gap implies the potential for a 17% gain in the share price from recent trading levels. H&R Block has several avenues for getting there.
Features:
-AI technology isn’t yet running money on its own, but a study conducted by two academics in South Korea shows a portfolio constructed using ChatGPT outperformed random stock selection as a portfolio manager. Among other things, ChatGPT was better at picking diversified assets, producing a more efficient portfolio. In another experiment, a dummy portfolio of stocks selected by ChatGPT significantly outperformed some of the leading investment funds in the UK As of March 6 to April 28, the continuing study showed that the AI-generated portfolio increased in value by 4.9%, surpassing the 3% gains of the S&P 500 index, while major UK investment funds lost 0.8%, over the same period. As of July 27, the ChatGPT fund had racked up nearly a10% return.
-Rent, don’t buy. The higher price tags have eroded some of the financial incentive to buy a home versus renting one for most buyers, a Zillow analysis of monthly costs provided to Barron’s shows. And the math is even worse for first-time buyers. Buyers purchasing the typical home with a 20% down payment have seen their savings shrink compared with renting since 2019, while those paying with a 5% down payment are facing monthly mortgage costs that are broadly higher than rent prices. The Zillow data used the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate and two Zillow indexes, one measuring the typical home value and the other measuring the typical rent, to determine basic monthly payments.
Europe:
-Stock in Versace’s owner, Capri Holdings, surged more than 50% Thursday after it agreed to be acquired for $8.5B by Tapestry , parent of the Coach brand. Capri shareholders will receive $57 per share in cash, a 65% premium to Wednesday’s closing price. Capri’s market capitalization at Wednesday’s close was $4.06B. The merger with Tapestry would leave the combined company better placed to compete with the likes of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Gucci parent Kering. The transaction is expected to close in calendar 2024.
Capri, which also owns fashion brands Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo, was due to report fiscal-first-quarter earnings Tuesday but rescheduled to Thursday.
Emerging Markets:
No update this week
Commodities:
-Retail gasoline prices are inching up again, to a national average of $3.829 a gallon on Monday afternoon, according to AAA. Pump prices are 8.3% higher, or 29 cents a gallon more, than last month’s average of $3.537 a gallon. While lower than last year’s high of more than $5 a gallon, it’s still a blow to household budgets, especially during the summer when people are driving more for vacations and excursions. Falling energy prices earlier this year helped cut growth in the consumer price index to a 3% annual rate in June. One of the main triggers for higher gasoline prices appears to be Russia’s war in Ukraine while Saudi Arabia and Russia have also announced production cuts.
Weekend Papers Summary
Sun, 13 Aug 2023 1:17 AM EST
NEW YORK TIMES
-Death toll in Maui inferno reaches 89.
The disaster is now the deadliest US wildfire event in the past century. The toll will continue to increase, Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii said.
-After the Maui fires, locals fear being shut out of recovery. Many who lost houses and jobs in Lahaina wonder if their home will re-emerge dominated by developers.
-Georgia Grand Jury to hear Donald Trump’s election interference case early next week. Prosecutors will present the results of their inquiry into whether former President Trump and his allies interfered in the 2020 election in the state.
-Why have republicans soured on the special counsel investigating Hunter Biden? Some GOP lawmakers see the appointment of David Weiss as a vindication, but others criticize the now-scuttled plea deal he struck with the president’s son.
-As the saga around President Biden’s son endures, Democrats are trying to dismiss worries. Hunter Biden’s plea deal on tax and gun charges fell apart in court last month.
-Ukrainian arms dealer Serhiy Pashinsky was sidelined in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s promise to root out corruption. In its hunt for weapons, Ukraine has rolled back its rules.
-Ukraine makes ‘tactically significant’ progress in its counteroffensive. Troops advanced 10 to 12 miles along two main lines of attack in Kyiv’s drive to reach the southern coast and sever Russian supply lines.
-2024 Presidential Election
Who Is Running?
-Donald Trump asserted his dominance in Iowa as he squared off against his closest rival, Ron DeSantis, in the Super Bowl of retail politics.
-Vivek Ramaswamy, a long-shot Republican candidate, said he has a 50% chance at winning the presidency.
-Popular devices known as “switches” are turning ordinary pistols into fully automatic weapons, making them deadlier and a growing threat to bystanders.
-Growing segregation by sex in Israel raises fears for women’s rights. An influential Ultra-Orthodox minority wants to expand the powers of all-male rabbinical courts, and to bar women and men from mixing in many public arenas.
-In Texas, activists are trying a new way to get rid of district attorneys they dislike.
-The Perseids meteor shower, one of the year’s best, is reaching its peak.
