by Gregory

Undoubtedly, this is the subject of the last three months: do we have a bubble in the stocks markets? The question is obviously not new and has been raised a million of times in the past without any consequences in terms of policy and futures cycles. However, the question is gaining more attention nowadays, and [...]

by Gregory

Here is a new edition of Weekly Wrap, with a special focus on Europe. While newspapers have been busy covering European politics, I’d like to come back to the last week GDP and this week OECD projections. The euro zone GDP rose by 0.4 per cent in Q3, after five consecutive quarters of declines (economists [...]

by Gregory

As James was saying following my yesterday’s post, nobody has called the bottom yet. But, if your investment horizon is more medium to long term, do you really need to spot the bottom precisely? Let’s ask again the question that Warren Buffet asked himself six months ago: assuming a long term horizon, does current valuation [...]

by Markus

Adding another angle to the analysis of current market conditions, I checked the technical pattern of relevant equity indices worldwide. DJI, DAX, EUROSTOXX50 and NIKKEI225. All share the pattern of an exemplarily drawn downwards trend, starting in Q4/2007. All of them have tested the support line of the trend in July. DJI, ESTOXX50 and N225 [...]

by James

Equities got hit last week, the S&P 500 fell 3% on higher oil, continuing concerns about the financial sector, and – perhaps most importantly – on negative earnings outlook. The latter is most important as it represents the most likely trigger to pull the US market down another leg. Oil put in an aggressive rally [...]

by James

Despite a volatile week, the S&P ended last week basically flat. Inflation and Lehman Brothers were the main stories. Lehman Brothers shocked the market with a $2.8bln write-down. This led to several days of punishment, only quelled on Friday, when it became known that BlackRock had bought equity at $28/shr and with the likely closure [...]

by James

It seemed that we repeatedly sounded our bear horn for weeks, blowing hopelessly against the wind of a naïve bear market rally. At last the US market has come around to our way of thinking (as far as I recall the Melange Team seemed fairly unified on the idea that equities should at least test [...]

by Dino

Let us try to figure out if the recent rally in the S&P 500 index is supported by an improving earnings outlook – the inveterate question Are stocks cheap? When studying corporate earnings, you have to understand that there are two kinds: the earnings that companies have actually reported, and what analysts think those earnings [...]