Investing 2022 Wrapped! 🎁

Welcome to Investing 2022 Wrapped! Bad Bunny may have been ruling Spotify’s (SPOT) charts (and our earbuds) as most-streamed artist in the world for 2022, but it was a bad bear market dominating our investing thoughts. At its worst, the S&P 500 index was down 25%, before share prices bunny-hopped their way back to settle at about 15% down so far this year. 🐇 

With one industry though, it was love at first sight. Oil and gas dominated the investing returns this year, with shares in top performers Constellation Energy Corp (CEG) and Occidental Petroleum (OXY) heating up more than Aotearoa’s sizzling summertime temperatures (and Buffett’s not mad about it). No wonder Heat Waves was the second-most-streamed song of 2022. 🥵

Wall Street ventured into the genre-verse and discovered its own deep love affair for… K-pop? Spotify reported a 27% increase in monthly K-pop streams earlier this year, while superstars BTS kept their spot on the list of the top five global artists. That was enough for Wall Street K-pop stars, which celebrated by dropping a new K-pop themed exchange traded fund (ETF). 🎤 Still, Wall Street turned down the volume on booming initial public offerings (IPOs) in 2022. The number of IPOs on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) dropped 93% from last year. That’s Industry Baby. 

From sunrise to sunset, investors kept it real. While Elon was busy blowing up Twitter, SBF was blowing up FTX, and T-Swift was blowing up the internet and Spotify charts, any ‘Panic-sell!’ investing personas gave way to cooler heads, ready to ride the waves of volatility like a coastal Grandma. 🏄

All that listening has certainly added up for Spotify. Despite the company’s share price falling below pre-pandemic levels, they say they’ve grown to 195 million paid subscribers, and expect to crack 200 million by the end of the year. Say ‘cheese!’ 🎵