World stock markets in AI euphoria
The Ukraine war turned 2 years old on 24 February. Many are now wondering what will happen now that Russia has successfully repelled Ukraine’s first major offensive. Now Russia is selectively going on the counterattack. The West has unanimously declared that it will continue to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia, with Germany now the biggest supporter. At the same time, Israel continued its fight against Hamas in the south, a war that could turn into a powder keg if Iran and its allies become more militarily involved. There is a crisis in office property in the USA, which could lead to a new banking crisis. Inflation has risen again in the USA, which means that interest rates are unlikely to be cut any time soon.
Despite all these geopolitical and monetary policy risks, the global stock market indices reached new highs for the year thanks to the AI euphoria and, in some cases, new all-time highs, such as on Wall Street, the DAX and the Nikkei index in Japan. However, many stock exchanges in Eastern Europe, which already outperformed last year, such as the Budapest Stock Exchange and the Warsaw Stock Exchange, performed even better. Now that Russian shares are still not tradable for Western investors due to the sanctions, shares from Kazakhstan offer a good alternative to Russian shares.
The KTX index for shares from Kazakhstan even closed on 23 February with a plus of 10 per cent, having already achieved a plus of 32 per cent last year. Risk-averse investors can buy Kazakhstani shares directly online via the broker Freedom Finance (Freedom Broker) from Cyprus if they open an account there first, which is easy to do at the following link:
https://freedom24.com/invite_from/2952896 . Although Russian ADR or original shares are still not tradable due to the sanctions, new opportunities may now arise again with some Russian ADR/GDR, which you can now buy at discount prices on the OTC market via the brokers Zerich Securities Ltd. or Freedom Finance from Cyprus. Interesting stocks on the OTC market are above all the Russian discounter Fix Price, which has now also gone public on the stock exchange in Kazakhstan, and the IT stocks VKontakte and Yandex (more on this in the stock market letter EAST STOCK TRENDS (www.eastststok.de). However, you also need to open an account beforehand, which is easy to do at this link: https://trade.mind-money.eu
Andreas Männicke also gives his assessment of the new opportunities in Eastern Europe in his stock market letter EAST STOCK TRENDS (www.eaststock.de) and in his new EastStockTV video, episode 225 at www.YouTube.com.
Strong influence of the USA in the Ukraine war
Even after 2 years of the Ukraine war, there is no end in sight. It is a war with many casualties on both sides. The population in Ukraine is suffering the most, as is the war, which is in reality a proxy war “USA against Russia”, but in which Europe is willingly participating without having an independent “interest-led” position. Although Putin is undoubtedly the aggressor in the war, the West must ask itself whether everything was done in advance to avoid the war. The influence of the Americans has been obvious since the Maidan revolution, i.e. since 2014, and the USA has also been massively arming itself since 2015 and has had a say in the fate of Ukraine. Both the American and British secret services have been very active in Ukraine since 2014.
In the interview with Putin and star reporter Tucker Carlson, Putin once again made his view of things clear and blamed NATO, and in particular the USA, solely for the war. An end to the war was already possible in April 2022, but this was thwarted by British Prime Minister Johnson and Joe Biden.
Trump could end the war in Ukraine quickly by the end of the year
After Russia successfully repelled Ukraine’s first major offensive, Russia is now selectively counterattacking and has already captured the city of Avdiivka, which can be described as the second success on the Russian side after the capture of Bakhmut, albeit with high casualties. It is said that around 1000 soldiers are now dying on the Russian side every day. Whoever launches a major offensive always has to accept more losses of soldiers than the defender. This was previously the case in Ukraine last year. Now, however, Russia has considerably more soldiers and, at the moment, more ammunition.
It is still primarily a drone war rather than a trench war. Whoever has more soldiers and ammunition in the end will win the war of attrition, and Russia has more reserves in the long run. Nevertheless, Selensky is now very confident of victory again. If Trump were to win the US presidential election in November, a deal would quickly end the war in Ukraine. For Trump, China is the main opponent, not Russia.
The West against “BRICS & Co as a result of the Ukraine war
The Ukraine war also acted as a catalyst for a new world order in which the “BRICS” countries, i.e. Brazil, Russia. India, China and South Africa, want to have a major say in shaping it. Six other countries have joined the BRICS countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, but 40 other countries are flirting with joining. It remains to be seen whether there will later be a “BRICS currency of its own to compete with the US dollar.
A new world order is emerging
According to the “BRICS” countries, the new world order should be multipolar and not unipolar, which in plain language means that the USA should lose its dominance of the world markets. This will lead to even greater tensions in the next decade, with the world powers USA and China setting the tone and remaining in charge.
Ukraine urgently needs ammunition and 400,000 soldiers
What happens now in the Ukraine war? Zelenskyi now lacks both soldiers and ammunition, which Russia is currently exploiting. In desperation, Zelenskyi has replaced the commander-in-chief Valery Salushnyi, who is very popular in Ukraine, with General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who earned his laurels with the successful defence of Kiev and the capture of the city of Kherson. It will be interesting to see what new strategies Syrskyi comes up with now. But he now also needs more weapons, more air support and, above all, more soldiers to replace the exhausted soldiers at the front. It remains to be seen whether Zelenskyi will be able to mobilise the required 400,000 soldiers in a new general mobilisation, with 200,000 conscripts from Ukraine in Germany alone. But they will stay where they are.
New dangers of escalation through fighter jets and medium-range missiles
Now the call for new fighter jets and, above all, medium-range missiles is also very strong among Western politicians, but this could lead to a further escalation and make the war even more violent, brutal and destructive. In the event of an attack on the Crimean bridge by medium-range missiles, Russia could respond with an air strike on Kiev. Do we really want that? But Poland or the Baltic countries could also be drawn into the war, or NATO. There is still the danger of a third world war, but Western politicians and media representatives are obviously not aware of these dangers.
