Last week, indices of the leading stock platforms across the world stopped falling. Laurence Fink, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BlackRock, an American multinational investment management corporation, which has USD 4.3 trillion in assets under management, said he looked at the recent market decline “as a good old-fashioned correction.” He also said that he was not seeing long-term investors change their behavior, and that volatility was being caused by hedge funds that had made correlated trades.

On the whole, the first trading week of February was rather quiet both in Europe and in the US. Statistical data that was published over the previous week were of mixed nature. However, they did not raise much confusion among investors.

Again, there were warnings regarding investment into developing markets. As before, analysts do not see good prospects in this segment since they expect that tapering of the quantitative easing program will, in the first place, adversely affect asset liquidity of namely developing markets. There is a growing anxiety in the US again regarding the national debt ceiling. Within the next three weeks, the Congress will have to raise the national debt ceiling again in order to avoid another Federal Government shutdown.

During the current week, investors will expect publication of statistical data on retail trade in the US. Also, there will be publication of data on industrial output in the euro-area.

Financial markets survey 10.02.2014