Matein KhalidIndia’s NSE Nifty scaled a milestone on Dalal Street this morning, rising 160 points as I write to 26205. This has little to do with Nvidia/Jensen Huang’s fabulous guidance last night and everything to do with global fund managers attracted Asia’s Cinderella EM of 2025 by the BJP’s supply side policy pivot to slash the GST, ramp up post-Bihar election capex, boost consumption even as corporate […]
Matein KhalidThe bloodbath in Bitcoin is symbolic of the risk aversion spasm that has now hit risk assets as varied as Japan’s Nikkei Dow, Nasdaq’s Mag-7, gold and even the EM carry trade. The AI infrastructure trade that was the high octane fuel for the most frenzied bubble in Silicon Valley history has lost its luster (price momentum is the mandate of heaven on Wall Street), though […]
Matein KhalidAmazon (AMZN) shares were a doggy of the Mag-7 for most of 2025, falling as low as 161 in late April during the post Liberation Day temper tantrum by Mr. Market and trading in a narrow 200-225 range since late summer on concerns that AWS was losing ground to Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud in the cloud computing league tables. Even now, at 244 it is […]
Matein KhalidJay Powell has put cold water on a December FOMC rate cut as inflation risk triggers dissent at the Fed. Yet Uncle Jay is now a lame duck and the world awaits his first MAGA Fed Chairman. My bet is on Kevin H as I doubt if even a supine Senate will confirm yes man – Stephen Miran. Why even bother to hold the FOMC conclave […]
Matein KhalidCritical minerals have become a national security priority for GCC states as China has weaponised its dominance over supply chains, refining capacity and magnet production.These materials, including lithium, nickel, cobalt, tin, tungsten, vanadium and germanium, are essential for defence systems such as Lockheed’s F-35 stealth fighters, Raytheon’s hypersonic missiles and General Dynamics’ Virginia-class submarines, as well as civilian applications in advanced semiconductors, electric vehicles, robotics and […]
Matein KhalidThe supply glut in crude oil, the fragile geopolitics of the Levant, the Gaza wars, the thinnest sovereign credit spreads since the summer of 2006 have not ended the scramble to pick up MENA credit when the issuer is not a serial borrower/distressed credit and the bonds issue reflects improving political/economic fundamentals. The year ago, Oman and Bahrain provided some amazing opportunities for capital gains which […]
Matein KhalidStock exchange folklore in pre-1929 Jazz Age New York has one priceless insight for me – “you be buying when they are crying, you be selling when they are yelling”. So as I scan the markets, I realized that the mother of all yelling is taking place in the AI arena and its decibel count is loudest where the ignorance about its nuances is the highest, […]
Matein KhalidI have made no secret about my conviction that Brazil’s Nu Bank (NU) and China’s Alibaba (BABA) are my two fave emerging market’s fintechs of destiny since 2024. Alibaba has risen almost 100% since I accumulated its shares in the mid 80’s in its New York ADR once it was evident that the Politburo had pivoted to Big Bang fiscal/monetary stimulus to goose the dormant animal […]
Matein KhalidReal estate occasionally provides prescient investors the ability to make serious capital gains with minimal or even zero risk. Take the Empire of the Rising Sun and the sinking yen, also known as Japan. The ruling LDP has shed its Komeito coalition partner and is all set to embrace Sanae Takaichi as Lady Shogun or Dai Nippon’s first elected woman Prime Minister. This means higher inflation […]
Matein KhalidPrivate equity and money center banks on Wall Street are in free fall even as the private credit market is in classic contagion mode, without a lender of the last resort for overleveraged shadow banks/hedge funds whose illiquid assets now disappear into Wall Street’s structured vehicles blackholes. Peekaboo Finance 101!When Citigroup and Brent crude both fall 8% in a synchronized bearish death dive, I know that […]
Matein KhalidGold is in its most spectacular bull run since 1976-1980, when prices rocketed from $91 to over $800 an ounce.The current cycle found its floor near $1,800 in late 2022, as the Powell Fed’s rate-hike campaign peaked and Washington froze $300 billion in Russian reserves in response to the invasion of Ukraine.“Dr Auric” now trades at just over $4,000 an ounce – a perfect vindication of my previously published […]
Matein KhalidWill we still be dancing when the music stops as Citigroup and UBS were in the autumn of 2007. Even my friends dissed me when I predicted a global financial crash as early as January 2007, but I track credit cycles like a bloodhound and it flashed the mother of all distressed SOS’s as it does now. In 2007, the trillion dollar daisy chain of subprime […]
