The readers choices for the first quarter’s most popular posts suggested the continuing pre-occupation with the financial crisis and its solutions sat uncomfortably with the recovery in the equity benchmarks. One of these developments seemed to be wrong. We suspect, for many readers, it was the stock market. 1) What are the chances for aContinue Reading
DAX investors take another stab at a correctional bet 27 March 2013. FRANKFURT (Börse Frankfurt). Even though German institutional investors have expressed a bullish opinion of the blue-chip DAX index every week for almost two full quarters, it would be wrong to describe this optimism as ‘unreserved’. To a large degree, fund managers’ opinions wereContinue Reading
It’s the end of the quarter and it has not been a good one for issuers of gold ETFs. Since the start of the year total holdings, as measured by Reuters, has slumped at an unprecedented rate. For the ETF providers, who earn fees based on the amount of gold they hold on behalf ofContinue Reading
It makes intuitive sense that the way people feel about something should dictate the way they behave—that our preferences and convictions are faithfully reflected in the choices we actually make. Although this seems a reasonable assumption, recent research in psychology and behavioral finance suggests otherwise. One new study from Ohio State University’s Fisher College ofContinue Reading
Media reports overstate investor anxiety 20 March 2013. FRANKFURT (Börse Frankfurt). If financial journalists had a vote on Boerse Frankfurt’s DAX sentiment panel, optimism would be in the cellar. The controversial levy on Cypriot bank deposits has provided grist for a media mill that has been starved of eurozone crisis news since Draghi’s by-any-means-necessary speechContinue Reading
Given the number of prominent voices that have been raised against the controversial Cyprus bank levy, it was a wonder it found so much support among the troika – the ECB, EU and IMF. Dmitry Medvedev cried foul, Lawrence Summers saw it as an error, and even former Eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker criticised it. WithContinue Reading
When the financial website “Business Insider” proposed a solution to the euro crisis I was all ears. But when the saviour turned out to be none other than the Saviour, one could forgive me for being a sceptical. Although I agree the euro mess could do with a little divine intervention, a transcript of aContinue Reading
13 March 2013. FRANKFURT (Börse Frankfurt). ‘Nobody ever died from profit-taking’ was an old market chestnut we heard last week for the first time in at least six months. Certainly, its revival had something to do with the DAX index reaching the 8,000 mark for the first time since 2008. For seasoned investors in GermanContinue Reading
As the US equity benchmark, S&P 500, approaches the levels where it peaked in 2000 and in 2007, it feels like open-season for equity analysts predicting a triple-top for the index. I do not want to speculate here about whether we will look back on this point as another historical turning point or whether itContinue Reading
A online debate about the merits and dangers of nudging – the ‘soft’ paternalism Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein promoted in their 2008 book, ‘Nudge’, came to the brink of degeneration last week. The detractors criticised the insidiousness of the behavioural interventions. Nudgers, they suggested, use crafty psychological manipulation to rob people of their individualContinue Reading
