Rainer's Investment Insights

Stock Markets since Friday 18th peak to Thursday (TODAY) morning (US time), 24th September  DJIA        16930  (peak Thursday 17th)  - now 16070 =  loss of  860 pts / -5% NASDAQ  4450 ( peak Thursday 17th) -  now 4242 =  loss of  208 pts / -4.8% RUSSELL 1195  ( peak Thursday 17th)  -  now  1081 =  loss of  114 pts / -9.5% DAX        10509  ( peak Thursday 9th !)  -  now  9412 =  loss of  1097 pts / -10.4% NIKKEI   18770  ( peak Thursday 9th !)  -  now  17570=  loss of  1200 pts / -6.3% ALMOST FORGOT... Gold is rallying sharply, now in its second week! Current price above $1152 the ounce. Since the low at 1055 it has returned 9.3%. Will it continue? Well, it may peak anytime in line with the ending of the faltering stock market. So if you are not in now, you are a bit late... may be wait till early November... In my last blog I predicted a loss of 6-10% for the period after the FED decision to September 30th.  We are almost there percentage-wise though there are stil

Stocks Down Again By right, no change in interest rates should have resulted in a short rally in stocks and shares. Last Friday, US stocks rallied till lunch time, then tumbled some 200 points, - after the FED announced that rates will stay the same at 0.25%.  Was the stock market really reacting to the FED decision? Are punters really that dim to interpret the lack of action as a sign of a secret economic weakness? Well, that is what I hear from the financial whizz guys of the famous networks.  If that were so, then why did the German DAX drop 3%(!) all through Friday, closing long before the official announcement came in the US? The Japanese NIKKEI 225 also fell 2% on Friday, and closed 12 hours earlier.  Most other markets in the Asia-Pacific had a positive day.  Does that mean the Germans and the Japanese were psychic and knew that the US stocks would go down and reacted preemptively, - while the others only "cared" for their own little markets? Or - did the worry i

The Old Game Mr Bernanke's statement often contained hints, kernels of truth and some points to ponder.  The latter always proved a challenge to the investment community. When he said, he considers an end to quantitative easing, (May 2014)  the market reacted vehemently with a sharp drop, so as to tell him, "don't mess with the stock market".  It worked like a ping pong game:  Mr Bernanke "serves" - the end to QE,  they (=investors) "smash" straight at him,  he "slices" back with a moderated suggestion,  they return hard, and he stretches for a conciliatory "backhand", to re-establish the status quo, i.e. "FED is not going to kill QE just yet"!   They hit the winning spin... and markets rally to new highs... As the game wears on, exhaustion sets in: More sliced backhands at the distress corner ("QE must end") and market participants get used to catching the drift, - and adopt the new style of play