Dear friends

January kicked off with the usual year-end reviews trying to make sense of 2022, which will go down in history as the worst year for stocks since 2008. Major stock indexes in the United States suffered significant losses, led by the Nasdaq, down 34%, and the S&P 500, down 20% last year. Analysts therefore speculated that Q1 2023 could retest the 2022 lows before a broader macroeconomic recovery.

U.S. inflation was, however, in line with expectations, declining slightly for the sixth consecutive month to +6.5%. While there were no signs that the FED would deviate from its price stability target, there was cautious optimism that they would be careful not to plunge the global economy into an intolerable slowdown.

The number of job openings in the U.S.A. declined more than expected to 10.5 million, indicating relative strength in the labor market. Together with the solid GDP data for the last quarter, this demonstrated a certain resilience to recession fears and ensured healthy growth for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.

All in all, it was a positive start into the year with the S&P 500 +6.2%, MSCI World Index +7.0%, 20-year bonds +7.1% and gold +5.8%. Our strategies also ended all in the green with Universal +0.1%, Progressive +0.2% and CryptoMax +1.8%.

As for the rest of the world, Japan and China made important moves: Japan announced a new stimulus package aimed at boosting its economy, while China’s central bank cut the reserve requirement ratio for banks to provide more liquidity in the economy.

The end of January also marked the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit, which is considered the luckiest of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac.

Although rabbits are gentle, they’re also clever and sometimes make sudden unexpected turns. So, the year 2023 might bring us a little more peace and clarity, a few surprises and hopefully some bigger carrots…

Stay happy, healthy and wealthy!

Omar