Weekly Review and OpenBook Roundup

(eToro Blog) The week that was has featured fluctuations in performance across the Eurozone, and the USA. Investor sentiment was dampened somewhat on the back of preliminary information on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the 17 nations comprising the Eurozone. A contraction valued at 0.2% during the second quarter of 2012 confirms what many financial analysts have suspected: European economic performance is hurting on the back of the global crunch. It is further expected that growth will remain negative for the present quarter too. This gives credence to the fact that the European Union (27 countries) is facing a recession. In spite of this dreary outlook, Germany’s second-quarter performance increased marginally, by 0.3%. The German economy is not immune to the Eurozone crisis, and this figure may well be revised downwards in coming months.

Implementing Austerity Measures

Greece is at the heart of ongoing struggles to repay its massive and overwhelming debt. It is expected that Greece will likely make it €3 billion debt repayment on 20 August. This, however, it pales in comparison to the almost $32 billion, euro payment as part of the 2nd  bailout package. In order for the Greek economy to stay afloat, it is necessary to dramatically reduce government expenditure in the forms of social welfare, public-sector wages and the like. French unemployment figures are hovering around the 10% mark, and French President Hollande has yet to implement austerity measures to stem the financial crisis. A similar trend can be seen across Europe, with Italy’s GDP declining, Greece’s GDP declining, Finland’s GDP declining, Portugal’s GDP declining, and Spain’s GDP declining. On a positive note, investors were buoyed by the performance of the Austrian and the Dutch economies. They showed a slight improvement of 0.2% over the first quarter of the year.

The Social Trading Community at eToro

At eToro, traders continue to see opportunities in stocks, commodities, indices and currencies. The top-ranked trader lemmoh has generated significant returns over a 12-month period. His performance reflected gains in the region of 300%. For the 6-month period, he enjoyed returns of 227.8%, for 3 months his performance reflected 28.3% returns. His Guru trading profile reflects some 838 followers and 153 copiers – an impressive record.  Lemmoh has allocated some 19.7% of his resources to indices trading and some 80.3% to currencies trading. His preferred forex markets are EUR/USD (75%) and GBP/USD (1.7%). On the indices front, some 18% of his funds allocations have been allotted to GER30, with a marginal decline of 4.9%. Lemmoh’s Portfolio represents a diverse spread of investments across multiple holdings.