Topley’s Top 10 – January 3, 2023

1. Asset Performance Summary Q4 vs. Full 2022

Jim Reid Deutsche Bank

2. Third Worst Year Ever for 60/40

Ben Carlson Blog

https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2023/01/2022-was-one-of-the-worst-years-ever-for-markets/

3. Bull vs. Bear Market History

Mikko @Mikkelppolito Pessimists sound smart, optimists retire on beaches.

 

https://twitter.com/MikeIppolito_

4. Central Banks Bought 400 Tonnes of Gold by September 2022….More than Double the 10 Year Average

Wall Street Silver Twitter @WallStreetSilv

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv

5. Consumer Discretionary Stock ETF -41% from Highs….Broke to New Lows Post Xmas

www.stockcharts.com

6. Covid Infects 37m in One Day China

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-23/china-estimates-covid-surge-is-infecting-37-million-people-a-day?leadSource=uverify%20wall&sref=GGda9y2L

7. Eli Lilly Weight Loss Drug Could Become the Best-Selling Drug of All Time

NBC News A new weight loss drug could become the best-selling drug of all time. Who can afford it?In 2023, the FDA will likely approve Eli Lilly’s diabetes drug tirzepatide for weight loss — but there’s little indication insurers will widely cover the medication.

By Berkeley Lovelace Jr.

An Eli Lilly drug if approved for weight loss could become the best-selling drug of all time, but concerns are mounting about who will actually be able to afford it.

Experts are confident that the drug, called tirzepatide, will be granted approval by the Food and Drug Administration sometime next year. If that’s the case, it would join two other popular — and expensive — recently approved weight loss drugs on the market, Wegovy and Saxenda, both from the drugmaker Novo Nordisk.

Annual sales of tirzepatide could hit a record $48 billion, according to an estimate from Bank of America analyst Geoff Meacham. Another Wall Street analyst, Colin Bristow at UBS, estimated the drug would reach $25 billion in annual sales — a figure that would still surpass the record $20.7 billion set by AbbVie’s rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira in 2021.

Kelly Smith, a spokesperson for Eli Lilly, declined to comment on what tirzepatide will cost. Outside experts said it is possible the drugmaker could price it similarly to Wegovy, which carries a list price of around $1,500 for a month’s supply, and Saxenda, which costs about $1,350 for a month’s supply.

If the FDA confirms the drug’s effectiveness, a “fair” price for tirzepatide could be around $13,000 annually, or around $1,100 a month, said Dr. David Rind, the chief medical officer for the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, a research group that helps determine fair prices for drugs.

The drugs have been shown in clinical trials to be highly effective for weight loss. All three drugs — which are given as injections — work in a similar way: They’re a class of drugs called GLP-1 agonists, which mimic a hormone that helps reduce food intake and appetite.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/weight-loss-drug-affordability-rcna60422

LLY Chart Never Even Broke 50day 2021-2022

www.stockcharts.com

8. Honda Profits Fall a Record -33%

Japan’s Honda sees declining profits on semiconductor crunch by YURI KAGEYAMA

Honda Motor Co. cleans a Honda car displayed at its headquarters in Tokyo on July 31, 2018. Honda’s fiscal first quarter profit fell 33% from 2021 as a global computer chip shortage, a pandemic-related lockdown in China and the rising costs of raw materials hurt the Japanese automaker. Tokyo-based Honda Motor Co. reported Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022, that its profit totaled 149.2 billion yen ($1.1 billion) in the April-June quarter, down from 222.5 billion yen ($1.7 billion) a year earlier. Quarterly sales slipped 7% to 3.8 trillion yen ($28 billion). Credit: AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File

Honda’s fiscal first quarter profit fell 33% from last year as a global computer chip shortage, a pandemic-related lockdown in China and the rising costs of raw materials hurt the Japanese automaker.

Tokyo-based Honda Motor Co. reported Wednesday that its profittotaled 149.2 billion yen ($1.1 billion) in the April-June quarter, down from 222.5 billion yen ($1.7 billion) a year earlier. Quarterly sales slipped 7% to 3.8 trillion yen ($28 billion).

Honda kept its profit forecast for the full fiscal year through March 2023 unchanged at 710 billion yen ($5.3 billion).

The semiconductor shortage has hurt all the world’s automakers, including Honda, despite strong demand, and the manufacturers have been scrambling to secure alternative suppliers.

Honda, which makes the Accord sedan, Odyssey minivan and Civic compact, sold about 815,000 vehicles last quarter, down from 998,000 vehicles the same period a year earlier. Auto sales dropped in almost all regions around the world, including Japan, the U.S. and Europe.

“I ask for the understanding from all those who are still waiting for their vehicles and vow that our whole company is doing its utmost to make the deliveries even a day sooner,” Chief Financial Officer Kohei Takeuchi said.

Takeuchi said the semiconductor shortage curtailed motorcycle production as well as car production, adding to uncertainty about future prospects.

Honda said the recent lockdown in Shanghai was among the causes of the shortage in computer chips supply but declined to give specifics.

Although U.S. sales are potentially facing a dent from recession worries and other economic hardships, Takeuchi acknowledged he was more worried about the shortage problem and producing the cars customers were waiting for.

Takeuchi noted that motorcycle sales for the quarter, which grew to 4.25 million motorcycles from 3.88 million a year earlier, were going strong, especially in India. The cheaper yen and cost cuts helped maintain profitability overall, he added.

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-08-japan-honda-declining-profits-semiconductor.html

9. Keeping it Simple for Millennials with Peter Mallouk

10. Small Choices in 2023

Farnam Street Blog Small Habits Make a Big Difference-When we watch people make small choices, like ordering a salad at lunch instead of a burger, the difference of a few hundred calories doesn’t seem to matter much. At the moment, that’s true. These small decisions don’t matter all that much. However, as days turn to weeks and weeks to months and months to years, those tiny repeatable choices compound. Consider another example, saving a little money right now won’t make you a millionaire tomorrow. But starting to save today makes it more likely you will become a millionaire in the future.

https://fs.blog