All change

I spent much of yesterday building up my courage. I am not of a sentimental disposition and I do change service providers regularly. I have changed my bank several times in my lifetime, uncommon according to the statistics. But somehow switching stock brokers, albeit execution only stockbrokers, proved hard. After 15 years, leaving Selftrade, even though it has changed its name and its owner several times, feels like a big wrench. I spent the whole day thinking and worrying before I finally took the plunge at 4 o’clock and I began to liquidate my UK holdings.

Out went THT AML WIN CLDN III BDEV KLR GLE SDY TW LLOY SIV. With the wind in my sails I ditched my US holdings too. ZHNE HCBK LSI. The UK campaign was pretty neutral but I lost a chunk of money on those US shares.

Then there was the long and tedious process of filling forms. One to open an ISA in TDDirect, another to transfer the funds from Selftrade. My W8Ben, the form which must be filled in to ensure the US authorities did not tax me on US shares, was due to expire. So there was yet another form to be filled. How I hate filling

in those forms. Communicating with functionaries is tedious. I feel proud to be a compatriot of Kafka who characterized the dead weight of bureaucracy so powerfully.

Then a stroll down to the post box with the dog and, hopefully, the job is done. I now just wait till the back offices at TD and Selftrade sort themselves out and I shall be in business again. In the meantime about half my portfolio sits in cash. Unable to win, unable to lose.

House prices

Activity in the housing market, it seems, is on the move. Looking into estate agent's windows I have noticed the number of sold stickers is on the rise. And now the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors confirms a rise in buyers’ interest and a lift in prices. It’s been a long wait, but it was bound to happen eventually.

So what of the stock market?

A friend sent me a 4 hour chart showing the movement in the DOW. It’s not a pretty sight. The line of resistance, in particular, looks very strong. 

I contrast it with the daily chart with my support line holding strong despite efforts, over the last two days, for the market to move lower. Time will tell which interpretation of the data provides the best view of the future.

In this week’s Desert Island Discs,Kirsty Young interviewed Daniel Kahneman. He is a psychologist who won a Nobel prize for Economics. He penetrated the mysteries of how people make their economic choices. In a fascinating review of his life's work he all but said that economic forecasting is pointless and efforts by traders to outperform the market were futile. It is an interview that is both entertaining and thought provoking.

It reminds me: I once heard it said that economic forecasting was invented to make weather forecasting look good.