Markets across the board are basically on either side of 1% of their respective closes. The GameStock affair still lingers even as its stock price has dropped mor than 70% since last week. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has called a meeting with senior officials, expectations are that last week showed how vulnerable equity markets can be and this could result in tougher regulations for not only hedge funds, but also small investors and stockbrokers. The problem for Yellen is that there are two million or more small investors that are ready to take on the next “GameStock” when they read their chatrooms, she needs to find a way to slow this down and not appear to be on the side of Wall Street and hedge funds.
Interesting note, most people think that hedge funds are for billionaires and their friends when in fact a large number of pension funds, including union pension funds have a piece of a hedge fund. Some pension funds rely on the above market average returns in order to supplement the loss of interest income in this environment. Most union pensions if not all are indexed meaning that retirees receive a monthly income that usually increases with the rate of inflation. At the moment, equities have outpaced inflation, but for how long, we will have to wait and see.
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