Should You Be Concerned with the METAVERSE! Market Outlook For Your Retirement
Is this headline News or Noise?
Hey, I’m Chris Perras, Chief Investment Officer with Oak Harvest Financial Group. Our investment team is pleased to introduce a new mid-week release in which we will examine a news item, headline, or story making the rounds from publicly available sources and ask, “Is it News or Noise?”
Our constant advice for investors is to “tune out the noise.” But sometimes it is hard to know what’s noise and what’s not! That’s what this series is going to be about.
These are going to be quick, casual, opinion pieces, and while we will use data to derive our conclusions, we will be wrong in our interpretations, at least some of the time. However, we are looking to practice what we preach, and help investors to rationally and critically analyze emotion laden stories.
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So here we go..
I want to say one word to you. Just one word: “Metaverse”. Isn’t that a line from a recent Mark Zuckerberg movie, “The Dropout?” or am I getting that confused with the term “Plastics” in the 1967 film the “Graduate”? Doesn’t matter, this is news. And I recommend everyone, particularly anyone over the age of 50 go watch Mark Zuckerberg’s video that was released on October 28th. You don’t have to like him one bit, but it is worth watching.
Viewers, I must mention that the investment team at Oak Harvest first discussed the Metaverse, in detail, on March 26 of this year, that’s 8 months ago before the recent swirl and hype, in a podcast titled, “Digital Widgets – bitcoin, NFT’s, and the Metaverse.” We did this when others in the market were talking about peak economic growth and were concerned about slowdowns. At that time, any stock that could be considered a metaverse investment play was out of favor. Back then? Semiconductor stocks in the group? Unloved. Software names in the group? Overpriced was the talk on TV.
What is a Metaverse? It is a collectively shared, digital space that integrates both our own physical outside world with a digital, virtual community. Communities like gaming where there are over 600 million Minecraft citizens. Microsoft owns Minecraft. The game Fortnite, owned by Epic Games, has over 350 million players or a World of Warcraft with over 100 million players owned by Activision. Roblox is for younger gamers. It already has 150 million monthly users. These are user basis bigger than many countries.
Like it or not, this is the likely direction of entertainment, education, and communication down the line. The semiconductor, and its ability to store, retrieve and transfer data at hyper speeds is making the possibilities for new digital application almost endless. Entertainment? Already here. Education distribution? The changes are coming. Healthcare? We are in the early innings.
These semiconductors are being designed around technology provided by both Nvidia and AMD and a few others. They are being manufactured by the likes of Taiwan Semiconductor using capital equipment from ASM Lithography, Applied Materials and KLA Corp.
If you want a glimpse at the future, just go watch a few of the following movies: Ready Player One directed by Steven Spielberg or Avatar directed by James Camron, or the Matrix series with Keanu Reeves in it.
Already, in the gaming communities in the metaverse, you can buy goods and services in digital form and transact with others in your community. It may seem wasteful to some, buying a “digital sword or special armor” to play a videogame. However, many people see paying four or five dollars for a coffee at Starbucks as wasteful as well. To me, they are both forms of satisfying one’s desire for entertainment.
No one knows who the eventual winners and losers will be over the next decade or two in the race to monetize the metaverse. Just as we didn’t know, 20 years ago that Amazon and Google would claim supremacy over the first wave in internet growth. However, we do know. This is where both Millennials and Gen Z aged consumers are spending much of their current spare time, energy and money so this is where the future, our economy, and the money will be going. Many of us, particularly older generations, may not like this kind of “progress” or news story. But like it or not, our world is becoming more digital every day, and the Metaverse is heading to a computer, phone, or new distribution device near you. As Thanos said as he snapped his fingers in the Avengers Endgame movie, “I am Inevitable”. So too is the Metaverse in whatever form it takes in our future.
Viewers, like it or not, this is News.
News or Noise: News
Viewers, give us a call here at Oak Harvest and ask to speak to one of our advisors. Let us help you craft a financial plan that meets your retirement goals and needs first, and your greed’s second. Call us at (877) 896-0040; we are here to help you on your financial journey into and throughout your retirement years.
https://www.theverge.com/22588022/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-ceo-metaverse-interview
https://time.com/6118513/into-the-metaverse-time-newsletter/
https://oakharvestfg.com/stock-talk/03-26-2021-stock-talk-podcast/
Partial List of Metaverse Stocks:
Gaming: Roblox, Electronic Arts, Take Two, Activision Blizzard, Microsoft, Sea Ltd, Apple, Amazon
Software/Platforms: Unity Software, Unreal Engine (Epic Games, Tencent), Meta Platforms/Facebook
Semiconductors: Advanced Micro, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Arm Holdings, ASM Lithography, Applied Materials, KLA Corp
Tangential/NFT’s: Any Luxury Brand, Auction Houses, Nike, Disney
