Report from the financial markets from July 2010

13.8.2010
The first step to renew trust in the European financial system was an exercise test of financial institutions which confirmed financial health of European banks. Another step will be the attitude of the European governments to continue in the established rate of restrictive fiscal policy. However, as soon as the European governments agree and show the clear strength to cut on their expenses and budgets, the markets can move upwards very quickly. The portfolio managers of ING evaluate the acroeconomic development and the situation on the financial markets in the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic in July 2010.  

Report from the financial markets from June 2010

19.7.2010
The last week in the month lapsed was negative for stock markets and stock markets lost their previous profits and incurred losses. The main reason for this change in the sentiment and mood were again the growing concerns about strength and duration of the world economic revival. These concerns appeared after the fiscal savings adopted in particular in Europe and which could potentially cause the return to recession in consequence of examining and limiting Government’s expenses and influence the growth of economic revival on a world-wide basis. The portfolio managers of ING IM evaluate the macroeconomic development and the situation on the financial markets in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in June 2010.   

Market commentary: Ad van Tiggelen, ING IM investment strategist

After the correction in May, European equities look cheap in a historical context. With price/earnings ratios below the historic average and with many companies paying dividend yields which are higher than their bond yields, there is a lot of value around. Furthermore, the global economy is recovering en corporate balance sheets are strong. So, equities appear to have been punished too harshly for the worries about eurozone sovereign debt. Do investors worry too much?

7.7.2010
The sub-fund « ING International II Slovak Money Market » has been liquidated on June 30, 2010. The redemption value is EUR 37.76 per share (without costs and taxes).

Report from financial markets from March 2010

15.4.2010
Clear signs of revival that have despite their obvious fragility a positive impact on investors' sentiment and continuing excess liquidity combined with maintenance of extremely low interest rates by central banks will continue to have a positive influence on the performance of stock markets and risk assets in the nearest future. Macroeconomic figures, in particular very low inflation without any signs of noticeable rise, should at the same time keep bond yields at relatively low levels. The portfolio managers of ING evaluate the macroeconomic development and the situation on the financial markets in the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic in March 2010.   

Report from financial markets from February 2010

12.3.2010
Central European markets saw in the month of February a very similar development to that of the developed stock markets, but contrary to them they did not manage to reverse or make up for the losses from the beginning of the month. The best performance among local currencies was in past month achieved by the Hungarian stock market, followed by Czech and Polish stock market. The portfolio managers of ING evaluate the macroeconomic development and the situation on the financial markets in the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic in February 2010.  

Report from financial markets from January 2010

12.2.2010
In the first month of 2010 the stock markets had two completely different periods. In the first half of the month they continued in their development from the previous periods and continued growing. In the first two weeks the growth was very significantly supported in particular by the positive mood and optimistic perspective on the development of the economy.