Seeking Alpha by Adding Beta

Exactly two years back first COVID case was detected in US. Two years, Two Presidents from two parties with very different approaches to dealing with COVID and USA is still having highest daily cases, highest hospitalizations and unfortunately deaths due to COVID. Unfortunate state of affairs despite having three effective vaccines and majority of people vaccinated. After two years,  people are frustated and have moved on and treating COVID like endemic which is going to stay with us for many years to come. That's going to be normal world in 2022. All of us should continue to wear masks and take eligible vaccine boosters when available. While world is adjusting to Covid as endemic, markets are trying to adjust to post-pandemic economic world. Let's look at few macro attributes and their effects on stock markets in 2022 Inflation running very hot and is at 40 year high reminding people of Volcker Fed days Supply and labor shortages - I experienced it first hand 30 min to pick co

To all my readers, wish you belated happy new year. After travel back from India I kept on postponing my new year blog for no reason...In a way it was good thing since I would not have expected so much market action in first three days of new year. Before we get into what could be in store for 2022, let's look at how some of the predictions/recommendations did for 2021. Macro Predictions: GDP growth, interest rates and unemployment rates were on target as per predictions. S&P did much better than predicted (20% better) Schools did open in Fall'21 COVID predictions were completely off the mark partially due to emergence of Delta and Omicron variants - who would have thought that we would be having million cases (daily) in US in 2022? Stock recommendations: Winners: SPG (94%), MAC (75%) and WFC (75%), XOM (59%), OKE (51%) Losers: CLVS (46%), BABA (44%), SQ (36%), NIO (33%) Overall portfolio of recommendations did no better than S&P's return of 27% (when it comes to my