“We believe that the lines between travel and living are blurring, and the global pandemic has accelerated the ability to live anywhere” “Work-from-home became work-from-any-home on Airbnb.” “Idea of strangers staying together, in each others’ homes, was not so crazy after all,” Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO   The flotation comes at the time of an enthusiastic stock market and when investor appetite for tech companies is soaring. Price of $68 per share for 51,323,531 and $47b valuation fetched ahead of the listing. topped the initial target range of $44-$50 and the final price range of $56-$60 raised on the back…

Analysts like to categorize stocks as either value or growth. This is done with the caveat that some stocks resemble both types, or cannot be clearly categorized as either. Knowing the difference between two is essential to assess the risk and the opportunities for your portfolio. This article will briefly introduce characteristics of growth and value investments. It will also clarify what are desirable outcomes for growth and value investors, what are the risks and more importantly the opportunity costs for both investment styles. Let’s start with a simple description.   Growth Stocks Shares of the companies that are experiencing…

US stock-market is largest in the world and continue to be among the deepest, most liquid and most efficient markets. US market depth and breadth enables individual investors diverse choice like no other markets. Also dominant position of multinational corporations listed in US allows for global geographical diversification of the revenues which makes them more resilient but also allows to rip some benefits of the growth in Emerging Economies. While US Remains the world’s largest economy since 1871, currently at 23.6% share (GDP of $21.44t); US stock-market represents much bigger portion of the world’s equities at 54.5%. Given its dominance,…

Industry weights in US and UK market in 1900 and 2017Diversification reduces the exposure to any one particular distinct asset or risk. For the equity portion of the portfolio this can mean spreading investments across the world, diversifying by sector and buying shares in a lot of companies. That’s why low cost funds tracking broad market indexes are considered as a good long-term diversification instrument for an equity portfolio. Another reason for broad market diversification is the questionable ability of the individual investor to select winners or to avoid losers (nearly impossible tasks according to academic research). It is not…