This Shopping Spree Will Unleash Plenty of Profit Opportunities

[Inside Wall Street with Nomi Prins]( Welcome to Inside Wall Street with Nomi Prins! It’s the only daily newsletter featuring the insights of Nomi Prins and her team of global experts, including regular contributing editors Eoin Treacy and Laurynas Vegys. You’ll find all our issues [here](. And if you have questions or comments, shoot us a note anytime [here]( or at feedback@rogueeconomics.com. --------------------------------------------------------------- This Shopping Spree Will Unleash Plenty of Profit Opportunities By Nomi Prins, Editor, Inside Wall Street with Nomi Prins If there’s one thing that drives a shopping spree, it’s having a lot of money at your disposal. As I’ve been telling you, there’s been [an abundance of cheap money]( available to Wall Street, large corporations, and major market participants – an extra $31 trillion since 2008 – courtesy of those exceedingly generous money-manufacturers, the central banks. So naturally, there’s been lots of shopping going on. And today, we’ll show you how you can join in… and profit. First, let’s have a look at the details of the shopping spree I’m talking about… Recommended Link [New currency to roll out wreaking havoc]( [image]( A new currency is being rolled out – and it doesn’t look anything like the money we grew up with. It will not feature Washington, Lincoln, or any U.S. Founding Father. What could it mean for the future of our money? [Learn more here.]( -- The Mergers & Acquisitions Market Is Thriving Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are financial deals in which two corporations combine in some way. In a merger, they usually mesh to form a new single entity. In an acquisition, one buys the other. There are three main driving forces for M&A deals: the desire to be bigger, the desire to be better (often, both together), and, of course, the availability of money. Even a global pandemic hasn’t dampened these desires. Last year, total global M&A volume jumped by 64% relative to 2020, to hit a record of more than $5.8 trillion. The total volume of U.S. deals – which amount to just under half of the global total – rose 82% to $2.61 trillion. Deal volume in Europe rose by 45% to $1.26 trillion. And the total deal volume in the Asia Pacific region rose by 47%. And it wasn’t just existing companies merging with and acquiring each other. Private equity buyouts hit a record of $985.2 billion last year. Private equity companies purchase companies they think can be restructured and then sold for higher value. It’s like when someone buys a house that needs renovation, fixes it up, and sells it for a profit. Private equity firms have become key players in the M&A market. Right now, they have plenty of cheap money to hand to compete with the traditional mega Wall Street banks on bigger and bigger deals. [Featured: New Financial Technology Disaster for Wall Street]( Money Is Money From a Wall Street investment bank’s or private equity firm’s perspective, it doesn’t matter who is merging with or acquiring whom. It bags billions of dollars in fees for playing matchmaker, regardless. I know, because [I used to work on Wall Street](. I started working for Goldman Sachs a few months after the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was repealed. That was under the Clinton administration. That act had kept investment banks and commercial banks apart. Investment banks focused, among other things, on advising their corporate clients on M&A deals. Commercial banks did “boring” stuff like make loans and hold customer deposits. Once the act was abolished in 1999, the Wall Street banks went shopping. That’s how we ended up with too-big-to-fail financial institutions (but that’s a story for another time). Back then, at our quarterly managing director meetings, we would talk about who was buying who, and then have side-bets on it. Times have changed, but the desire to be bigger and better hasn’t. So far this year, the M&A “pipeline” is heating up as deals from late 2021 move forward. For instance, one of the largest French banks, Société Générale’s car leasing division, ALD, is buying its Dutch rival, LeasePlan, for €4.9 billion ($5.5 billion). The deal, which is due to close sometime in 2022, would create the largest electric vehicle (EV) fleet manager in Europe. Another driving force behind acquisitions is one company wanting to buy another to enhance or hasten its growth and gain greater market share. For instance, medical device maker Stryker Corp. agreed to acquire digital care platform Vocera Communications for about $2.97 billion. Mostly, merging lets corporations grow in size or “scale,” as measured by a larger geographical footprint or more diversity in its products or services. Acquisitions tend to be about buying out the competition, or pushing innovation forward, gaining market share in the process. Recommended Link [#1 Crypto Expert Says “HURRY”]( [image]( [This]( could be the most profitable event in crypto history. And it only happens once. If you miss it, there are no second chances. [Click to learn more.]( -- Big Deals = Big Money for Wall Street But the real reason M&As are surging is because taking a chunky fee out of the deals is one of Wall Street’s favorite things. For the fifth year running, my old employer, Goldman Sachs, nabbed the top spot for advising on mergers and acquisitions, with a 24.1% market share. Goldman advised on more than $1 trillion worth of M&A deals, raking in more than $4 billion in fees for its role of corporate marriage broker in the first three quarters of 2021. My other former employer, JPMorgan Chase, placed second, with a 21.2% market share. Morgan Stanley placed third at 18.3%. Bank of America at 12.0% and Citigroup at 10.4% rounded out the top five. This spate of M&As has been turbo-boosted by the [abundance of cheap money]( from the central banks. So much money floating around and over-the-top share prices have distorted the need for companies to care about the true value of the ones they are buying or merging with. This has especially been the case when companies want to transform themselves across the [five key profit sectors we’ve been telling you about]( – New Energy, Infrastructure, Transformation