Usually when scribbling these Chart Blogs I have Absolute Radio in the background which if turned down low enough doesn’t seem to distract me too much from the job in hand. Tonight things are a bit different though because I sort of want to be distracted because I am desperately trying to learn some Amy MacDonald Tunes as I am off to see her next Saturday Night in Reading - and I have made the unforgivable error of not getting her latest Album and I only have an old one called ‘Life in a Beautiful Light’ which I have owned for perhaps a couple of years but not really played it enough to know it. The upshot being that as much as I want to concentrate on these Charts I really must multi-task (hey, I’m a Bloke, it ain’t easy for us !!) and learn the Songs as well.
Last week was a bit disappointing for me on the Markets - with Indexes climbing new Highs almost everywhere (although the FTSE100 has not really kept up) it is upsetting when my Portfolio is still unable to ‘Breakout’ and get over the High Point it racked up in May - I keep getting within touching distance and then it drops back - it is driving me to Drink (well, Coffee anyway). My Portfolio dropped last week by about 0.75% - ok, this is no big deal but it is grating on me. Part of this was a Short I had on the S&P500 misbehaving (more in a bit) and that hit me for about 0.3% of my Portfolio Value - so we are only really talking limited damage here but I just so want my Portfolio to crack on properly.
2 Comments
I am so running behind today it is ridiculous - I have been helping a mate who smashed up her car look for a replacement and tonight she is around because I am lending her my BMW z3 while she sorts the new one out. It’s a nightmare because normally I have peace and quiet with no distractions to work on my etchings, but tonight that is utterly different !! I have sent her off in my z3 to get a Chinese so hopefully I can pinch 20 minutes to crack on and make some proper progress……….
I do enjoy hunting out for Cars though - doing it for a mate means I get all the fun bits of the chase but without the downside of me having to part with my own hard fought for Cash. Overall Markets keep generally rising, especially in the US with those Markets looking extremely ‘overbought’ and it does make me nervous that some sort of ‘reckoning’ is gonna hit us - I am not saying we will necessarily have a meltdown or anything but surely we need to see a bit of softness (or at best some Sideways) to unwind these overbought conditions. On the positive side there is a lot of Support down below which should be natural Levels where Buyers come in to stop things getting out of hand.
I’m sure that was a Pink Floyd song - or maybe I am getting mixed up with the Bovril Turner Overdrive - it’s my age you know……
These Markets are truly remarkable - it seems like whatever happens they just keep going up. Readers of my Charts stuff, Tweets, Website Trades etc. might have seen I put a Small Short on the S&P500 on Monday Night Last Week as it looked really poised to drop back a bit - but in the event it has actually been flirting with my Stoploss and at the Close on Friday it was still a fraction below - I will look at this Chart etc. in due course. I was thinking about my Shorts earlier this afternoon and I am of a view that the best approach is to open fairly Small Shorts initially and then if they go my way to increase them and ‘Push the Position’. Last week my Overall Portfolio (including the Overseas Unit Trusts but not the Income Portfolio) was down 0.15%, which is really just ‘Noise’ in the bigger scheme of things and I am still right up at the All Time Highs although I still am slightly below the High Point the Portfolio hit back in May - wasted Summer or what ?!!
It is Saturday night and I am running really late after spending far too much time out in the Jardin De Wheelie clearly up the remains of my Vegetable production and with a particularly tedious emphasis on sorting out deceased Tomato Plants and their Pots - I am of course getting a bit twitchy that Winter Frosts are not far away and the last thing someone as stingy as myself wants to do is spend hard earned Quids on new Plastic Pots.
I am out socialising for most of tomorrow (Readers will be stunned to hear I am not expecting to be visiting a PUB) so it is a Saturday Night Special and I will try to rip through it quite quickly. There are some Stock Charts I want to visit and the Indexes strike me as being near some sort of Turning Point and I want to dig into this.
Phew, that is September out of the way - this is historically the worst month on average so for us to have got through pretty much unscathed (apart from the odd cuts and bruises perhaps) is quite something. I covered October in last weekend’s Charts Blog (you can find it if you scroll down the Blog page in theory) but it tends to be an OK month and is ranked 5th Best of the Year. The only caveat is that some of the really nasty Biggest Falls for the Stockmarket took place in October - so this sort of taints its otherwise good record (the 1929 Wall Street Crash and the 1987 ‘Black Monday’ both transpired in October).
