China Barely Grew in Q2 (5 min read)
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China’s economic recovery slowed in the second quarter, with its GDP growing at a weaker-than-expected pace of 6.3% from last year when dozens of cities were in lockdowns. Weakness in consumer spending and the property sector contributed the most to the GDP slowdown. Deflation is now a major risk in China and many economists are questioning whether the country can still hit a growth target of around 5% this year. The new data intensified calls for more stimulus, but Beijing has indicated that stimulus measures will likely be limited in scale.

US Treasury Yields Edges Lower (2 min read)
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The yield of US 2-Year and 10-Year treasury continued to inch lower on Monday as investors assess the outlook of the economy. Declining yields generally indicate increased demand for treasuries, which means investors are getting more cautious about the current economic condition. Despite several inflation data last week showing it eased more than anticipated, the Fed will likely hike rates again this month and potentially another to follow. Although the hiking may end soon, many worry that the impact has not been fully circulated in the economy yet.

Ford Enters The EV Price War (2 min read)
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After Tesla initiated several price cuts this year, Ford became the next to slash prices on its electric vehicles. Ford has cut the price of its F-150 Lightning trucks by as much as 17% or about $10,000. Since Tesla started the EV price war, it has led to a slowdown in EV sales for many legacy automakers, including Ford, whose EV sales dropped 2.8% last quarter. Ford’s aggressive price cuts aim to boost sales and gain market shares in the EV industry that is currently dominated by Tesla.

Investing 100% of Your Portfolio in Stocks (3 min read)
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This article discusses how to allocate stock investments among different categories such as market cap, geography, and risk factors. It suggests using the world stock market as a benchmark may be a good starting point when building the portfolio initially. Although it seems like the S&P 500 or US large-cap stocks consistently outperform, it is only the case sometimes. Comparisons that show how different asset classes performed in different decades were shared to illustrate the importance of diversification for long-term growth.

Direct Indexing: Everything You Need to Know (5 min read)
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Direct indexing has gained popularity in recent years, driven mostly by the technologies that have made it more accessible to the public. It is essentially a method of investing where investors purchase individual stocks in proportion to a specific index, allowing them to mimic the performance of the index. Despite its popularity, this method might not be the most suited for some investors as it requires a larger capital and involves more complexity and costs in comparison to funds. More on how direct indexing works is available in this article.

Invesco Launches Equal Weight Nasdaq 100 ETF (2 min read)
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Invesco launched the Invesco Nasdaq-100 Equal Weight UCITS ETF (IEWQ) in the European market in response to Nasdaq's recent "special rebalance" to prevent over-concentration in tech giants. IEWQ tracks the 100 largest companies on Nasdaq, excluding financials. It rebalances quarterly to ensure equal weighting for all holdings, which means the top 10 will remain 10% of its total weighting, unlike 60% in the original index. The weight of the technology sector was also reduced to around 35% of the benchmark. More details on IEWQ is available in this article.

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