Han Dieperink

In 1996 I came across Cisco’s annual report, which included a CD-ROM presentation by CEO John Chambers titled The internetworking takes off. At that point, there was absolutely no sign of a dot-com hype, though Alan Greenspan thought otherwise in his irrational exuberance speech of December 1996.

Jerome Powell is facing what may well be the most important speech of his career. This week, at the annual Jackson Hole symposium, the Federal Reserve chair must not only defend his policy, but also the very principle of central bank independence.

Vanguard now owns more shares in MicroStrategy than its founder despite publicly dismissing crypto as speculative. The irony is hard to miss, but the real lesson is that so-called passive investing is becoming anything but passive.

Can AI fuel the next asset bubble? Han Dieperink draws bold parallels with 1998, dotcom mania, and Fed policy.

Vietnamese finance minister Nguyen Van Thang met with representatives from FTSE Russell last week to discuss the potential reclassification of Vietnam’s capital market. This marks an important moment in Vietnam’s journey from frontier market to emerging market status in 2025—a long-awaited upgrade that has been on the table since 2018.

We are at the beginning of a fundamental transformation in wealth management. Financial decisions are increasingly being made by algorithms. Within just a few years, AI-driven applications will become the primary source of advice for retail investors, with usage expected to grow to 80 percent by 2028. This is not some distant vision of the future—it’s already happening.

Artificial intelligence continues to be underestimated—both in terms of its scale and the speed of its adoption. We’ve seen this story before. Each time, revolutionary technologies were massively underestimated by analysts, investors, and even the most optimistic visionaries. The same is happening now with artificial intelligence, but at a pace that puts all previous technological revolutions in the shade.

For generations of investors, the gospel was simple: invest in a balanced portfolio with 60 percent stocks and 40 percent bonds. This sacred formula was passed down from wealth manager to wealth manager, from father to son, as an immutable law of financial physics. But what happens when artificial intelligence scrutinizes this age-old wisdom?

The spectacular rally in Japanese equities appears to be over after many years of strong gains. Following years of underweight positioning, global investors have finally turned their attention to Japanese stocks, spurred by a recent aversion to U.S. equities—just as momentum is beginning to fade.

The question of how best to incorporate bitcoin into an investment portfolio is becoming increasingly relevant. As the digital currency gains mainstream acceptance, investors grapple with the practical considerations: should you buy crypto directly, or opt for traditional financial instruments?