New expropriation processes on both sides
We now have to wait and see whether the USA will support Ukraine with the USD 60 billion budgeted by the Democrats, which is currently still being blocked by the Republicans in the US Congress on Trump’s “orders”. The EU and Germany, as well as the UK, continue to support Ukraine with weapons and money. The EU has now launched a further package of sanctions against Russia. There are also efforts to give the frozen Russian currency reserves totalling around USD 300 billion and confiscated Russian assets worth €21.5 billion to Ukraine as reconstruction aid, which would effectively be an expropriation. The political relationship between Germany and Russia has been completely poisoned by the war in Ukraine, with the mysterious death of opposition leader Navalny so close to the presidential election in Russia causing even more tension and outrage in the West.
In addition, the Rosneft subsidiaries in Germany are to be expropriated. On the other hand, Russia now wants to expropriate German companies in return, such as Linde’s assets in Russia worth 1 billion euros. We now urgently need a new policy of détente before the mutual tensions and accusations escalate even further, which in reality benefits no one.
Israel war can also escalate
Not only the war in Ukraine, but also the war in Israel could escalate. Germany is now also sending a warship to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal in the fight against the Houthi rebels to protect ships travelling by sea. If Iran and other countries such as Turkey become even more militarily involved there, this war could also escalate, especially as China is already “on the ground” with warships alongside the USA. Here too, an immediate ceasefire would actually be the order of the day.
World stock markets in AI fever on all sides
The global stock markets are currently ignoring these geopolitical dangers, although there could also be a new banking crisis at US regional banks in the USA as a result of the office property crisis. The inflation rate in the USA also recently rose to over 3 per cent again, meaning that the Fed will not be cutting interest rates any time soon. Fuelled by the AI euphoria, the global stock markets rose to new all-time highs in the USA, Germany and Japan.
Above all, the shares of 7 glorious AI stocks from the USA such as Nvidia and Microsoft are raising hopes for more growth. Nvidia already has a market capitalisation of USD 2 trillion and Microsoft USD 3 trillion. USD and Microsoft of 3 trillion. USD, whereas all 40 DAX companies only have a market capitalisation of 1.6 trillion USD. US dollars. Shares in Super Micro Computer tripled from €300 to €900 in 1 month, which looks like an exaggeration. Major investors such as Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Elon Musk (Tesla) and Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) have just sold large blocks of shares, which gives food for thought.
Another 10 Eastern European stock exchanges in the top 30 in 2024!
As in the previous year, the stock exchanges from Eastern Europe performed particularly well. 11 stock exchanges in Eastern Europe are once again among the 30 best-performing stock exchanges in the world, led by the Budapest and Warsaw stock exchanges, which clearly outperformed the DAX last year with gains of over 40 per cent. Shares from Kazakhstan are now a good alternative to Russian shares, which are still not tradable for Western investors due to the sanctions.
Kazakhstan as a good alternative for non-tradable Russian equities
The KTX index for shares from Kazakhstan has already risen by 10 per cent this year after 32 per cent in the previous year. It includes a number of promising commodity stocks such as Kazatomprom, the world’s largest uranium producer, and banks such as the fintech bank Kaspi.kz and Halyk Bank. But Russian companies are now also being listed on the stock exchanges in Kazakhstan, such as the gold/silver producer Polymetal and the Russian discounter chain Fix Price. Other companies such as Yandex – the Google of Russia – want to go the same way as the mobile phone company VEON and sell all their assets in Russia and expand their foreign activities. Polymetal intends to do the same this year and then concentrate solely on the mines in Kazakhstan.
Investors who would like to trade directly online in Kazakhstan should open an account with the broker Freedom Finance (Freedom Broker) from Cyprus at the following link: https://freedom24.com/invite_from/2952896
However, investors can still buy Russian ADRs at discount prices in the OTC market via Freedom Broker. Similar opportunities are also available via the broker Zerich Securities Ltd from Cyprus, if you open an account via the following link: https://trade.mind-money.eu A list of tradable Russian ADR is published in the stock market letter EAST STOCK TRENDS (www.eaststock.de). Both brokers also offer participation in lucrative IPOs on Wall Street as well as high returns on overnight and fixed-term deposits.
Inform first, then invest
Find out more now about the background and development of the Ukraine/Russia crisis as well as the future recovery potential of undervalued shares from Eastern Europe. There are also new opportunities in the Baltic states, south-eastern Europe and the CIS republics (Kazakhstan, Georgia), with the respective share indices all up in 2023. In 2023, 12 stock exchanges from Eastern Europe were among the 30 best-performing stock markets in the world, with 5 clearly outperforming the DAX. In the first 6 weeks of trading, 11 stock exchanges from Eastern Europe outperformed again with a strong gain. It is therefore still worth taking a look beyond the horizon to Eastern Europe after the war in Ukraine.
Order a trial subscription now (3 issues by e-mail for only €15) to the monthly stock market letter EAST STOCK TRENDS (EST) with another Ukraine/Kazakhstan/Russia special and a dividend special as well as lots of background information and new investment suggestions such as the “Share of the Month” and lucrative certificates at www.eaststock.de, under Stock Market Letter. The last EST was published on 23 February 2024.
TV/radio notes: On 5 February 2024, Andreas Männicke was interviewed by Carola Ferstl on Money Talk about gold, commodities and the new opportunities in Eastern Europe. You can download all radio and TV interviews in the video archive at www.eaststock.de, including the last video in EastStockTV, episode 225. By the way: have you already subscribed to the EastStockTV YouTube channel?
If you are interested in new EastStock seminars “Go East” in Frankfurt/m or other cities, please contact the EST editorial team (www.eaststock.de )