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5.05.2021 Alpine Select Ltd.: Monthly Update April 2021

 

Alpine Select has published the monthly update April 2021.
Klick here to download the monthly report.

 

Alpine Select hat den Monatsbericht April 2021 publiziert (nur in Englisch).
Klicken Sie hier um den Bericht einzusehen.




Market commentary

The first month of the second quarter 2021 brought volatility to normalized levels, after the 10y Treasury yield rose rapidly from 1.45% to 1.75% in March 2021.

 

The large-cap earnings season generally met expectations. In some notable big tech cases (Apple, Google and Facebook) earnings exceeded expectations leading to another strong US index month. However, Europe and Asia lagged.

 

Portfolio commentary

The still early phenomenon of crypto asset valuation and practical use cases of blockchain technology is a much-discussed topic.

 

Institutional asset managers and economists began to publicly share their research conclusions. Some highlight obvious real-world applications, like a USD 370 billion remittance payments market (on which expat workers send money to their families) that could be set up more inclusively (cheaper and faster) on a blockchain.

 

Others argue that the rise of the internet ultimately did not really change the business model of the financial industry, which, given the evidence of blockchain technology, might be due now. Today’s innovations in the financial sector (decentralized finance or «DeFi») show profound infrastructure opportunities in the blockchain. These still fragmented financial protocols have use cases for lending, borrowing, insurance, equity / bond issuance, portfolio management, etc. This infrastructure is being further improved 24/7 and could be of significant value given the remarkable profitability of these early-stage DeFi protocols.

 

In our November 2020 report, we stated that our initial crypto investments totalled 3.4% of the portfolio. In February 2021, we informed that the crypto exposure was mainly assigned to three active crypto fund managers which were selected to be ideally positioned within a broadening of the crypto market. In retrospect this has been a good call seeing crypto market capitalization has risen from under USD 1 trillion to USD 2.3 trillion while Bitcoin’s dominance has decreased from 70% to 45%; partly due to the value creation of decentralized applications described above.

 

Our crypto fund managers were roughly up 20% in April 2021.

 

 

For further information, please contact Claudia Habermacher (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or visit our website www.alpine-select.ch.

 

 

About Alpine Select
Alpine Select Ltd is an investment company domiciled in Zug and has been listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange since 1998. The company offers shareholders the key benefit of investing into a global diversified and CHF hedged alternative investment portfolio. The portfolio exposure is actively being risk adjusted to current market sentiment and outlook. The investment style is value oriented and the investments are selected based on the company’s target return of 6-8% p.a. above CHF risk free rate. Alpine Select maintains an active and constructive dialogue with management and board of directors of its portfolio companies in the best interest of its shareholders. Alpine Select does not charge any management or performance fees.