STOCK MARKET REPORT by GRIMALDI & PARTNERS

MONTH REVIEW - APRIL 2021

The international stock markets ended April with gains and slight losses.

MAIN DRIVER:

Investors are increasingly looking to overcoming the Corona crisis through successful vaccination campaigns.

The expectation of an ongoing economic boom after the end of the pandemic.

Aid measures from governments and central banks.

Several companies reported that the year got off to a strong start.

Particularly noticeable at TITLE LEVEL:

APPLE and FACEBOOK bring course records to Wall Street

Encouraging business figures from Apple and Facebook are giving Wall Street a tailwind.

The market had expected strong balance sheets from the technology companies and these would have easily exceeded the high expectations.

Thanks to a nearly 50 percent jump in sales, Facebook shares rose eight percent to a record high of $ 331.81. The quarterly result exceeded market expectations. On this basis, a bank raises its price target to $ 400 from $ 360.

Apple also increased its revenues by around half.

AMAZON writes another record in the corona crisis

Amazon continues its record hunt in the Corona crisis. The profit tripled to never reached 8.1 billion dollars, as the world's largest online retailer announced on Thursday after the market closed. It is the fourth consecutive quarter with a record. In view of closed stores around the globe, more and more people are buying from Amazon, more companies are using the US company's warehouses or are advertising on the platform. The Amazon share rose four percent after the trading day.

The company now has more than 1.2 million employees worldwide and more than 200 million Prime members who, for a fee, have access to faster deliveries and the streaming service, among other things. Sales increased from January to March by 44 percent to 108.5 billion dollars. In order to keep its own employees in line, Amazon wants to pay around 500,000 more employees in the future and spend more than a billion dollars in hand.

In February, the company's founder, Jeff Bezos, unexpectedly announced his withdrawal from the top of the company. His successor will be the previous head of the cloud division AWS, Andy Jassy. Sales of the world's largest cloud provider, ahead of Microsoft and Google, rose 32 percent to $ 13.5 billion. In addition to the online and cloud business, Amazon also operates the organic supermarket chain "Whole Foods" and manufactures its own electronic devices, for example.

MONTH OUTLOOK - MAY 2021

The current rise in inflation (keyword: rise in consumer prices) is temporary, because the cause lies in a base effect in energy prices, i.e. In the Corona crash a year ago, the oil price fell just below zero. From there, the oil price recovered massively and reached the pre-crisis level again. This means that the rate of change has risen once and will normalize again. So the good news is that long-term interest rates will remain low for some time to come. And as long as it stays that way, the “party” on the stock markets can go on!

We expect the positive trend to continue in May.

STOCK RECOMMENDATION OF THE MONTH