Investment24: Upcoming Financial Information Flood Requires Overall View

Online, February 25, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Baech (Switzerland) - The debts crisis of the Southern European countries has taken a back seat for now due to a deluge of upcoming company accounting numbers and economic condition data. In Germany many DAX-groups will publish their financial statements on Thursday, key data concerning the economic activity from Europe and the U.S. will round out the picture of the information overkill. But not all figures are relevant to private investors.

Thus, the decline of the German Ifo-Business Activity Index, published on February 23, can be mainly explained with the cold winter in Central Europe, leaving construction sector and retail industry remarkably affected. Despite of a more positive outlook (Ifo-Business Expectations), investors have taken profits and were reasonable for a slice of prices after the strong previous week for the DAX-index. "The bad financial statements of the chemical group Merck and the Commerzbank have probably been the reason for investors' skepticism," comments Bernd M. Otto of Investment24 Research. "Further development will depend, among other things, from the question whether the other DAX-groups will publish good statements on Thursday."

Also regarding Europe in general, there is contradictory news. The economists of the European Economic Advisory Group (EEAG) from Brussels now only expect one percent growth for the euro zone in 2010. However, a survey of Feri Eurorating Services, in cooperation with Financial Times Germany, revealed a very positive image for European Blue Chips. The indicator of expectations, regarding the Eurostoxx 50 index has reached its peak since middle of 2006. "The Eurostoxx index has disproportionally declined compared to the DAX since middle of January; this fact makes some stocks quite attractive to investors," explains Bernd M. Otto, CEO and founder of Investment24.

In the U.S., the rise of the prime rate up to 0.75 percent on February 19 caused precaution of the investors. On Tuesday, floodgates were opened wide as U.S. consumer confidence, important for the consumptions sector, drastically decreased and led to a slump of the American indices. "For today, the focus on Washington is of particular importance as we can be anxious to the speech of FED's Ben Bernanke in front of a board of congressmen," states Bernd M. Otto. "Investment24 Research has predicted a raise of the federal funds rate for this year already at the beginning of February 2010; after the increase of the prime rate further steps could be taken in the second half of this year."