Technology, Meta-Reality, and New Money. That means technology across the board. This is largely due to changes in consumer demands and behaviors due to the pandemic. Companies are seeking protection from cyber-attacks or supply chain disruptions or trying to keep up with the incredible transformation that distortion has unleashed. Putting that distortion and the cheap money together, we see transformational deals taking center stage again in 2022. According to Nasdaq.com, “Deal activity in 2022 is expected to continue to be strong, buoyed by favorable interest rates and plenty of dry powder in the way of private equity cash piles.” That means more M&A across healthcare, technology, entertainment, and telecommunications companies. [Featured: 100,000 People Have Taken the Plunge Don’t Be Left Behind…]( Three M&A Trends to Watch in 2022 Specifically, we see three main trends in M&A for 2022… - The ESG – environmental, social (responsibility) and corporate governance – investing trend will ramp up as companies continue to revamp themselves for net-zero carbon emission and better social justice attributes. Think mergers between automakers and energy companies to expand electric vehicle charging, which fits into our [New Energy]( investing theme. - More and more technology acquisitions will be driven by non-tech buyers. As you can see from the chart below, this was already a hot area last year. [Image] Retailers are competing to make online shopping and payments easier for customers. It is also driven by mega financial firms fortifying their new money digital banking and payments functions. This falls under our [New Energy]( investment theme. - Private equity-driven deals – which were 37% of U.S. deal volume last year – will soar, based on demand for data centers, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity firms, which falls under our [Meta-Reality]( investing theme. Recommended Link [Cell Phone Owners Beware]( [image]( If you own a cell phone, then mobile service providers hope you never get to see this video that could soon go viral. It was shot in downtown Denver by a multi-millionaire, who exposed sensitive truths about mobile phones and 5G. His experiment could strike a bad chord with mobile phone companies. But you’ve got to see what this man discovered and what it means for phone users in the weeks ahead. [Click here to see this video.]( -- A One-Click Way to Invest in This Trend One way to profit from the M&A trend is to invest in an M&A exchange-traded fund (ETF). These funds seek to broadly capture companies for which M&A deals are announced before the deals are closed. They do this on the expectation that the stock values of these companies will rise once the deals are finalized. Our favorite M&A ETF is the Proshares Merger ETF (MRGR). It tracks the S&P Merger Arbitrage Index, which comprises up to 40 publicly announced deals within developed market countries, primarily the U.S. And rest assured, over the coming weeks and months, we will seek out the best specific companies in the crosshairs as investment opportunities for you. Regards, [signature] Nomi Prins Editor, Inside Wall Street with Nomi Prins --------------------------------------------------------------- Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=RE: Watch the Fed Closely for Signposts to Profit). --------------------------------------------------------------- MAILBAG In Friday’s weekly Mailbag edition, Brian M. had some harsh words in response to Nomi’s essay on infrastructure spending, [Infrastructure Investment Is Key to America’s Future… And Your Profits](. (If you missed it, you can [catch up here]( It got under fellow reader Steve S.’s skin… Someone needs to remind your infrastructure critic that it was the federal government that financed the building of the Transcontinental Railway that opened up the West. They did it by giving them the ownership of federal land and rights of way, which they could then borrow against, or sell to developers, to finance the construction. I don’t know where this person lives, but I am sure all of the major infrastructure projects in his state were financed by both federal taxes and state taxes. Inflation is caused by government deficit spending. Both political parties are responsible for the deficits because they are not willing to tax people to cover the costs of defense and social spending. Also, contrary to popular belief, tax cuts do not pay for themselves. – Steve S. Meanwhile, after reading Nomi’s essay, [Why Liquidity Is Here to Stay… And What That Means for Your Portfolio]( Steven F. raises an important question… The question is not whether there will be debt default but whether there will be debt forgiveness. I admit it is looking less likely, (thanks to Senator Manchin), but it is notable how comfortable America is with its consideration. – Steven F. What are your views on the government spending your tax dollars on improving the nation’s infrastructure? And do you think we will be able to repay the growing debt our leaders are amassing? Write us at [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=RE: Watch the Fed Closely for Signposts to Profit). IN CASE YOU MISSED IT… [Biggest financial event in human history could be days away]( Forget Wall Street… forget Silicon Valley… The biggest investing moment in history happened 419 years ago… …in Amsterdam. In 1602, the world’s first stock was born. Few people know it, but the Dutch East India Company was the world’s first IPO. That was the first “B.C. to A.D.” shift in the markets… But in as little as a few days from now – we could witness another tectonic shift in the markets. With an impact 48 times bigger than the entire stock market. This might sound absurd, but tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, Richard Branson & Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey are heavily invested. Don’t wait, watch [this presentation]( to learn how anyone with $25 can participate in this massive shift — and avoid being left behind. [Click here to watch the video.]( [image]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Get Instant Access Click to read these free reports and automatically sign up for daily research. 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