Market analysis: May 2024 | Keep moving

Join Victor Cianni, FRM Alpian's Chief Investment Officer, as he navigates the twists and turns of May 2024's market trends following the rhythm of one special song. To listen to the song of the month, you can follow our Spotify playlist.

As we reflect on the past month's market performance, we want to first express our gratitude to everyone who participated in our recent Alpian Survey! Your feedback is the driving force behind our continuous improvements, and we take it very seriously.

If you weren't the lucky winner of the raffle this time, don't worry—there will be more opportunities ahead!

Now, let's dive into the highlights and insights from May, where we just seem to keep moving.

Happy reading!

The market at a glance: Keep moving

"Move along. There is nothing to see here." When markets dropped in April, many of us crowded around the accident scene, hoping to see something intriguing. The most sarcastic investors were already putting forward all kinds of doom-and-gloom theses: "A recession is coming," "The long-awaited market crash is around the corner," "The Fed did this," "Sell in May and go away...".

While we were dispersed and let our speculations continue, we barely noticed that there was indeed nothing to see or rather nothing new. The markets bounced back, bringing rather good performance to our portfolios.

The speculation has not really stopped; we have to deal with the same concerns that have been more or less the same for the past two years, but once again, we have to move along. So, to encourage that move forward, we picked this rather upbeat song released in 2021 by the British music project Jungle, "Keep Moving".

In the absence of bad news, that's possibly the best strategy, but let's review first what happened in the markets.

Key takeaways

• Equity markets bounced back in May, with US stocks up 4.8% and Swiss equities leading with a 6.6% gain.
• The bond market remained volatile due to central bank indecision on interest rates, though the month ended positively for bond portfolios.
• The Swiss Franc appreciated against the dollar and Euro, driven by better-than-expected GDP growth and the Swiss National Bank's steady rate policy.
• Cryptocurrencies gained political attention in the US, Bitcoin ETFs saw fresh inflows, and the SEC approved the first Ethereum ETF.

Read the full analysis of what happened in the market last month here.

Money Mixtape: Your 5-minute financial podcast!

Do you like the musical format of our market update? Then make sure to listen to “Money Mixtape” on World Radio Switzerland, the 5-minute radio show that puts finance into music! Here's what we covered this month. We're live every Monday at 08:45 am!

For now, you can listen to the previous episodes here:

• Personal finances: It's like taking a bath!
• Foreign exchange rates: Don't pay too much
• Interest rates: How to get the best?

Demystification room?– Be aware! Cybercrime

There’s a segment of activity growing way faster than inflation - hackers, scammers, and fraudsters, all belong to a very lucrative industry - Cybercrime!?

In its semi-annual report for the second half of 2023 published in May 2024, the National Cyber Security Centre has received more than 30,000 cyber incident reports, twice as many as in the same period last year. It is even worse for phishing attempts with 5536 reports.?

What do they want from you and what can you do to protect yourself??

Here are 4 general principles:?

• Do not share your personal data (login details, one-time passcodes (OTP), or online banking information such as card PIN, CVV, or account information). They are yours and should remain private.?
• Do not trust unverified applications (mobile, desktop, or web browser extensions).?
• Stay clear of anything suspicious or utterly appealing (suspicious money schemes, suspicious links, unknown attachments).?
• Do not interact with your bank in unofficial ways (use the official website, the official mobile application, and do not grant access to your computer).

Stay tuned for the upcoming article series covering everything you need to know about cybersecurity which can soon be found on our blog!?