SUMMER 2014

Just two trading days left from this summer. Yesterday the US and Europen markets stepped back a bit. The S&P 500 finished its three-day winning streak. The market at the early session plunged severely due to the never ending Russian – Ukranian turmoil. Kiev said the wanna-be-cowboy Putin sent regular troops to Eastern Ukraine. Mr. Market didn’t respect that news and turned red. The volume again was extremely low right before the Labor Day weekend in US the trading could stay easily boring further today. All in all, monthly basis all indices showing nice gains in August.

• S&P 500:  - 0,17% (1,997)
• DJIA:         - 0,25%
• NASDAQ: - 0,26%

 

Yes, unfortunately the summer is over, the US Labor Day bells the end of it. It was short as always, wasn’t it? But the market wasn’t really vanilla this summer this season was different. In terms of trading there have been some remarkable things. We have had some serious geopolitical tensions, so it wasn’t a really boring holiday season.

We collected and specified below some special and unique events below, which are not only affected on the summer season, but could effect on the fall as well.

• Ukraine invasion or no invasion question. This has been dominated the headlines and almost each day with us, but surprisingly there is no real impact on the markets. Even the invasion headlines doesn’t make this market go down. The markets don't care about that conflict in longer term. In the old days, war would always lift the market.
• Geopolitical turmoils around the globe – Ukraine, Gaza strip, Ebola…etc.
• Financial risks occurred – Russian embargo effects on German economy, ECB more and more serious about some QE, US GDP growth is very impressive, Euro region GDP is disappointing.
• Despite the holiday season and the low volumes the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit new historical highs.
• S&P 500 hit the 2,000 milestone level the first time in the history.
• Trading volumes were extremely low especially in August.

Which risk and fear stay with us in the rest of the year, we don’t know yet. I bet many of them stick with us and some new are going to occur. That is the general rule of markets without fears Mr. Market can’t go new records.

The BFM Assets Team.