Nicholas Vardy
Global Stock Investor Hotline 19
What a difference a week makes. After drifting down for four consecutive weeks, global financial markets soared during the past week, largely making up the losses they incurred since the beginning of June. Oddly, the S&P 500 hit its exact June high of 956.23 (down to the second decimal place) in yesterday’s trading, before pulling back slightly.
The Tao of Real Estate Profits
What a difference a week makes. After the market spent the previous four weeks grinding relentlessly downward, market technicians confidently predicted that a "head and shoulder top" in the global stock markets signaled another impending market collapse. Instead, Mr. Market generated the most powerful weekly rally in global financial markets in recent memory. Many of your positions in the Global Bull Market Alert portfolio erased the losses of the last four weeks over a mere four trading days. And with both Asian and European markets up sharply in overnight trading today, the rally looks set to continue.
A Yen for Defense
The Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith once observed that "the financial memory is very short." Indeed, as global stock markets drifted lower for the fourth week in a row, the fact that global stocks just closed their best quarter in more than 10 years already seems like a distant memory.
Global Stock Investor Hotline 18
Excitement in global financial markets seems to have wilted in the sunshine of summer. Global markets are trading in the lower end of a trading range, reaching lows last seen after the sharp sell-off in mid-June. Japanese stocks have fallen for six straight sessions. Even China’s red-hot Shanghai Composite declined 1.1% yesterday, breaking a four-session winning streak. That said, your bet on Taiwan through the iShares MSCI Taiwan Index Fund (EWT) is holding up well, ending the week up 1.9%.
With Global Stock Markets Listless, the Global Bull Takes a Break
In an interview in Jack Schwager’s classic book “Market Wizards,” a young Jim Rogers reflected that "one of the best rules anybody can learn about investing is to do nothing, absolutely nothing, unless there is something to do." When the market does not offer you any exceptional opportunities, it is better to just go read a book, go to the beach, and withdraw from the game altogether. Doing nothing is better than throwing money away on suboptimal trades.
Global Stock Investor Hotline 17
Debate continues about whether the longest recession since World War II is nearing an end. Some pundits have categorically declared that the worst of the financial crisis is over. Others like the World Bank have just lowered their forecasts for global growth.