Stock market letter
Stock market letters (also: share letters ) are regular publications that contain financial analyzes and usually also buy and sell recommendations for individual securities . They are published by special financial publishers , asset managers or banks . Stock market letters often follow a defined investment strategy such as B. Value investing and focus on selected markets. The markets include not only the individual countries / exchanges for stocks , bonds and certificates but also raw materials (e.g. gold, oil, metals, food). Some stock market letters have their own model portfolio from which the success of their recommendations can be read off. There is no up-to-date, in-depth study of the volume and quality of stock market letters in Germany. In the online sales department "Boersenkiosk.de", 40 well-known stock market letters are offered regularly (as of May 2020). The editors focus on the subscription business with terms of three months or more, where individual issues in PDF format can be purchased anonymously in "Boersenkiosk.de". In the comparison portal "Lettertest", 87 stock market letters are listed. Since not all market letters are listed there, especially not most of the traditional market letters, it can be assumed that there are well over 100 market letters in Germany (as of May 2020). It should be noted that there are dependent and independent stock market letters, depending on the objectives of the publisher.
Criticism and Public Perception
In 2004 the Stiftung Warentest warned that the "hot tips" in the stock market letters were often questionable. In addition, the chargeable letters would not be worthwhile, especially for small investors. Banks offer similar information services free of charge.
The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority ( BaFin ) speaks on its website under the heading "What should be made of recommendations and sample deposits in stock market letters, telephone hotlines, etc.?" some warnings regarding market letters from:
- Since stock market letters reflect the opinion of their author, the author should substantiate his assessment with facts that the consumer can understand. If such facts are lacking and the author merely expresses an unfounded, often extremely positive opinion, the consumer should "be extremely cautious".
- Investors shouldn't allow themselves to be put under time pressure.
- Since there is nothing for free on the securities markets: "Where (apparently) high and quick profits are waiting, there is always a correspondingly high risk - up to and including the total loss of your invested capital"
Nevertheless, there is a lack of any kind of regulation by BaFin or other institutions and any kind of quality assurance with regard to comparable and objective information on performance, volatility, risk management, strategy, information on the existence, scope and starting time of real or real money deposits, qualifications and experience the management, the existence and scope of its own research department, the dependence of the management, the author and the publisher on other financial institutions, information on the longest profit phase and longest loss phase and the largest percentage loss as well as information on further stock market letters or other publications by the author, des Management and the publisher, which allow conclusions to be drawn about how much time the author has to research and create the stock letter and finally the annual costs of the stock letter, the notice period and the minimum order period.
Ideally, the editorial team of a stock market letter is independent, which means that there are no entanglements of interests with investment banks , investment funds or other institutions or persons who trade in securities for their own account or for those of others. This is to ensure the objectivity of the information published. Whether and for how many stock market letters this ideal case actually exists is always the subject of speculation and speculation. Nevertheless, in addition to their independence, stock market letters have a number of other advantages over large investment companies and fund managers : The latter move very large volumes and are therefore also bound by their own and legal investment limits. Furthermore, fund managers must orientate themselves on the given benchmark . Stock Report editors can any securities in the portfolio record and counter-cyclical action.
A certain quality feature of a stock market letter is the duration of the publication. Like all products that cannot keep the promises they have made, stock market letters are discontinued if there is a lack of customer interest. A few stock market letters have been published on the German market for decades, for example the Platow Brief since 1945, the Bernecker Verlag Actien-Börse since 1960 or the "Finanzwoche" since 1974.
Stock market letters are often confronted with accusations of front running and scalping . In addition, there is a risk that the authors of market letters may manipulate the market with purchased items. Of particular public interest are the proceedings against an investor advocate and the proceedings in connection with the price manipulation of De Beira Goldfields.
On September 6, 2017, Focus online and Focus Money online published under the title "Insider tips from investment professionals - Better than the bank advisor: This is how stock market letters help you invest your money successfully", an advertisement for a stock market letter that obviously comes from your own company. Due to a complaint to the German Press Council due to insufficient separation between editorial content and advertising, the article was deleted.
