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1: The relative market outperformance of the IT sector vs energy sector (a proxy for growth vs value) appears highly correlated to the number of global Covid cases. The chart below is essentially an illustration of the re-opening vs lockdown trade.
2: Covid is under control in many regions, but the chart below shows how the threat remains. It feels like things are getting back to normal, but we cannot take our eye off the ball. Covid is endemic and likely with us for a very long time, requiring continuous suppression.
3: The following chart shows 230 years of US bond yields. Hopefully you can zoom in to read the annotations because it is an interesting history. One simple observation: If you exclude the period of rising rates post WWII, since 1790 US bond yields have been on a long-term decline. This decline is supported by the rise of the US as the primary world economic and military power. (The chart ends at February 2019, but the data since then further supports this observation.)
4: The previous chart shows how the gradual transition of monetary dominance from the British pound to the US dollar made US bonds more attractive. Today, while there are growing challenges to the USD as the global reserve currency - i.e. Euro, Yuan - the greenback remains well supported by 60% of global FX reserves.
5: I mentioned the Euro and Yuan as potential rivals to the dollar. There is another…crypto currencies. Crypto currency adoption is still in the early stages and has many hurdles to overcome, but there may come a day when crypto rivals major currencies as a means of transaction. However, as the chart below shows, there’s still a long way to go.