I guessed right

I am a bit slow in updating this time. I have been writing a children's novel called "David and Katie and the Banker's Bonus." It is a holiday adventure story aimed at 8 to 14 year olds. The eponymous twins act as spies who dig out evidence that implicates a banker in a variety of financial frauds. The idea is to introduce children to explanations of financial terms they will have heard n the news while keeping them entertained through the medium of a thrilling quest. Over the weekend I got to the final chapters after the best part of two years work. I wanted to push on to the end so no time for blogging.

In my last post I pointed out that the US indices were banging their heads on significant round numbers. My guess at the time was that they would power on through. Those numbers caused the markets to pause for about four days and they then continue to make new highs. (I've had comments from non mathematical readers that my graphs are hard to follow, so I'm trying something new. If this simplified version, which shows just the daily highs and lows is better please let me know. Ditto if it is worse. I prefer the old style because of the extra information provided.)

I thought this would be the most likely outcome, partly because this time of year is traditionally bullish and because the flow of QE money continues.

I have taken advantage by buying some US shares and some Hong Kong ones. In HK I have bought 921 1180 35 1001 635 184 and 287. (Share codes in Hong Kong are numbers. You can get information about all these shares on the Hong Kong Exchange's web site.) Mainly because of strong performance by 921 the purchases made on Wednesday are already in profit despite the 2% cost of the foreign currency exchange.

I have pruned my China shares but plan to buy back as soon as the pull back is over.

All in all my portfolio is moving forward and I am making good inroads into my accumulated losses.