Find us at VRIC

If you’re in Vancouver, we’ll be boothing at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference on January 19-20. With over 350 exhibitors, speakers, and sponsors, VRIC 2020 appears to be exactly what hopeful resource CEOs have been waiting for.

New to investing? A resource expert? A portfolio manager? The line up of speakers this year brings value to everyone. Peter Brown, founder and former chairman of Canaccord Genuity, Peter Schiff, head of Euro Pacific Capital, and EquityGuru’s own Chris Parry will all be there not just for the keynotes, but also to answer your questions.

If you’re not in the mood for excellent founders and CEOs with a proven track record of success in their respective fields, you could always come hang out with me.

Get your tickets here!

$1 Trillion for Alphabet

Alphabet Inc, Google’s Parent today joined the elite group of companies that have a valuation over a trillion dollars. Apple, Microsoft, and Alphabet combined have a market cap of $3.65 trillion USD.

To add context, this amount of value created can buy Canada’s entire GDP twice, and then have some spare change.

The massive valuations of these firms are a testament to the power of the internet, that has enabled and empowered billions across the globe. In general, this can be seen as a win for Silicon Valley that is driven by the motto: if you can’t invent the future, the next best thing is to invest in it.

Alphabet has many arms under its wing, the most popular being Google - the world’s most popular search engine. The democratisation of the internet coupled with cheap technology has lowered the barrier to entry for many across the globe, and Google has perhaps been the biggest winner of them all.

Who would’ve thought a decade ago that a trillion dollars in value will be created by internet advertising?

Despite the soaring success, there are a number of anti-trust investigations by governments into Google across the globe. It’s safe to say that CEO Sundar Pichai has successfully taken on these problems, and expanded the operations and impact of the firm across the globe.

Alphabet’s win is iconic also because it went public much later than its peers. Amazon had its IPO in 1997, while Apple was stock was publicly trading along with Microsoft since the 1980s. For Google, the IPO happened in 2004, and the stock has only soared since then.

Alphabet’s Class A shares gained 33% last year, beating the 27% rally by the S&P500.

The stock closed at $1450.16, up 0.76%. In the last 16 years, the stock has returned over 2577%.

China’s Grows at 6%

Despite the trade war and Trump’s constant embargo of tariffs, China’s economy showed signs of modest growth, stabilising in the last quarter after slowing to the weakest pace of in almost three decades.

• Gross domestic product rose 6% in the final quarter of 2019 from a year earlier, the same as in the previous three-month period and the median estimate
• Fixed-asset investment rose 5.4% in the year, increasing its pace in the final month particularly through a jump in manufacturing expenditure
• Industrial output rose 6.9% in December from the same period the previous year, versus the median forecast of 5.9%.

The 6.1% growth is slower than the 6.6% growth of the previous year but remains in line with government targets. The signed phase-one trade deal with the US and recovering global demand has improved the outlook for the future of China.