Harald Berlinicke, CFA 🍵’s Post

Planning on watching Netflix tonight? Some food for thought here. h/t Vatsal Nahata (+++Opinions are my own. Not investment advice. Do your own research.+++) Tap the bell 🔔 to subscribe to my profile & you'll be notified when I post. 💸

Dating apps 😍 hoping to rekindle growth with AI-powered chat-up lines 🤖🫦 Hard not to be cynical about it or as one reader commented: "Is that a large language learning model in your pocket or are you happy to see me?” 😀 As the Financial Times reports: "Online dating giants are racing to create AI-powered 'wingmen' that can coach frustrated Gen Z users on how to craft better chat-up lines and develop a budding romance. Tinder, Hinge, Bumble Inc. and Grindr said they are building or testing AI tools and chatbot assistants to do everything from generate icebreakers 🧊 and building profiles to providing feedback on user flirting. 'AI is going to help people make better connections,' Grindr chief product officer AJ Balance told the FT. 'It’s that friend in the bar who’s helping you to ask someone out — but in the virtual context.' ⚠️ This industry pivot towards AI-powered relationship advice and coaching comes as so-called dating app fatigue, particularly among younger users, continues to plague the online matchmaking market. Online dating groups are betting that personalised feedback and advice from AI chatbots will bring disappointed daters back to their products. Balance said Grindr’s chatbot assistant, called the Grindr Wingman, would fend off burnout by helping users overcome the 'biggest pain points' of online dating, including by generating conversation prompts based on users’ unique profiles and chat histories. He added AI could ultimately eliminate the hard work of online dating: 'The idea of a wingman talking to someone else’s wingman, maybe to see what it’d be like to go on a date or to find common areas of interest, is something that’s worth exploring,' he said. 🥴 Tinder, the product that first popularised the act of sorting through prospective matches’ profiles by swiping left or right, has likewise said that it aims to use AI 'to support daters throughout the entire dating journey' within 'the coming 12 months'. A survey by OnePoll in March found that more than three quarters of dating app users had experienced burnout, with 40 per cent of them blaming their exhaustion on repeated failures to find a good match. Hinge, Match Group's relationship-focused product besides Tinder, said it was also pursuing the 'ultimate goal' of users feeling 'like they have a personal matchmaker (driven by AI) inside the app'. Some experts remain unconvinced. 'The endpoint of all this is about turning love into an efficient matchmaking activity rather than an unpredictable turn of destiny,' said Carolina Bandinelli, a researcher at the University of Warwick. 'And I don’t think that’s possible.'" Or desirable I may add. 🥹 (+++Opinions are my own. Not investment advice. Do your own research.+++) Tap the bell 🔔 to subscribe to my profile & you'll be notified when I post. 💸

👨⚕️ Would love to check my fellow investors' pulse 🩺 with the following poll 🗳️ ❓ What's your near-term view on the dollar 💵 from here? ℹ️ The US dollar has recently shown some weakness vis-à-vis other main currencies such the Euro 💶, the British pound 💷 and the Japanese yen 💴. A trend that‘s likely to continue, stall or reverse? If you have an idea 💡 for a LinkedIn poll but feel you lack the reach to make the results meaningful, do send me a DM 📥 and I may run it for you…provided the topic resonates with me! (I will, of course, acknowledge the collaboration.) I am running 🏃♂️ a weekly investment related poll on Mondays (08:00 CET) for 7 days. 🙏 Thanks for participating! (+++Opinions are my own. Not investment advice. Do your own research.+++) #markets #investing #money #currencies #assetallocation 👋 Follow me by tapping the bell 🔔 on my profile & you'll be notified when I post. 💸 ➡️ As I do not want to sway the poll one way or another, I may not specifically respond to anybody’s comments on it. ⬅️

Gold 🏅 entering cursed 👻 month of September Bloomberg reporting on a fascinating seasonal pattern for gold in recent years: "Gold investors returning from their summer holidays will be eager to see whether the precious metal can sustain its record-breaking rally, or if it will succumb to the curse of September. ⚠️ Bullion has dropped every September since 2017. Over that period, the average decline has been 3.2% in September – easily the worst month of the year, and far below the monthly average gain of 1%. It’s a phenomenon that’s perplexed economists who believe markets should behave more efficiently, and it isn’t limited to gold: September is also commonly the worst month for US stocks, with average declines of more than 1.5% in the S&P 500 over the past decade. 💡The dynamic is far from reliable — gold has actually risen in September over a three-decade horizon — but one explanation for the recent weakness is that traders are buying bullion to take a defensive position over the increasingly turbulent summer months, before selling on their return to the office in September. 'Before you go on vacation and get away from your screens, you want to hedge the risk that you have in the market, and one way you can do that is to buy gold,' said Boris MIKANIKREZAI, an analyst at Fastmarkets. Academics have shown that some investors do 'switch off' over the summer, and adding safe-haven bullion to the portfolio might offer peace of mind during a period that’s traditionally more volatile. Throughout history, conflicts and market meltdowns have broken out frequently over the summer, and volatility can be exacerbated when trading desks are understaffed and senior executives are away. The flip side is that when September arrives, there’s an inbuilt headwind for gold. September is also traditionally the dollar’s strongest month, which means traders using other currencies can buy less gold with their money. The precious metal has rallied 22% this year, including 8% since July. It has been supported by robust purchases by central banks, increased haven demand amid geopolitical tensions, and healthy buying of physical bars in the over-the-counter market. Gold’s gains have also been driven by expectations the Federal Reserve will start to ease monetary policy next month. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last week that the 'time has come' to lower interest rates, but the speed and magnitude of cuts may be key to determining whether bullion maintains its momentum. Whether these tailwinds are enough to break the September curse is another question. 'Seasonality points to a potentially challenging month ahead,' said Ole Sloth Hansen, head of commodities strategy at Saxo Bank A/S." (+++Opinions are my own. Not investment advice. Do your own research.+++) #markets #investing #money #wealthmanagement #gold Tap the bell 🔔 to subscribe to my profile & you'll be notified when I post. 💸

NVIDIA Earnings Party in NYC — "It’s over, man. It’s over." ⌛️ As Financial Times Alphaville reports on a special earnings party that took place to celebrate Nvidia’s latest earnings announcement 📣, I can't help but wonder whether this is yet the latest sign that things have gotten too crazy about the stock. "Nvidia’s earnings 'have become as important for US markets as key economic data,' writes MainFT. For some, they’d become another excuse to get drunk 🥴 on a Wednesday afternoon. On a swelteringly hot 🔥 New York summer’s day, four dozen or so sweaty Nvidia enthusiasts gather at a Storehouse sports bar on Sixth Avenue. Together, they count down to the chipmaker’s second-quarter results, eyes fixed on the seven large screens blasting CNBC's Fast Money 💸 rather than round two of the US Open 🎾. The mastermind behind this gathering is Lauren Balik, an equities analyst who earlier in the day had invited 'longs, shorts, and anyone else’ to come grab a beer in honour of Wall Street’s hottest stock. An exotic 🍍derivatives trader weighs in gloomily: 'The fact there’s a dedicated countdown on CNBC to these results, watched at a bar by a bunch of lemmings like me . . . it’s over, man. It’s over.' 😩 The countdown itself begins before we find out what, exactly, 'it’s might be. Juiced up on expensive craft beer, the crowd booms FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE and lets out a collective 'HELL YEAH' as the share price initially ticks higher. A man in a baseball cap thrusts his arms into the air in delight. Another promptly downs a pint of Bud Light. A disgruntled sports fan at the far end of the bar looks on, confused. But the good times 🕰️ don’t last. In Nvidia earnings world, the results qualify as a blip, and the share price swings lower📉 to a chorus of boos." (+++Opinions are my own. Not investment advice. Do your own research.+++) #markets #investing #money #wealthmanagement #nvidia Tap the bell 🔔 to subscribe to my profile & you'll be notified when I post. 💸

A wealth manager with a diversification strategy that may…defeat the purpose?! Happy Friday! 😃 (+++Opinions are my own. Not investment advice. Do your own research.+++) #humour #humor Enjoyed this post? 👍 Like 💬 Comment 💌 Share 🔔 Subscribe My posts focus on the topics of manager selection, special situations investing and asset allocation. And typically Fridays, you’ll see a humorous post like this one.

