Newsletter

June 2021 Newsletter

Inflation Worries Overblown? Fears about inflation have come to a screeching halt.  While the inflation rate of 5% is at a 13-year high (measured by annual change in consumer price index), it is important to understand the base effect – which occurs when one of the two data points being compared is unusual to the […]
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May 2021 Newsletter

Roaring Recovery The U.S. economy continues its amazing recovery while vaccination effort is finally providing a sense of finally coming out of the pandemic.  The U.S. weekly unemployment claims, which is a proxy for layoffs, fell to 385,000 in the last week of May compared to a revised 405,000 number from the prior week.  This […]
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April 2021 Newsletter

Unintended Consequences Something rather strange is occurring in the U.S. labor markets – despite the high unemployment rate, business owners are complaining that they are not able to hire to fill their open positions.  In the aftermath of the pandemic, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data shows that there are over 100 million Americans who […]
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March 2021 Newsletter

Strong Economic Recovery U.S. employers added a seasonally adjusted 916,000 jobs in March, far ahead of the Dow Jones estimate of 675,000.  This is the best job gains since August, leading to a pandemic-low unemployment rate of 6.0%.  As states lift restrictions and vaccine rollout remains ahead of schedule, consumers are gaining more confidence and […]
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February 2021 Newsletter

For the month of February, SARINA Capital fund I and II were down 2.9% and 4.7%, respectively compared to a gains of 2.6% and 6.1% in S&P 500 and Russell 2000 index.  Since we have taken a contrarian view of the markets, we expected our performance to be weaker in February as markets continued to […]
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January 2021 Newsletter

2021 Strategy 2021 markets came out of the gates with a great deal of optimism but we have already seen huge volatility in the markets driven by uncertainty about the COVID-19 spread (especially what we are seeing in UK and Europe overall), government’s ability to effectively distribute the vaccine, and concerns about inflationary pressures that […]
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December 2020 Newsletter

A Rollercoaster Year 2020 was indeed one for the history books and from an investing perspective, it provided lessons that can take an individual a lifetime to learn!  Some lessons we learned: In times of distress, markets are not rational. Market and the economy are not connected (until they’ll be linked again in the future). […]
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November 2020 Newsletter

Elections came and went and investors seemed extremely optimistic about the results – a Biden victory was slated to mean bad news for the markets but the exact opposite has happened.  Any possible negativity around election results has been overshadowed by positive news about the vaccine which has fueled markets to new highs, particularly the […]
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October 2020 Newsletter

October lived it up to expectation of being a scarry month!  Concerns related to a second COVID-19 wave materialized in Europe and U.S. resulting in major European countries imposing a second (albeit lighter) lockdown.  Additionally, concerns about U.S. election results and post-election result turmoil drove fears into the hearts of investors.  Lastly, calls about markets […]
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September 2020 Newsletter

September turned out to be an early Halloween warning as many investors were spooked by wild swings in the markets.  SARINA Capital fund I and II were down 0.2% and 0.8%, respectively, while S&P 500 and Russell 2000 were down 3.9% and 3.5%, respectively.  The month of October has started with optimism, but investors should […]
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