The event is formed from debris left by the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, and the summer weather could make it a very good show.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
-A basket of the top US streaming services will cost $87 this autumn, compared with $73 a year ago, as Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros Discovery and others have raised their prices in response to pressure from Wall Street to end the profligacy of the streaming boom. The average cable TV package costs $83 a month.
-Since launching his bid in late May, Gov. Ron DeSantis has been struggling to gain ground on the former president and consolidate support among anti-Trump voters within the party, forcing him to shake up the top brass of his campaign and attempt a reboot.
-Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered the sacking of all the country’s regional army recruitment chiefs after investigators discovered officials had been taking bribes to allow people to avoid the military draft on medical grounds.
-The US on Friday imposed sanctions on four Russian businessmen connected to the country’s largest private bank, stepping up a western campaign to punish Moscow’s elite for the invasion of Ukraine. The US targeted Petr Aven, Mikhail Fridman, German Khan and Alexey Kuzmichev, who are all connected to Alfa-Bank. The men already face sanctions from the UK and EU.
-Sam Bankman-Fried has been taken into custody after a federal judge found that the FTX founder probably attempted to tamper with witnesses on two occasions while awaiting trial on fraud charges stemming from the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange.
-Commodity trading advisers — hedge funds that rely on pattern-detecting algorithms and statistical models to direct trading across markets — have in recent weeks increased their exposure to equities to the highest level since before the pandemic, according to Deutsche Bank. CTAs managing hundreds of billions of dollars in assets now have net long futures positions on Wall Street’s S&P 500, Europe’s Euro Stoxx 50, London’s FTSE 100 and Japan’s Nikkei 225, among other indices, Deutsche Bank said.
-As airlines face pressure to cut emissions, they have joined forces with farmers to lobby in Washington so that corn helps power those planes. Their push has encountered resistance from environmental groups that say refining corn into biofuels has minimal benefits for earth’s climate. New tax rules that could make or break corn ethanol’s prospects as a so-called sustainable aviation fuel may be released as soon as next month. Airlines have pledged net zero emissions by 2050. But their plan hinges on sustainable aviation fuel that is in scarce supply, made mainly from cooking oil or animal fats.
-Novo Nordisk, the company behind semaglutide — branded as Ozempic for diabetes and Wegovy for weight loss — has benefited from a surge in demand from patients inspired by celebrities’ transformations. But the drug’s reputation as a “skinny jab” has not helped persuade health systems and insurers, or payers, to cover the cost of it.
-Public relations firm First International Resources will receive a monthly retainer of £100,000 for six months to strengthen the UAE’s reputation among “Western audiences”, according to a copy of its contract filed with the US Department of Justice under lobbying rules for foreign agents, which was published by the DoJ this month. The firm has been hired by the UAE’s state-owned renewables company Masdar, the contract said. Masdar is chaired by COP28 president-designate Sultan al-Jaber, who is also head of the petrostate’s oil company.
-Hong Kong was promised a limited degree of local autonomy for 50 years, an arrangement known as “one country, two systems”, under its handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997. Its internationally recognized common law system was a cornerstone of that model and the city’s success. But legal practitioners, including corporate lawyers, are concerned the broadening scope of a sweeping national security law could jeopardize the independence of the city’s legal system, a legacy of British administration, as Beijing tightens its grip.
NY POST
-President Joe Biden’s role as “the brand” for son Hunter’s lucrative international influence-peddling may have benefited him directly, according to mounting evidence from the first son’s abandoned laptop. Newly revealed bank records released by the House Oversight Committee show that the president’s family and allies hauled in a staggering $20 million from foreign sources in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and China, some of whom met personally with Biden while he served as vice president.
-Elon Musk has reached out to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to secure an “epic location” for his “cage match” with tech rival Mark Zuckerberg — but a government official has ruled out the Eternal City as a venue. “I spoke to the PM of Italy and Minister of Culture,” Musk tweeted on Friday. “Livestream will be on this platform and Meta. Everything in camera frame will be ancient Rome, so nothing modern at all.” Musk also posted a cryptic tweet hours later with a potential date for the clash between the tech titans.
Hunter special counsel could weigh on Biden 2024 campaign
Aug 12 (Reuters) - The appointment on Friday of a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden helped ensure that the criminal probe of the president’s son will cast a long shadow over his father’s reelection campaign.
Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss' new role as special counsel, announced on Friday, may force President Joe Biden to deal with unpleasant headlines and distract him and his campaign when he would prefer to talk about the economy or signature legislation as he campaigns for the 2024 presidential election, according to senior Democrats.
