Grinding halt

The big news will be tonight when the FOMC produces its minutes. The long awaited tapering of QE began a month ago with barley a murmur from the markets. Today we shall see the minutes from the meeting which set that tapering in motion. We may the understand more about how policy makers are thinking. I think we will remain n the dark. Bu the market reaction indicates that investors are uncertain about what will come next.

The effect has been to bring december's rally to a grinding halt.

I have said that I feel reasonably confident. As a share picker I should be able to make some money as long as the market does not make a sharp reversal. I have gone for broke. I am now fully invested. The balance of my portfolio is as follows: UK shares 36%, Chinese shares quoted on the US market 48%, US shares 16%. They are mostly shares picked using Vector Vest which has enabled me to use selection criteria which have worked well in the past. I have held my Chinese selection for 4 to 6 weeks and they are showing a return of 6.5% for that period. (It's not a good idea to annualize these returns since so much can happen in a year, however, for what it's worth this annualizes to over 60% pa). The US shares I have held for about 3 days and they are making progress. The UK shares I have also held for just a couple of days and they are up 2.1%. Long may that last!

I have two UK shares which I have not included in the analysis of returns. The largest is  GVC which accounts for 15% of my portfolio is GVC which trades on a prospective PE of 8 and yield a 13% dividend on my original purchase price. They don't come along very often like that but when they do you jump on them.