What was the Media Worried About – June 2022

Back to our regularly scheduled worrying.  Spoiler alert, but this is our third straight month without animal-related mayhem.

Markets

AMAZON STOCK DROPS BY 95%!!!  Ok, it was a 20 for 1 stock split, but the professional clickbait artists couldn’t help themselves on that one.

Regulators are coming for ESG

Meanwhile, HSBC Global Head of Responsible Investments got suspended for pulling back the curtain:

http://https://youtu.be/bfNamRmje-s

He absolutely burns it to the ground.  This is a blog post for another day as I do have strong feelings on this.  In short, Wall Street is charging 15x for “ESG” that isn’t really all that different from traditional indexing.  At the same time, the worm is turning as ESG returns get clobbered.

It is officially a bear market.

The Fed hikes another 75 bps.

The ECB plans to tighten for the first time in a decade.

Inflation is 8.6%.  Transitory has become a dirty word.

Crypto crashes.  Bitcoin under $20,000.  In DeFi news, a DAO tried to seize a whale’s account. You don’t really need to know what that means.

Potpourri

Germany fires up coal plants after shutting down nuclear, being shut off from Russian energy.  What an absolute clown show.

EY staff have been cheating on their ethics exams for years.  “Recessions are Wall Street’s most honest auditor.” – Eddy Elfenbein

There is now a sriracha shortage due to supply chain issues.