* Bond market bears wake up, hurt fixed income and bubbly
assets
* Oil has best start to a year since 2005
* Gold has worst start in 39 years
* Emerging markets clattered by strong dollar
* Meme stocks and digital art have wild few months
By Marc Jones
LONDON, March 31 (Reuters) - A new U.S. president with $1.9
trillion to spend, amateur traders taking on seasoned hedge
funds, hot oil, digital art selling for tens of millions of
dollars and grizzly bears in the bond markets. It has been an
eventful start to 2021.
A year into the coronavirus pandemic and the focus has been
on the vaccines vs variants battle crucial to getting some
normality back into the world economy.
It has given oil LCOc1 its best start to a year since
2005, with a 25% gain. World stocks .MIWD00000PUS have hit a
few new highs too but it's a very different story from last
year's. Whisper it, but some of the fabled FAANGs .NYFANG and
other stratospherically valued stocks like Tesla TSLA.O will
end Q1 down.
Then there's been the bond bears, who have given the
government debt markets their worst run since the 2013 "taper
tantrum". U.S. Treasuries and German Bund have lost 6%-6.5%;
emerging market currency debt holders are down 7%.
The Democrats' surprise clinching of the U.S. Senate in
January cleared the way for a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan. That
has raised bets on growth and inflation, and some worry the
Federal Reserve might be spooked into reeling in support.
BCA strategist Arthur Budaghyan said the Senate wins forced
a change the view from investors and likened the market impact
of the bumper stimulus plan to riding a tiger.
"Riding a tiger is fun," Budaghyan said. "The only hitch is
that no one can safely get off a tiger."
The knock-on effects have been widespread.
From their January peaks, funds, stocks or currencies linked
to innovation – the ARK Innovation Fund, Solar Energy stocks,
BioTech shares, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, and special
purpose acquisition companies or SPACs – are down 20-25%.
The dollar has made the multitude of investment banks that
predicted its fall look like fools by having its best Q1 since
2015 and any quarter since 2018. =USD
Oil's hot streak has seen the Canadian dollar CAD= and
Norwegian crown NOK= outperform. Britain's pound GBP= has
too thanks to the UK's rapid COVID vaccine rollout programme,
but emerging markets have been skittled.
Brazil's real BRL= and Turkey's TRY= lira have followed
last year's 20% batterings with further 10% drops. Remarkably
the lira was the world's best performer for the first six weeks
of 2021. Then bond yields and energy prices kicked higher, and
then President Tayyip Erdogan sacked another central banker.
"It is all been about the decoupling between the U.S. and
the rest of the world," said Axa's chief economist Gilles Moec,
highlighting that at over 6%, the U.S. is set to grow at its
quickest rate since 1984 this year and faster than China for the
first time in at least 20 years.
MEME MAYHEM
While oil and an industrial metals like copper have soared
on global reopening hopes, safe-haven gold XAU= has dumped
11%, marking its worst start to a year since 1982, albeit after
a near 25% leap in 2020.
Last week's blockage of Egypt's Suez canal saw some shipping
rates double and electric car demand means
palladium and platinum and are still 5-10% higher this year, but
wheat and other key food prices have wilted badly.
At the other end of the investment spectrum, battles still
rumble between online retail investors and the hedge funds who
bet big money against so-called meme stocks like GameStop.
The video-game retailer's shares soared as much as 2,700% in
January when millions of small investors, egged on by social
media, employed a classic Wall Street short squeeze on Wall
Street itself. It is still up 950% GME.N whereas the main
world stock index .MIWD00000PUS is up only 3%.
And if that doesn't bamboozle the mind, a digital-only
artwork sold for nearly $70 million this month. The buyer? A
crypto asset investor going by the pseudonym "Metakovan."
"Compared to the unusualness of Q1's catalysts – a
last-minute Democratic sweep, a surprisingly large $1.9 trillion
U.S. stimulus, meme stock trading, bubblettes bursting – Q2 will
probably look less dramatic." said JPMorgan's cross-asset
strategist John Normand.
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Emerging markets http://tmsnrt.rs/2ihRugV
World stocks have gained ground this year https://tmsnrt.rs/3m9oS8b
Dollar's strongest start to a year in six years https://tmsnrt.rs/2QQx69L
Currencies in 2021 https://tmsnrt.rs/39sQ6kV
U.S. yields and inflation https://tmsnrt.rs/3rElOC9
Global markets in 2021 https://tmsnrt.rs/3dmPVsM
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