At the end of last week, the struggle between hobby speculators organized on the Internet and professional hedge funds, which were betting on falling prices, had put a noticeable strain on the stock market. On Monday, some experts and financial market strategists reacted quite calmly, although the silver market became the new object of speculation.
Neel Kashkari, a senior representative of the US Federal Reserve, also commented on the turbulence on the stock market. Gamestop had received a lot of attention, but he was not worried about the price volatility. “If one group of speculators wants to compete with another on a single stock – God bless them,” said Kashkari. “If you make money with it, fine. And if you lose money, it’s your business.”
The strategists at Bank JPMorgan also consider it unlikely that the struggle between the two groups could set the markets back significantly. Bigger setbacks usually come with poor growth prospects and high valuations, they argued.
The broker Robinhood has since restricted trading in Gamestop shares and other stocks, including AMC Entertainment. While Gamestop dropped by almost 31 percent on Monday, AMC listed after initially stronger fluctuations in the end with plus 0.30 percent only slightly changed.
Meanwhile, the precious and industrial metal silver became the new speculative target. The price for a troy ounce (31.1 grams) rose on Monday for the first time since the beginning of 2013 above the 30 US dollar mark. Silver producer stocks soared: First Majestic Silver gained a good 22 percent, Pan American Silver rose a good 12 percent and Fortuna Silver Mines rose more than 17 percent.
At the front of the Dow were the shares of Microsoft with plus 3.3 percent. Apple gained 1.7 percent. The iPhone manufacturer taps into the bond market and wants to use the proceeds for share buybacks and dividends. In last place in the leading index, the shares of the pharmacy chain Walgreens Boots Alliance lost 2.8 percent.
The euro fell slightly on Monday. The common currency was $ 1.2057 after the New York market closed. The European Central Bank (ECB) had set the reference rate at 1.2084 (Friday: 1.2136) dollars, the dollar cost 0.8275 (0.8239) euros. The futures contract for ten-year Treasuries (T-Note-Future) stagnated at 137.21 points. The ten-year bond yield was 1.076 percent./ajx/fba
— By Achim Jüngling, dpa-AFX —
(AWP)
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