1.Venture capital investment hits all-time record

Global venture capital investment has hit an all-time record, with more than $142 billion already disbursed in 2017, according to data provider PitchBook.

• Fewer startups are raising money, but the round sizes are getting appreciably larger. For example, though mid-October, eight companies had raised rounds of $500 million or more.
• There has been a boom in fundraising by Chinese startups, partially driven by an increase in local capital sources.
• S. venture investment has hit $81.2 billion, which still trails dotcom era totals from 2000.

https://www.axios.com/vc-investments-2518448702.html
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1.New ETF Creations on Track to Hit $500B in 2017 vs. $287B in 2016

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-fueling-bull-market-edward-yardeni/?trackingId=wmncdgL%2BdiRpZYN%2BEYrsbA%3D%3D

New ETF Assets For 2017 Nears

December 15, 2017

Cinthia Murphy

Investors poured nearly $30 billion into U.S.-listed ETFs in the past week, bringing total net creations so far in 2017 to $466 billion.

The massive, record asset-gathering pace now sits just inches away from what could be a new milestone for the ETF market: $500 billion in net inflows in one calendar year. With two weeks to go in December, hitting $500 billion seems very likely.

For perspective, consider that 2016 also saw record-breaking asset gathering in the U.S. ETF space, with net creations reaching $287.5 billion last year. We are on pace to almost double that haul in 2017. What’s more, combined with performance, the asset inflows grew the ETF market to $3.4 trillion in total assets—that’s almost $1 trillion bigger than where the market sat a short year ago.

http://www.etf.com/sections/weekly-etf-flows/weekly-etf-flows-2017-12-14-2017-12-08

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1.2017 Year of Emerging Markets Breakout

EEM ETF breaks out of 7 years sideways

www.stockcharts.com

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1.Bank of Japan Balance Sheet Versus ECB or FED.

http://www.cmegroup.com/education/featured-reports/abenomics-a-work-in-progress-after-five-years.html?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=paid_media&utm_campaign=always_on

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1.Annual Price Changes During Bull.

Year-To-Year Market Performance

Dec 11, 2017

The S&P 500 is up nearly 20% in 2017 after gaining 9.5% in 2016.  The chart below highlights the annual price change of the S&P 500 since the current bull market began in 2009.

Contrarian investors might be prone to think that the market is likely to fall after a big up year, while momentum investors like to trade on strength one year turning into strength the next year. But if we look at the correlation between returns one year to the next, we find that there is none.

Below is a scatter chart showing the S&P 500’s move one year versus its move the next year. If the contrarian bet were true, you’d see a trend-line in the scatter chart that goes from the upper left to the lower right.  If the momentum bet were true, you’d see a trend-line that goes from the lower left to the upper right.  In reality, the trend line is flat as a pancake, meaning market returns one year have no correlation with market returns the next.

https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/year-to-year-market-performance/?utm_source=sumome&utm_medium=linkedin&utm_campaign=sumome_share

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