A key factor is preventing huge panic selling of shares and augurs for an equities rebound is the piecemeal nature of government attempts to rescue banks and the economy, according to analyst , Sitaraman Shankar. “We need to see an index falling 7 or 8 percent intraday in high volumes and then ending up nearly flat on the day as the buyers come back in,” said Philippe Gijsels, strategist at Fortis in Brussels. “What we’re getting instead is Chinese water torture, and no massive cleanout. Governments and central banks are tending to watch stock markets and giving investors small glimmers of hope, not enough to take markets higher, but enough to prevent a sell-off.” So for capitulation to happen, markets will have to be hit by a big, negative news event, and for the rebound to be sustainable, the overall environment would have to improve. “We need to see an event that would shock everybody, a big US bank failure, or a country in Europe going broke,” said Mark Bon, fund manager at Canada Life. Bon said positive factors that would need to be in place for any strong rebound included an improvement in consumer or business confidence indicators, some merger and acquisition activity, successful rights issues and a belief among investors that company profits had bottomed out. “We would have a sharp sell-off triggered by an event, and then a turnaround as people reversed their short positions and bought into a rally,” he said. The MSCI world index .MIWD00000PUS hit its lowest point since April 2003 last week. The index fell more than 43% last year, punctured by a credit market crisis with its origins in collapsed subprime U.S. mortgages, and is already down 16%this year. Between November 2008 and January 2009, there was a 27% rally driven by investor relief that governments were acting firmly to deal with the crisis. Since January 2009 global equities have slipped steadily as it became clear that the government moves were not enough to stave off a sharp recession in top economies. NO CAPITULATION = SMALLER FALLS, WEAKER RALLIES
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USD rose a bit against most major currencies Tuesday as some investors took profits after the Greenback’s declines in the previous session. On a weekend meeting held in Scotland, the G-20 policymakers agreed to maintain support for the economic recovery and failed to address the dollar appreciation issue. That action drove the US currency lower Monday, with the dollar index falling to its lowest level since August 2008. The USD took a break Tuesday on profit-taking and short-covering ahead of the Veterans Day Holiday. But savvy market observers believe that the USD will remain under pressures on the carry trade action. (Note: In carry trades, investors sells a currency with a relatively low interest rate and uses the funds to purchase a different currency or commodity yielding a higher interest rate.) There are indications that the USD is now serving as the funding currency for carry trades, said the International Monetary Fund in a report released last Saturday. Read more
