Markets Up For Third Week; A Fourth Will be Tougher
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A third straight week of gains for sharemarkets; will wonders never cease?Wall Street and other major markets finished solid gains over the week, but a couple of worries emerged with the health of the banks that will make a 4th weekly gain this week tougher to achieve.The CEO's of JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America said results deteriorated in March after earlier in the month talking up January and February.If they are joined by others in coming weeks, watch the rebound turn sour.The US dollar rose Friday, sending commodity prices, led by oil, lower in New York.The Aussie dollar finished above 69 USc after having its best week of the year so far.Asian and European markets finished higher for the week after hitting lows in the week of March 9.Wall Street did likewise, but Friday saw a 2% drop, which was a worry to the bulls.The Standard & #38; Poor's 500 Index lost 2%, but it's still up 11% in March. The Dow fell 148.38, or 1.9%, to 7,776.18 and the Nasdaq eased 2.6%.For the week, the Dow rose 6.8%, the S & #38;P 500 6.2% and Nasdaq rose 6%.The Dow is up 10.1% for the month but remains down 11.4% year-to-date.The S & #38;P 500 is still down nearly 10% this year and has shed 47.9% since its record high in October 2007.Our market looks like being down 1% after the overnight futures trading on Saturday morning.The ASX 200 rose 0.7% on Friday and the All Ords was up 0.8%.For the week the ASX 200 rose 6% and the All Ords 6.2%.JPMorgan Chase & #38; Co's CEO, Jamie Dimon said that March was & quot;a little tough & quot; in comments to CNBC. & #160;The bank's shares fell nearly 5.8% on the day. Bank of America Corps' CEO, Ken Lewis said his bank's trading book in March lagged the two prior months.The gloomy comments on bank profits contrasted with statements earlier in the month that had helped push the broad S & #38;P 500 index up more than 20% since the 12-year low on March 9.Citigroup fell 6.8% and the KBW bank index fell 3.3% on the day, but is still up a huge 55% from its March 6 low.General Motors was a rare bright spot on Friday, rising more than 6%, as the Obama administration said its car industry task force would release its report tonight, our time.As well GM has appointed advisers to find investors for its German Opel unit, which (amazingly) said it was on track for what could be the best quarterly results in a decade. & #160;That's because of the German government's car scrapping subsidy for vehicles more than nine years old.Europe's Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index slipped 1.1%. It's up more than 14% since the low on March 9. & #160;The FTSE Eurofirst 300 index also fell 1.1%. The index rose 2.7% and is up 14.2% from the low to which it sank on March 9. & #160;The DJ Stoxx Banking index is up more than 47% from its March 9 low, echoing the US banking sector's rebound.The MSCI World has dropped 10% in 2009 after last year's 42% plunge,London's FTSE 100 share index closed 0.7% lower on Friday, but it's up 12.7% from the lows of early March. It's still down 12.1% from the start of 2009.The rescue of Scotland's biggest building society, the Dunfermline, at the weekend won't help sentiment among financial stocks. & #160;Nor the news that the UK economy contracted 1.3% in the 4th quarter and the Irish economy by a huge 7.1%.Asian shares had their biggest weekly gain since August 2007 after they finished Friday little changed.The MSCI Asia Pacific Index has risen 21% from a five-year low on March 9, technically entering a bull market, along with several other markets during the week.The Asian Index jumped 7.5% last week, its best weekly performance since the week ended Aug. 24, 2007.Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 10% last week, the Nikkei in Tokyo jumped 8.6% and South Korea's Kospi Index added 5.7%.Japan's Topix Index posted its biggest weekly gain since 1997 and the Nikkei average reached its highest point in more than two months on Friday. & #160;
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Daniel Kertcher established Platinum Pursuits in 2001 as a vehicle in which to share his knowledge of strategies to use the financial markets to grow wealth, with the aim of achieving financial freedom by making your money work for you.
His argument is that until you become financially literate and develop a method where you're able to get a reasonable return on your capital (i.e. making your money work for you), you will instead be forever working hard for your money.
Daniel Kertcher personally achieved financial freedom at a relatively young age, through his knowledge of property and then financial markets investing. Through using Options and leveraged instruments such as CFDs, Daniel developed a system to trade the markets where he could benefit from the leverage when the trade went in the direction he predicted, and hedged his positions so that there was a limited downside risk.
Some people in the past have criticised Daniel's message of striving for financial freedom in a high-risk environment such as trading derivatives. However, it is not Daniel's or Platinum Pursuits' goal to encourage everyone to trade the financial markets. Every kind of investing contains an element of risk, so this level of education is aimed specifically for those who want an understanding of professional trading techniques and strategies that they hope to apply to their own capital, and it is absolutely true that many people are not yet in a position to invest a chunk of their savings.
To be truly financially literate, it can pay to explore all the options available when you are in a position to try to get ahead in life. Daniel currently presents free introductory seminars nationally on selected dates from February to November. |
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