Matein KhalidThe old adage that stock markets swing between fear and greed has been borne out by the mixed performance of Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index over the first nine months of 2025.A turning point came on Wednesday September 24 when the Tadawul staged its biggest single-day rally since 2020, after a Capital Market Authority board member signalled that the 49 percent foreign ownership cap on Saudi equities would be […]
Matein KhalidWall Street’s strong bid is skating on macro thin ice as a government shutdown that reflects the toxic polarization in Congress looms. The latest PCE data shows that Powell’s fear for a tariff related uptick in inflation was well founded and Fed funds futures have narrowed the odds of a December rate cut to only 60%, which is perfectly rational given that the US economy is […]
Matein KhalidMauritius, an island archipelago state in the Indian ocean, has long maintained extensive economic and cultural ties with the GCC.Thanks to tax treaties with India, Mauritius is a favourite domicile for wealthy Indian expatriate residents of the UAE and Saudi Arabia.GCC citizens and residents are prominent investors in some of Africa’s most expensive luxury beach resorts located in the island nation, where property contributes 70 percent […]
Matein KhalidI go into purdah for Wednesday’s FOMC D-Day secure in the knowledge, based on CME futures probability that the most important central bank in the world will cut its overnight borrowing policy rate by at least 25 basis points on Wednesday. Yet there are also “known unknowns” with the Fed’s decision that will haunt and reshape the financial markets as well as America’s toxic politics for […]
Matein KhalidKlarna hits the IPO hit parade in New York on Wednesday and the grapevine suggests that the Swedish fintech IPO is oversubscribed by at least 10X. The investment bankers priced Klarna last night at $40, even above the 35-37 range where Sequoia capital, Silver Lake and lesser grandees on Sand Hill Road, Dai Nippon, Sing and Oz will now pocket a multi-billion dollar paydirt as they […]
Matein KhalidMy readers and friends know that I have been a boring perma-bull on gold since early 2024, when it became obvious that the People’s Bank of China was accumulating gold bullions as a hedge against an overvalued King Dollar and a capricious White House, which had just seized $300 billion in Russian central bank reserves to punish Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The bullish gold trade became […]
Matein KhalidGold’s 38% surge in 2025 to as high as 3570 an ounce in the New York spot market is not just about central bank anti-dollar reserve accumulation, expectations of a Fed rate cut at the September FOMC or inflation/deficit angst but also a very rational response to President Trump’s repeated assaults on the political independence of the Federal Reserve, which raises the likelihood of deliberate currency […]
Matein KhalidIt is now all but certain that the Federal Reserve will cut the US overnight borrowing rate, currently 4.25 percent, by at least 25 basis points at its September 18 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. The labour market is losing momentum, while tariff-driven inflation has yet to show up in the Consumer Price Index.The Trump White House has ramped up pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell […]
Matein KhalidTwo fallen angel megacaps in a rich market now that July CPI proved a non-event, I see a beautiful opportunity to scale up my long Palo Alto Networks (PANW) and Eli Lilly (ELY) to former darlings of Mr. Market who have been sandbagged by adverse events in the last two weeks. My rationale?Palo Alto Networks (PANW) was slammed down to 165 after its $25 billion acquisition […]
Matein KhalidThere are two gems in global finance that I believe can make serious money if purchased at the right price this autumn. Their high beta means a 16% hit if the S&P has the 10% index correction that Morgan Stanley projects.The best thing at TPG for me is CEO Jon Winkelried, who I first met in Goldman Sachs’ cathedral of money at Peterborough Court in 1990’s […]
Matein KhalidWhile Marjan Island day trips with Amore mio Donna Farah hardly makes me nostalgic for my singleton era visits to Vegas and college boy trips to the odious Trump Plaza/Taj Mahal casinos in Atlantic City, I have no problem taking a flutter on Wynn when it traded at 12X earnings since the free cash flow yield is a more reliable proxy for a money making trade […]
Matein KhalidMorgan Stanley has evolved into one of the world’s preeminent wealth management franchises and dramatically reduced its exposure to volatile securities trading in a major strategy shift under its former CEO James Gorman. His acquisitions of E-Trade, Eaton Vance and the Smith Barney brokerage platform from Citigroup have enabled its client assets to grow to a colossal $6.5 trillion and provide the anchor for secular EPS […]
