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Investing in inflationary and challenging economic environment

That the US Federal Reserve (Fed) has gone on an overdrive to stem inflation by rising interest rate has sent Wall Street into a bear market or a situation whereby an index like the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Nasdaq Composite or even an individual stock has fallen 20% or more from their recent high.

In the week ended 17 June, the S&P 500 dropped 5.8%, its biggest weekly loss since March 2020 – dipping deeper into bear market territory. Meanwhile, the blue-chip DJIA slid 4.8% to fall below 30,000 for the first time since January 2021. During the same period, the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipped 4.8%, down 33% from its record high.

The market retreat at Wall Street is in tandem with the Fed’s hawkish measure of raising its benchmark interest rates by 0.75% in its most aggressive hike since 1994.

Call for banks to better safeguard customers from fraud and scams

There has been a recent spate of phishing scams using malicious mobile applications. These have fuelled calls for banks and financial institutions to up their game in better safeguarding depositors’ money from financial fraud and scams.

With the prevalence of e-commerce and the age of digitalization, it is not surprising that many fall prey to various scams.  Phishing scams via mobile apps first emerged in late 2021 and has been growing since with more cases reported.

Is there life after PN17?

In view of the stigma attached to it, the first question that probably crosses the mind of minority shareholders whose counters have triggered the Practice Note 17 (PN17) criteria is whether to take a cut-loss route, to average down or to continue holding on to the stock in anticipation of a share price rebound.

Majority of the PN17 companies tend to be companies with poor fundamentals or are speculative in nature. Upon proper scrutiny, more often than not, these companies are usually poorly managed or do not have good track records.