The week ahead

All eyes will be on the US markets Monday morning (Tuesday our time) to see how investors will react to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at one of his political rally stops over the weekend. With that in mind, here’s what I have on the calendar and what I’m watching this week.

> PH: The only thing on my schedule is the IPO of NexGen [XG] tomorrow. According to InsiderPH, the IPO was fully sold and required some quota from the over-allotment option to satisfy the excess demand for the shares.

> International: The European Central Bank will meet on July 18 to set interest rates.

MB BOTTOM-LINE: More than anything, the attempted assassination will be a great chance for you to observe your news feeds and evaluate your own media consumption habits. Take note of the channels that tried to introduce you to unsubstantiated engagement bait (I’m looking at you, X), or to channels that were flooded by low-value AI-generated infospam (Facebook, you need to do better). Did you click on anything just because it seemed ridiculous? That’s just human nature, but the algos all saw that and curated what they served you next to try to get you to do it again. Just as you should construct a fairly rigid trading strategy to prevent the worst (and most predictable) aspects of human nature from leading you down paths that cause you to act against your own best interests, you should have a similar apparatus for obtaining and consuming information to prevent the same human weaknesses from leading you to pollute your own thinking with trash news. 

Merkado Barkada is a free daily newsletter on the PSE, investing and business in the Philippines. You can subscribe to the newsletter or follow on Twitter to receive the full daily updates.