Month: December 2024

Russia launched a massive drone and missile strike against Ukraine on Friday in retaliation for Kyiv’s recent use of the US-supplied Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) against a Russian military base.

ABC News quoted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said Russia launched 93 missiles and nearly 200 drones targeting the country’s energy infrastructure. This was one of the largest bombardments against Ukraine’s energy sector since the invasion began almost three years ago.

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian defense forces intercepted 81 missiles, including 11 cruise missiles shot down by Western-supplied General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets.

He accused Russia of continuing to “terrorize millions of people” with these reckless assaults, renewing his request to the international community for intervention and more support for Ukraine.

“A strong reaction from the world is needed: a massive strike – a massive reaction. This is the only way to stop terror,” Zelenskyy said.

Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry published a statement on its official Telegram channel, claiming that the retaliatory strike hit all intended targets:

“In response to the use of American long-range weapons, Russia’s Armed Forces launched a massive strike with high-precision long-range air- and sea-based weapons and UAVs on critical fuel and energy infrastructure facilities in Ukraine that support the operation of the military-industrial complex.”

On Wednesday, Ukraine fired six ATACMS at a Russian airfield inside the country’s sovereign territory. Russia claimed after the attack that all missiles were intercepted.

Reports on X indicate that Ukraine’s state-run energy company, Ukrenergo, warned that up to 50% of residential customers could be without power after today’s attack.

The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, said a portfolio allocation of up to 2% is “reasonable” for investors who wish to hold Bitcoin, in their latest Investment Perspectives report.

They begin the report by noting that “bitcoin cannot be compared to traditional assets,” but from a portfolio construction perspective, Samara Cohen (CIO of ETFs) and her team suggest that the so-called “Magnificent 7” group of mega-cap tech stocks is a useful starting point.

“Those stocks represent single portfolio holdings that account for a comparatively large share of portfolio risk as with bitcoin.

In a traditional portfolio with a mix of 60% stocks and 40% bonds, those seven stocks each account for, on average, about the same share of overall portfolio risk as a 1-2% allocation to bitcoin.

We think that’s a reasonable range for a bitcoin exposure.”

As with gold, bitcoin can be driven by sentiment, narratives and momentum – both up and down.

Why not more, they ask (and answer):

“Going beyond that would sharply increase bitcoin’s share of the overall portfolio risk.”

With approximately $11.5 trillion in assets under management (and manager of the largest spot BTC ETF, iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), which holds net assets of nearly $54 billion), they are worth listening to.

According to BlackRock, investors “need to think about Bitcoin’s expected returns in a different way: it has no underlying cash flows for estimating future returns. What matters: the extent of adoption.”

“Bitcoin may also provide a more diversified source of return,” BlackRock said, adding:

“We see no intrinsic reason why Bitcoin should be correlated with major risk assets over the long term given its value is driven by such distinct drivers.”

Longer term, BTC “could potentially also become less risky – but at that point it might no longer have a structural catalyst for further sizable price increases,” the report said.

Instead, “investors may prefer to use it tactically to hedge against specific risks, similar to gold.”

Launched in January, spot BTC ETFs emerged as 2024’s most popular investment vehicles, breaking $100 billion in net assets in November. 

As CoinTelegraph reports, these surging inflows from institutional investors could cause “demand shocks” in 2025, driving up BTC’s spot price, according to a Dec. 12 report by Sygnum Bank.

“Our analysis shows how even relatively modest allocations from this segment can fundamentally alter the crypto asset ecosystem,” Sygnum said.

The report, dubbed ‘Sizing Bitcoin in portfolios’, was released by BlackRock Investment Institute on Dec. 12.