As gold topped a record $1800 on Wednesday, traders that are long gold [GCCV1 1751.50 -32.80 (-1.84%) ] began to get nervous that they were behind a trade that may not have any potential new buyers left. After all, a trade only keeps working if you can find someone else who wants that particularly security or commodity at a higher price.
$2.8 trillion lost in market turmoil so far
If stock market gyrations make you queasy, you may not want to read on.
The Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index has lost $2.8 trillion in value since the stock market slide began on July 22. Some $600 billion of that went up in smoke on Wednesday, when the index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both dropped about 520 points.
Not surprisingly, the stock market’s wild swings in recent weeks have sent investors and retirees scurrying to their financial advisors for some hand holding. The main message they’re hearing: Stay put.
“Try to take a step back from the day-to-day,” said Chris Philips, senior investment analyst with Vanguard. “Reacting to these ups and downs and sideways swings can actually do more harm than good for most investors.”
Investors flee to gold
Stock-shocked investors are fleeing to gold, pushing the precious metal to new heights.
Gold reached a new intraday high of $1,782.50 per ounce in electronic trading before backing down to $1,746.20. That’s an increase of $33, or about 2%, compared to its Monday close. On Monday, gold broke $1,700 for the first time.
The current flight to gold has been by a nasty stock market plunge. On Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 624 points, or about 5.5%, and the Nasdaq and S&P 500 dropped nearly 7%. It was the worst day on Wall Street since the 2008 fiscal crisis.
Investors lose a trillion dollars in one day
EW YORK (CNNMoney) — Investors lost a trillion dollars in the in the stock market Monday as the debt crisis in Europe, lackluster economic news and a downgrade to the U.S. credit rating spark fears of a double-dip recession.
The Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index, the broadest index of U.S. stocks, lost 891.93 points, or just over 7%, Monday. This represents a paper loss for the day of approximately $1.0 trillion.
GLOBAL MARKETS-Investors dump stocks after U.S. downgrade
NEW YORK, Aug 8 (Reuters) – U.S. stocks plunged on Monday
and investors fled to the safety of gold and bonds after the
downgrade of the U.S. credit rating by Standard & Poor’s stoked
fears the United States is slipping into recession.
Wall Street slumped as much as 6 percent by mid-afternoon
and European stocks hit a two-year low. A favored gauge of
investor anxiety spiked well above 40, a sign investors are
afraid of more declines to come. The CBOE Volatility Index
.VIX surged 41.9 percent at 45.40.
Investors were struggling to discern the effects of the
U.S. credit rating downgrade to AA-plus from AAA, which could
hit various components of the vast U.S. financial sector, from
mortgage lenders to municipal issuers and insurers.
Foreign Currency Brokers Come Under Fire
ompanies that allow home investors to trade foreign currencies are coming under fire as regulators consider whether to put more rules on the fast-growing but risky market.
Currency brokers allow ordinary Americans to speculate on the value of dollars, euros and yen, and have grown revenue 374% since 2007, drawing in 615,000 American traders, according to the Aite Group consulting firm.
The most intense recent criticism of these brokers came from a hedge fund manager who researches and invests in companies that cater to home investors.
Wall Street to brokers: Investors should buy, not flee
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street’s advice to investors battered by plunging markets: Keep buying stocks.
With markets plunging for more than a week, and no relief in sight, some of the biggest brokerages on Thursday afternoon and early on Friday told their advisers that clients should not flee but instead buy into the panic.
Stocks plunge as economic, Europe worries continue
The Dow Jones industrial average plunged more than 300 points and erased its gains for the year as investors grew more concerned about economic weakness in the U.S. and Europe.
Trade the News to Make More Money
Why Trade the News
The simple answer to that question is “To make more money!”
But in all seriousness, trading the news gives us another opportunity to trade the forex market. As we learned in the previous section, news is a very important part to the market because it’s what makes it move!
When news comes out, especially important news that everyone is watching, you can expect to see some major movement. Your goal as a trader is to get on the right side of the move, but the fact that you know the market will indeed move somewhere makes it an opportunity definitely worth looking at.
A Glimpse of America in 2015
The year is 2015, and it’s late in the month of June. Central bank policymakers have been meeting for two days. Now it’s late in the afternoon of that second day, and Bernanke’s traditional press conference is set to start at any moment. Investors the world over have stopped everything to hear what the U.S Fed leader has to say.
Bernanke is still not the longest-serving Fed chairman: With only nine years under his belt, he has a decade to go before he’d have more service time than predecessor Alan Greenspan, or the legendary William McChesney Martin.