Thursday 2 January 2014

Happy New Year


Happy New Year to you all! Hope your holidays went well. I went to Seville which was great. The weather was fine except on Christmas Day. There was loads to see and visit. The first night we went to a flamenco display which was brilliant. It seems that an essential ingredient is that the dancers look ravaged as they perform. The speed of the footwork is unbelievable.

Flamenco dancerFast footwork is going to be needed to navigate through the choppy waters of the stock market too. (I love those mixed metaphors). The markets powered ahead in an almost unbroken move right up to the end of the year. And then today they came down with a bump.
Some of the biggest falls were seen in Europe with the Dax falling 2.5% on the day and the CAC falling 2%. The Dax pull back was from a new all time high. 
The US markets also drew back from all time highs but the falls, so far, have been smaller. I am not sure that today's fall represents the end of the bull run. The first quarter of the year is normally a good time and I certainly hope that this year will not disappoint.


The UK market has not been as buoyant as some others, but it is possible that it will catch up since the UK economy appears to be in more robust health. The pound has reflected this in an amazing rally against the dollar for the past six months. I am lucky to have been making money in my Dollar denominated shares, when I value them in pounds, despite this headwind that I have been facing.


Having spent the last months of last year dithering about where I should invest my ISA money I have finally plumped for the UK. No exchange rate penalties just the stamp duty to pay. I have also found a share picking strategy that has yielded an average rate of return of 11% for the period January to April over the past 7 years. Over the same four months the FTSE 350 has yielded just 0.7%. 

I have made my selection and have bought RDW JD BWY XAR BKG. Fingers crossed.

Here's how the FTSE looks.


And then there are those Chinese shares. They are still doing fine. HTHT had a spectacular run up just before Christmas and this time I took the profit: 19.8% in one month. I have bought back in at a lower price. I have a similar issue to resolve with EJ which is up 21% in a month but there was no sudden surge so I don't feel the same urge to take profits. Hope I'm right.












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