Tuesday 18 August 2020

Europa League Final and Cash Panickers

The Vanguard Group, the company that came up with the first index fund, revealed yesterday that fewer than 0.5% of investors "pulled the ripcord and moved entirely to cash" during the "Corona Crash."

The average age of these "panickers" was 56, so one can assume they have retirement on their minds, but with the indexes now at, or close to, new highs, they might be regretting their decisions.

The S&P 500 dropped 33.33% from its February high, and then bounced back over 50% to end up almost exactly where it was. 

Readers will be aware that I bought into Tesla a little over two years ago at a little under $315 and yesterday it closed at $1,845, a record high. Why?
Well that's helpful. Fortunately the writers of the above headline may have missed the vote of confidence from one analyst:
Shares of Tesla Inc. TSLA, +11.20% shot up 9.8% in afternoon trading, to propel them above the $1,800 mark for the first time, after an upbeat call from Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. The stock has now rocketed 31.9% over the past four days, after the electric vehicle maker announced a 5-for-1 split of its common stock. While that sounds like a big gain over such a short time, this would mark the eighth time the stock has produced a 30+% rally in four days this year, the biggest being a 52.7% rocket ride in the four days ended Feb. 4, in the wake of a better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings report.
As mentioned above, Tesla will split in a couple of weeks, so my stock will be back down to where it was two years ago, which would normally be rather disappointing, but under these circumstances it's all good, and today the price has hit a new high at $1,923.87. 

The Europa League Final is coming up, and like its big brother the Champions League Final, the edge in these games is with the Favourite:
When comparing Europa League Finals with Champions League Finals, the results are surprisingly similar over the past 16 years:
CL is Champions League / EL is Europa League, although if you needed me to tell you that, betting might not be for you. 

Data only goes back to 2004 unfortunately, but here are the previous Finals with Favourite listed first:
Of course, in Europa League Finals, it has to be pointed out that backing against Sevilla is a risky venture since they have the competitions best record with 5 wins in 5 Finals, including two as 'Dogs.

Internazionale have a decent record with three wins, although all were when it was called the UEFA Cup, and all were in the last millennium several years before Sevilla got going in 2006, but while this is all interesting, 2020 is a new game and Sevilla are on their seventh manager since their 2016 win. I suspect that Sevilla may be shorter than they should be with ill-informed bettors reading into Sevilla's Europa League record something that isn't there, but all the better for backers of Internazionale. 

No comments: