Poison for the stock markets   

commentary by Robert Gillinger

A quick look at today's trading prices is somewhat disappointing – everything is clearly red. We are not only talking about daily movements here, but whoever invested in equities at the beginning of the year now has less money than before. The reason? Uncertainty – the deadliest poison for the stock market. Uncertainty about who will save us the next time, when the ones who saved us the last time are in trouble themselves now. The fear over national bankruptcies is spreading. But honestly - if this scenario does come true, it will not matter what your money is invested in - it will be gone. Then even gold would not be a legitimate investment, since the governments would simply confiscate it.

Unfortunately, concerns of whether this growth is sustainable are justified - the OECD leading indicators for December nourish those fears: in the OECD countries, we see monthly declines of the increases since August – despite the fact that the absolute level has risen. But the major savior, China, is suddenly struggling – and so is India. Both nations show declining leading indicators. Our economic recovery should be less depended on others, but take into our own hands and finally address some of the administrative reforms. But we rather blame our misery on banks and other alleged suspects, even this doesn't help in changing anything.