"This will have a sizable impact on the re-elect. They run the risk of constantly getting knocked off message. Every time someone goes before a grand jury or is subpoenaed, the press will keep asking about it. Biden wants to talk economy, guns, national security and he'll be less able to," said a senior Democrat.
Democrats also fear that special counsel investigations could grow in scope.
"Special counsels always find things they don't expect to find. (The probe of former President Bill) Clinton started as an investigation into a real estate deal he and Hillary did when he was governor and ended with Monica Lewinsky," the senior Democrat said.
The Biden campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Hunter Biden in July pleaded not guilty to charges of failing to pay more than $100,000 in taxes owed on over $1.5 million in income in 2017 and 2018. He did not enter a plea in a separate case in which he is charged with unlawfully owning a firearm while using illegal drugs, which is a felony.
Top Democrats were hopeful a plea agreement between Hunter Biden and Weiss would have allowed the president to move past his son’s legal troubles and relegate the issue to Republican-led congressional investigations.
But a federal judge refused to accept a proposed plea deal and Weiss said in a court filing on Friday that talks between the two sides have since broken down.
A potential trial raises the possibility of an unprecedented spectacle in U.S. history: The son of a sitting president facing criminal charges while his father campaigns for re-election, likely against Republican Donald Trump, who faces at least three upcoming criminal trials of his own.
Republicans have accused the elder Biden of profiting from his son's business ventures in Ukraine and China, though they have yet to produce any evidence of wrongdoing. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy said in July that the chamber might launch an impeachment inquiry in the autumn.
Half of Americans believe Hunter Biden received preferential treatment from prosecutors who tried to reach a plea deal, a Reuters/Ipsos poll in June found before the plea deal fell apart. But most Americans said the Hunter Biden plea deal did not affect their likelihood of voting for Biden next year, the poll found.
Hedge funds pile into equities after missing this year’s rally
Commodity trading advisers aim to catch up after missing out
Trend-following hedge funds have piled into global equities as market volatility has fallen and stocks climb on investors’ hopes that interest rate rises are close to their peak.
Commodity trading advisers — hedge funds that rely on pattern-detecting algorithms and statistical models to direct trading across markets — have in recent weeks increased their exposure to equities to the highest level since before the pandemic, according to Deutsche Bank.
CTAs managing hundreds of billions of dollars in assets now have net long futures positions on Wall Street’s S&P 500, Europe’s Euro Stoxx 50, London’s FTSE 100 and Japan’s Nikkei 225, among other indices, Deutsche said.
The broad sell-off in stock and fixed income markets last year powered the computer-powered quantitative investment industry to its best annual returns in more than two decades. However, it has largely missed out on this year’s unexpected stock market gains.
“Last year we had a trend downwards for bonds and equities and that’s the kind of environment where momentum-following CTAs do really well. This year we’ve had more gyrations, especially on the bond side,” said Parag Thatte, a strategist at Deutsche Bank.
Société Générale’s CTA index — which measures the performance of 20 major funds, including those managed by Man Group, Lynx Asset Management and Pimco — rose almost 20 per cent last year as equity markets slumped but has shed 2.2 per cent since January even though stocks have rebounded, Refinitiv data shows.
“In May and June the [US] equity rally was very much a short covering exercise,” said Huw Roberts, head of analytics at research group Quant Insight, describing how big investors bought back stocks they had been betting against to limit their losses. “The July rally was all about new [investments] going on.”
CTAs have slowly raised their equity holdings — as well as those in gold, copper and oil — as their aggregate exposure to bonds and currencies has declined.
Those shifts have come as the Vix volatility index, which measures expected volatility on the blue-chip S&P 500, has dropped to its lowest level since early 2020, despite the shadows of high inflation, economic recession and the uncertainty over when interest rates will begin to fall.
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“For CTAs, both volatility and trend signals matter,” said Thatte. “As volatility has come down, CTAs have upped their equity positioning, and markets have gone up at the same time so they’ve gone from short equities to long.”
That means that some CTAs would dump equities, exacerbating a wider sell-off, if volatility were to suddenly shoot higher, however.
“Summer is often when there’s a crisis,” Roberts said. “Maybe it’s because desks are thinly manned, so liquidity is poor. But you need a catalyst for a volatility event. Anything that ruins the idea that we’ve hit peak rates and that cuts are coming would probably do the trick.”
Markets have yet to factor in such risks. “Since our data began in 2008, it has never cost less to protect against an S&P 500 drawdown in the next 12 months,” Bank of America analysts said in late July.
Russia launches first Moon mission in half a century: what it means for science
The Luna 25 spacecraft will attempt to land at the lunar south pole for the first time in a hunt for valuable water ice.