Quality and performance of stock letters
Even if the recommendations of some stock market letters as well as the assessments of banks and research houses are statistically evaluated by independent service providers, there is currently (as of 2017) no publicly available evaluation. In a non-representative evaluation on behalf of two publishers of 22 stock market letters they published in 2004, the WSH Deutsche Vermögenstreuhand found that stock market letters often perform better than some well-known asset managers; Stock market letters often only get their information second hand and only occasionally have their own small analysis departments. The editors of the stock market letters measure themselves publicly on the alleged development of their recommendations. A popular instrument for this are stock market games and model portfolios that are kept public. Various stock market games take place every year, but the results of such stock market games depend on the respective framework conditions and offer hardly any indication of the quality of the tipsters. Some stock market letters also advertise so-called real deposits (e.g. Der Aktionär) or real money deposits (e.g. TradingBrothers). There are also free stock market letters that are often issued by banks (e.g. Consorsbank) or by publishers (e.g. Börse am Sonntag ).
Overview of the stock market letters
Traditional stock market letters (existing since the 1990s or longer)
According to an evaluation by Capital magazine, the returns are given as the average of the returns for the years 1992/93, 1993/94, 1994/95 and 1995/96:
- Stock market signals 18.30%
- Finance Week 17.25%
- Platov letter 14.68%
- Frankfurt stock market letters 14.10%
- Fuchsbriefe 13.47%
- Letters to investors 13.15%
- The Stock Exchange / Bernecker Börsenbriefe 12.35%
- Zurich financial letter 11.98%
- Exchange online 11.55%
- Hanseatic stock exchange service 9.12% (on the German stock market since 1961)
- Effecten level 8.08%
- Equity trend 7.33%
- Money letter 3.58%
To put it into perspective: The return of the DAX was between 11% and 12% for this period using a similar method of calculation.
Newer stock market letters
Overview of the stock market letters listed as "best" in the comparison portal Lettertest with details of the publisher and the year of first publication:
- Cleverselect Investments MG Börsen-Service - since August 2008
- The Gold Report The Gold Report Ltd - since January 2003
- DaxWaver Chart technical analyzes DaxWaver - since October 2009
- Boersenmillionaer.de Premium stock market letter Boris Schulze - since January 2008
- the Boris Schulze lever depot - since August 2015
- Boerse-Daily.de FSG Financial Services Group - since November 2011
- DaxVestor ATLAS Research - since January 2004
- boersianer.info - Hanke's stock market letter Ulrich W. Hanke - since November 2014
- Böhm's DAX strategy ATLAS Research - since January 2012
- INLINE REPORT smart fintech solutions GmbH - since December 2016
- Heibel ticker Stephan Heibel - since March 2000
- TradingBrothers - since November 2012
- Bull letter Jürgen Schwenk - since March 2001
- The return specialists ATLAS Research - since January 2015
- BÖRSE am Sonntag Weimer Media Group GmbH - since January 2000
Individual evidence
- ↑ Market letter portal: Bernecker, Platow, Frankfurter, Prof. Otte and many more. Accessed on May 15, 2020 .
- ^ Stiftung Warentest warns: Market letters . In: test , issue 08/2004. Retrieved January 2, 2013.
- ↑ BaFin: What should you think of recommendations and sample portfolios in stock market letters, telephone hotlines, etc.? Retrieved November 4, 2017.
- ↑ Lettertest ( Memento of the original from September 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Lettertest.
- ^ Berneck stock market letters. Retrieved May 15, 2020 .
- ↑ Investment: Investor representative convicted of market manipulation. In: zeit.de. March 20, 2012, accessed December 15, 2014 .
- ↑ Former Oppenheim manager involved in the SdK affair. In: Der Spiegel (preliminary version from issue 40/2010). October 2, 2010, accessed December 15, 2014 .
- ↑ www.wiwo.de
- ↑ Insufficient separation between editorial content and advertising for stock market letters at Focus online In: Focus Money online. Retrieved November 4, 2017.
- ↑ Gertrud Hussla: Stock market letters surprise with good hits. In: Handelsblatt.com. April 27, 2004, accessed November 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Evaluation of Capital's 1993 to 1996 returns , accessed on October 31, 2017.
- ^ "Best" stock market letters in the commercial comparison portal Lettertest , accessed on October 31, 2017.
