My Investing Muse

Metaverse is a hot topic as Facebook changes her corporate brand to   $Meta Platforms, Inc.(FB)$ . Facebook’s aim is to connect people together and they regard metaverse as the next most important experience of connecting people together. Imagine us as characters living in the virtual world of Minecraft or Sim City. This is made possible thanks to hardware such as VR headsets or glasses that are able to superimpose/project/discover digital content before our very eyes. In essence, social networking will move from a web/screen experience to virtual reality or augmented reality setting. A. Virtual Reality (VR) Let us talk about the first one … virtual reality by means of a VR headset. Horizon Home (by Meta) is a digital home that we can fashion, decorate, design - perhaps decorate with digital art that is purchased with metaverse currency (or crypto-like NFT or digital currency). This is a place where we can invite our friends to visit. For us, we will be able to have our own avatars. Th

I am sharing my inputs as a supply chain professional.  Please do not constitute this as financial advice without doing our own due diligence. when Covid hit, the world entered a lockdown.  Many countries closed down their factories, keeping only the essential services at work. people started to work from home.  With the restriction of movement & travel, people started to invest in a home office, virtual office software like  $Zoom(ZM)$ , home entertainment like $Netflix(NFLX)$ .  What was previously budgeted for travel and services, people started to turn to online shopping.  The USA stimulus package simply powered on this consumption - some for basic essentials, some for home office, some for retail therapy.  Essentially, the inventory within the USA was depleting.  This led to replenishment orders being placed.  Factories around the world resumed production and this started the ramp-up of the supply chain activities. 1.  Congestion at the ports With Asia being the  world's f

The world is facing an energy crisis. With energy prices soaring, it leaves all fearful of the coming winter as heating is needful in the households. With OPEC+ not increasing their supply, this has led to oil prices hitting recent highs. Russia has yet to increase their gas supply to Europe as Europe's utility bills continue to climb. In fact, some countries turned to coal (a more affordable) energy source. In the US, gas prices have increased 42% from September 2020 to September 2021. CPI has hit a high of 5.4% on top of other notable increases in prices (from Sep 2020 to Sep 2021). This includes  car rentals up 42.9%, steak up 22%, Lodging up 19.8%, bacon up 19.3% and more. Though there was some retracement of commodity prices from a recent all-time high, the pinch is felt throughout the economy. This has left many to wonder how long will inflation remain  transitory . In fact, several have started to call for the Fed to address the problem of inflation - to start the tapering a