The consequences of greed

Sonja Schemmann speaks out on what she sees as the effects of two major factors - greed and fear - on the market

Greed drives markets higher; fear knocks them back. These characteristics cannot be more clearly illustrated than in the past couple of years. Until this summer, global investors were chasing some sectors and share prices to record heights. A steady diet of mergers and acquisitions and positive news flow - corporate profit growth, economic growth, jobs aplenty, etc - were enough to tempt even otherwise cautious investors to take a gamble. Average investors were venturing into new areas and were doing so without much consideration of the risks involved. In my view, they simply were not facto...