Quick Take: Sleeping shares come to "life" and 2 more market updates
Xurpas [X 0.4 24.1%] [link] jumped 24% during Friday’s trading session, on 18x the trailing twelve month daily average trading volume. X is up 35.8% over the past two trading sessions, catapulting X out of the relatively tight trading zone that it had lived in since the end of Q2/22. X hasn’t made any material disclosures since December 14, when it notified the exchange that it was incorporating a software subsidiary.
MB Quick Take: Feels like there are some traders that remember the wild days of early 2021, who want more than anything to see the basura stocks rip back to life. Just remember what you’re dealing with here. Trying to swoop in and catch part of a pump, without other valid reasons for investing in a stock, can go sideways very quickly. Remember what you’re doing, and why. The road to basura gold is littered with burned-out buses (like Abra Mining [AR suspended]) on the side of the road.
US Federal Reserve (the “Fed”) [link] could be in a position to “downshift the pace” of its rate hikes starting this week, and maybe even stop raising rates by the Fed’s subsequent policy meeting scheduled in March. Based on market activity, analysts think that the market has only priced in a 30% chance that the Fed continues to raise rates after that March policy meeting, and hopes are rising for rate cuts to begin, with some thinking this could happen as early as September.
MB Quick Take: While there’s a lot of enthusiasm for the “post-inflation” economy, it’s important to remember a few things. First, the Fed has already said that it does not expect to cut rates in 2023, to make sure that the war against inflation is won, so interest rate “doves” shouldn’t hold their breath for rates to fall any time soon. Second, even if the Fed were to pause rate increases by March after a minor raise in February, interest rates for businesses and homeowners will still be significantly elevated. Third, the only thing going “down” is the underlying rate of inflation. Put another way, the cost of living is still going up way faster than “normal”, but the price increases are just starting to slow down a bit. Make no mistake: the cost of living is not going back down. “Inflation” would have to go negative for that to happen, and it’s a settled matter of modern central banking to use all tools at our disposal to maintain a positive level of inflation. What just happened over the course of the last year is now just baked into the cake. We don’t get it back.
Premiere Horizon Alliance [PHA 0.4] [link] appoints two directors to begin the process of filling vacant board seats. In a special meeting of the board, PHA appointed Esteban Peña Sy and Geronimo Halili to regular directorships. Mr. Pena Sy is a veteran of corporate governance at the PSE level, as he is President and director of Mabuhay Holdings [MHC 0.2 5.8%], and a director of Philippine Infradev Holdings [INFRA 1.0 1.0%], Mr. Halili is a lawyer.
MB Quick Take: I thought it was weird that the disclosure mentioned that Mr. Peña Sy is a director of “IRC Properties”, since that company officially changed their name to Philippine Infradev Holdings almost four years ago, but then I realized that they just copy/pasted Mr. Peña Sy’s bio from the MHC site which itself probably hasn’t proactively updated director bios for a while. I mean, even INFRA’s own website still refers to itself as IRC Properties, so... maybe it’s just in the DNA. Nitpicks aside, Mr. Pena Sy is a property-development guy, so that gives us an idea of the PHA board’s interest going forward.
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Merkado Barkada's opinions are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any particular stock. These daily articles are not updated with new information, so each investor must do his or her own due diligence before trading, as the facts and figures in each particular article may have changed.
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