The market at a glance: "Half-full glass" [July 2023]

This one should please fans of psychedelic rock. Our pick for this month is “Half-Full Glass of Wine” by the Australian group Tame Impala. The song begins with hi-hats that give you the sensation of riding a galloping horse, and then a powerful electric guitar kicks in. After a few bars, the tempo gradually slows down, leaving the floor to the vocal line before the tension picks up again. From both a rhythmic and lyrical standpoint, this song perfectly illustrates what happened in the markets in July: a story of a half-full glass.?

Let’s start with the full part of the glass:

The economic situation showed improvements on many fronts. In just a few weeks, we witnessed positive developments on topics that had been causing concern for investors for quite some time. Inflation is retreating, the threat of a financial crisis has diminished, the US treasury found a way to avoid a debt crisis, and the financial results reported by companies so far have been encouraging. These are all valid reasons to celebrate.??

However, despite this breath of fresh air, the financial markets' performance was more mixed than one might have expected...

Read the full analysis of Victor Cianni, Chief Investment Officer at Alpian

Demystification room: CBDC, hit or flop??

Although the first cryptocurrency was introduced in 2009, it wasn't until 11 years later that the advantages of developing digital currencies became evident for central banks. And not as a threat but as an opportunity.

3 years ago, the Bahamas central bank was launching the first CBDC, later followed by other central banks. What is a CBDC and what is in there for the rest of us? Let’s demystify the concept.?

Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is the digital form of a government-issued currency. It exists only electronically and is intended for use by households and businesses for making payments. Why the sudden interest from central banks?

Discover the different reasons

Let’s talk about wealth: Do your emotions control your finances??

For a long time, economists have thought of investors as rational people, capable of dispassionate and optimal investment decisions.

It is only in the second half of the 20th century that some researchers really started challenging the human ability to be consistently rational, especially when investing.

This led to the emergence of a very prolific field of research: behavioral economics.

Several hundreds of articles and a few Nobel prizes later, nobody would dare to question that emotions and psychology play a key role in an investor’s choices.

Learn about behavioral finances

We hope these readings will assist you in managing your personal finances and investments more effectively.

We wish you a pleasant rest of the summer.