Russia has launched uncrewed spacecraft to the Moon’s south pole — its first lunar mission in 47 years. If successful, the mission would be the first to land in the region, and could mark the start of considerable activity there from multiple countries and private companies.
“It’s an area where we might expect to see increased concentrations of water ice,” says Simeon Barber, a planetary scientist at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK. “As you go further towards the pole, it gets colder and the potential for water ice increases.”
These six countries are about to go to the Moon — here’s why
Luna 25 launched at 11.11 p.m. UTC on a Soyuz rocket on 10 August from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in eastern Russia — marking a move away from Russia’s dependence on Kazakhstan, which hosts its main launch site, the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It will take around five days for the spacecraft to reach a 100-kilometre orbit around the Moon. The landing attempt is scheduled for 21 August at the 100-kilometre-wide Boguslawsky crater, about 500 kilometres from the Moon’s south pole.
This is the first of many missions planned for the south pole. India’s Chandrayaan-3 will attempt to land in the region on 23 August. China plans to send a rover there in 2026, and NASA’s Artemis programme, which will attempt to return humans to the Moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, is also focusing on the south pole. As part of Artemis, several US companies are set to attempt landings there in the coming years.
Luna 25 is “an opportunity to steal the march on other people get some positive publicity,” says Roger Launius, NASA’s former chief historian.
Search for ice
Orbital data since the 1990s suggests the Moon’s poles contain sizeable quantities of water ice, which, if accessible, could be a valuable resource for future human missions. “You can generate hydrogen and oxygen from it which could be used to produce either drinking water, breathable air, or even to produce rocket fuel,” says Nico Dettman, Lunar Exploration Group Leader at the European Space Agency. That could make the Moon “a stepping stone for further destinations” in the Solar System.
In June, Yuri Borisov, head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, described the Luna 25 mission as “high risk” with a 70% chance of success. NASA chief Senator Bill Nelson said on 8 August that the agency “wished them well”, noting that NASA saw any space race to return humans to the Moon as being between the United States and China.
Two decades in the making, Luna 25 is a stationary lander that weighs about 1,750 kilograms and is Russia’s first attempt to land on the Moon since the Luna 24 mission in 1976, which returned lunar rocks to Earth. Luna 25 by comparison is “fairly modest”, says Scott Pace, former executive secretary of the US National Space Council, carrying just 30 kilograms of scientific instruments.
The Luna 25 lander is scheduled to land on the Moon’s surface on 21 August (artist’s impression).Credit: Mechanik/Alamy
The mission’s purpose might be grander than its scientific return, says Pace. “Politically they probably feel they have to [go back],” he says, given activity from other nations. “I think it’s more of a statement that they’re still here and they still have ambitions.” The country is already working with China to build a lunar research station, with China also hoping to send astronauts to the Moon by 2030.
Digging down
Luna 25’s main instrument is a robotic arm that will attempt to dig up to 50 centimetres into the floor of the Boguslawsky crater to look for signs of water ice. Barber had been part of a European team that would have collaborated with Russia on these activities and a planned follow-up mission, Luna 27, but the collaboration ended last year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Water ice, if discovered, would be useful scientifically. “By understanding how the Moon has collected water over time, we could start to piece together the history of water in the Solar System,” says Barber. “We can start asking questions about the local conditions near Earth as it was evolving.”
But the Russian mission striking ice at Boguslawsky is “pretty unlikely”, because temperatures in the crater are too high, says Margaret Landis, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
More promising might be a smaller and more deeply shadowed crater within Boguslawsky, but it’s unclear if Russia could attempt a landing here. (Roscosmos declined Nature’s request for interview.)
“A null result is potentially just as interesting as a positive detection,” says Landis. Next year, a NASA rover called VIPER and a separate hopping spacecraft called Micro-Nova from the US firm Intuitive Machines will also look for ice inside lunar craters at the south pole. Results from this variety of surface missions could “help us narrow down where the water could be”, says Landis.
A Soyuzb rocket launched Luna 25 to the Moon from Vostochny Cosmodrome in eatern Russia.Credit: Roscosmos State Space Corporation via AP/Alamy
Luna 25 will also image the surface, study the interaction between the solar wind and the Moon, and deploy a laser reflector to precisely measure the Earth–Moon distance. Providing the landing goes smoothly, the craft is expected to operate for one year.
If Luna 25 lands, Russia will succeed where many others have failed recently. Since 1976, only China has successfully landed on the Moon, with a lander and rover in 2013 and 2018, and a sample-return mission in 2020. In 2019, India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission and Israel’s Beresheet lander crashed on the surface, and Japan’s Hakuto lander suffered the same fate in April.
“It’d be good to see somebody stick the landing,” says Landis.