The phase in the economic cycle 🎢 when bonds really shine ✨ As Callum Thomas rightly points out in a post, it is during a recession that treasuries typically shine as a diversifier and source of returns, and put in a stock-beating performance. You can see in that chart 📊 that you don’t need a recession for bonds to do 🆗, but you do need a recession for bonds to do spectacular 🚀. Source: @callieabost (via Callum Thomas), data based on all cycles since 1970. (+++Opinions are my own. Not investment advice. Do your own research.+++) #markets #investing #money #wealthmanagement #assetallocation Tap the bell 🔔 to subscribe to my profile & you'll be notified when I post. 💸

How to enjoy writing ✍️ posts on LinkedIn (and find your fan base…in my case a cool 30,000 now!) 🤗 There is so much advice out there on how to succeed as a content creator on LinkedIn, that there is no point summarising the vast number of tips here. Instead, I am sharing a few unique angles 📐 that apply to me as a daily writer on this platform (I recently used those points in a comment on a post from my #linkedinbuddy Mike Garcia, Pharm.D 🪙 but thought they warrant a separate post). So here you go: ▶️ Follow your passion — that way you will never run out of ideas (I usually have too many ideas and constantly have to whittle them down!). As my idea generation happens when things cross my desk and my mind during my journey 🧳 as an investor, there is a constant stream of topics to write about. ▶️ Don’t worry about how others will react to your post. Do every single post as long as you like it…and you’ll find your crowd. If things go pear-shaped with a post, you can always delete it. ▶️ Vary the content, ideally between heavy content, bite-sized content and light-hearted content. It’s the mix that seems to attract a large fan base. ▶️ Don’t shy away from inconvenient truths and controversial topics. Follow your conviction, even if people unfollow you (happens to me all the time!). For instance, by now everyone will know what I think of ESG box ticking methodologies, and that's fine with me. ▶️ Post regularly, ideally like clockwork 🕰️ using the scheduling function. For me, doing my Friday funnies 😀 (a joke every Friday) and my doctor’s pulse checking 🩺 posts (my investment-related poll 🗳️) every Monday have proven to be a huge success. So many people have told me how much they are looking forward to every Friday (and also Monday). Pavlov’s dog 🐕 comes to mind! 😌 🙏 Feeling really blessed that I have found my tribe here…after less than two years of writing my daily posts.🙏 (+++Opinions are my own. Not investment advice. Do your own research.+++) Tap the bell 🔔 to subscribe to my profile & you'll be notified when I post. 💸

What is it going to be this time? (My shortest ever LinkedIn post!) Source: Bloomberg (+++Opinions are my own. Not investment advice. Do your own research.+++) #markets #investing #money #wealthmanagement #nvidia Tap the bell 🔔 to subscribe to my profile & you'll be notified when I post. 💸

BREAKING: Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway tops $1 trillion market cap for the first time As Seeking Alpha summarises: "Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.B) (NYSE:BRK.A) joined the ranks of companies with market cap topping $1T in Wednesday morning trading. The insurance-powered conglomerate has 1,325,192,508 class B shares as of July 23, trading at $464.80 per share on Wednesday morning, and 553,234 class A shares trading at $696,156 per share, bringing its total market cap to $1.001T. Other companies with market cap topping $1T include: Apple (AAPL) at $3.47T, NVIDIA (NVDA) at $3.15T, Microsoft (MSFT) at $3.08T, Google parent Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) at $2.04T, Amazon (AMZN) at $1.82T, and Meta Platforms (META) at $1.31T." What‘s the significance of this? Mostly symbolic, I'd say. But pleasing to see that Buffett as a value investor breaks into the "trillion dollar tech club". Ironically his mega investment in Apple is partly to credit for this! 😀 (+++Opinions are my own. Not investment advice. Do your own research.+++) #markets #investing #money #wealthmanagement #valueinvesting Tap the bell 🔔 to subscribe to my profile & you'll be notified when I post. 💸