Rainer's Investment Insights

This nice picture is by Abinesh .  Thanks, Abi. It's DEEPAVALI today, the festival of lights, victory of good over evil, the happy endings: Happy Deepavali to all my Indian friends and investors. We need those blessed  lights ... Deepavali or not, an investor's work is never done... Trading at the best of times is a tough task, riddled with unanswered queries, wrong-footed here, a stroke of luck there.  But the last 3 months trading was - HELL for many, when doomsday scenarios made the headlines again, just like in 2008.  During this phase, the time horizon of investors seems to melt down to hours. minutes even, and longer term investors are just forced onto the sidelines. The last 10 days' market behaviour followed the same blasted hokipoki pattern  (left foot in, right foot out, shake it all about...). Hardly that an upside is achieved, the following day erases it, - and vice versa.  What bugs me is that so little thought is given to the conseq...

October 15, 2011 In case you are wondering what this symbol is all about and what it is doing in my blog, I am now an official contributor to the TraderPlanet , which is a website "where traders gravitate" . Stock Markets The latest rally started on a strong note ,and still shows no signs of exhaustion.  This is significant, because unlike the previous attempts in August and September, this rally is not just a function of 'short covering' or bears being wrong footed.  Carry traders are getting back into action ( =USD retreats from highs] and money flows reach beyond the US circle of influence. Recognising a change in trends is about as challenging as correctly assessing winds when sailing out at sea: a sailor often 'smells' winds and knows when - and where - danger lurks.  He does not consciously note down all his observations, the variance in wind conditions, the accompanying signs precluding such change.  It is the 'smell' that dominates his...

I am suitably impressed!  (Last night..) 15:00h Wall Street time must have been the DARKEST HOUR in the midst of panic and screams to run for cover.  Financial markets had been falling unnervingly for only 3 days, yet sentiment was as disastrous as it was in midst of the chaos of 2008.  Telling anyone to stop fretting fell mostly on deaf ears: " He's nuts, he's lost it now!" Those who threw away their assets with no regard to their value will have reason to regret shortly, unless you still have the gumption to do a mental turnaround as swiftly as US equity market traders did. Intraday Throughout most of the day, market participants had resigned themselves to be miserable; the opening was 1.5% below the Monday close and the misery almost paralysed price movements.  Then, at around 15:00, someone came out of a meeting and said: "I got it!" - referring to lots of money to invest and the absolute conviction of doing the right thing.  In the last hour ...