Year End

FLU or whatever

This flu has knocked me for six. I've been in bed for over a week now. Only yesterday did my temperature start to subside and it has been normal now for just about 24 hours. This was as a result of a course of some serious antibiotics (Klaricid). It's difficult for a doctor to know whether you need antibiotic or not. Virus infections, and the charming little creatures that cause them are unaffected by antibiotics so they are a waste of time. However, once a fever has been going for over a week, more profound, and probably bacterial cause should be suspected. Drastic action is called for. With me this seems, slowly, to be doing the trick. I still feel thoroughly washed out.

Where to the market?

My feeling for what I see on the market is blurred so don't expect any sparkling insights here.

The DOW continues its pedestrian flat line. Friday it started sharply down, reflecting the movement in Europe, but it had recovered a lot of ground by the end of the day. Here is the FTSE as an example of what happened. The market is back to the level before the latest run up. In the last financial year the market is up 9%.

World markets Apr 2012 - 2013

Here is a little run down on how each of the markets has fared this financial year:

DJI                         9.5%
S&P                       8.0%
Nasdaq                   0.3%
FTSE                      9.2%
DAX                      13.0%
CAC                      10.4%
Hong Kong             5.5%
Korea                     8.8%
Japan                     32.4%
Brazil                     -11.5%

A huge range of results. Japan seems to have come out of the doldrums at last.

On the other hand the Brazilian figure of -11.5% was reflective of much of what happened in the BRIC area. Anyone who thought that buying here was a one way street would have come away with their eyes watering. The other Asian markets shown did poorly too. So much of the action was in the US and in Northern Europe.

I did OK

I came away from the year pretty satisfied. I made 16% so comfortably out-performing my benchmark. It was particularly comforting since at the beginning of November I was showing a loss and, not unreasonably, miserable. Good recovery.

On Friday I upped my gold stake by 50%.

I can't end without a little bragging. Here is my only remaining equity holding. Looking good so far.