It is a bit of a double relief for me as I had a really pleasant turnaround for my Portfolio last week. From pretty much Monday through to Thursday I was bleeding Money every day, especially because my Biggest Holding BOO had a big drop, but by the Close on Friday I managed to eke out a small Gain of 0.25% - so I was pretty pleased about that (yet again a triumph for Diversity).
I am totally frazzled today - my brain took an onslaught yesterday during a superb day with ‘Wheelie’s Summer Bash’ in full swing. I got a bit worried during the week with a few people dropping out and I had visions of me and a couple of mates and no one else there - as it happens the turnout was plentiful and easily 30 people turned up and maybe more because there were comings and goings all day and we even had 2 really interesting people turn up after 6pm which gave the day a second wind and a few of us diehards stayed until about 11pm when the Landlord shocked us all by saying we had to leave !!
After leaving the pub and dropping Mike @village_idoit off at Stirrups Hotel (as you can see it is a horsey, country kind of part of the UK and amazing it is just a few miles from my house) I ended up discussing Spreadbet DFB and Quarterly Funding Charges with my old buddy from college @InvestingMartin until about 1.30am as he was staying in my spare room. The scary thing is how it dawned on me that I have wasted £thousands and £thousands on using DFBs when Quarterlies are hugely cheaper - it was quite infuriating and didn’t exactly help my buzzing WheelieBrain calm down so I could actually sleep !!
So far it is fair to say that September has not been horrific but last week was quite difficult and my Portfolio was down about 1% - I am sure it could have been worse and the bid for Quantum Pharma QP. from Clinigen CLIN clearly helped. I managed to lower my Spreadbet Exposure a little bit more by TopChopping GLEN and HSBA but ideally I would like to reduce this a bit more and build my Cash up.
It was notable how the US Markets are still up at their Highs and I will cover this in a bit - but the big story really was the strength of Sterling after Mark Carney talked it up nicely by hinting at a Rate Rise - whether we will actually get one or not is yet to be seen but simply by opening his mouth the Bank of England Governor has achieved a fair bit of Monetary tightening without actually having to do anything. A Strong Pound against the Dollar should help lower the Cost of Imports and reduce the impact of Inflation which has been blamed on causing a Slowdown in recent Months for the UK Economy.
Of course the big event at the moment is the Hurricane hitting Florida, Cuba and the Islands - we are so lucky here in the UK to really have very benign weather (and we have few Animals that will eat you or poison you !!).
Obviously once the Storms have passed there will be much rebuilding to do and life will be extremely tough for the People involved for a long time I would guess - especially on the Islands where there are very few inhabitants and the ability to rebuild (and the necessary dosh) will not be plentiful. In terms of Stocks these kinds of awful events rarely have a long-lasting effect although perhaps we will see a bit of a Sell-off early next week, especially in the US Markets, but I doubt it will be anything too dramatic. Of course Markets are often fragile at this time of year so perhaps these events could trigger further falls and that remains to be seen. For specific Stocks, there might be a few that benefit like AGK Aggreko (who do Power Generators) and those that might be involved in reconstruction like HILS Hill & Smith and perhaps ALU Alumasc - that sort of thing. On the flipside, SOM Somero Enterprises is based in Florida and although they are unlikely to be required for the laying of more huge Concrete Floors, it is possible that New Buildings get delayed as a result of the destruction. Insurance Companies could also suffer especially the Lloyds Syndicate ones but there are few of those left now on the Market.
No need to remind you all that September (and October to an extent) have a very poor reputation for Markets globally and it is nice to have put in a strong week for my Portfolio last week, but I still am very much of the view that I need to lower my Spreadbet Exposure and I am not keen to buy much at all until we are through what is often a difficult period.
North Korea has been misbehaving again with claims that they have created and exploded a Hydrogen Bomb - as I understand it this is a major development for them as these have considerably more power than the mere ‘Atomic’ Bomb - which is of course bad enough. A big strategic advantage of a more powerful bomb is that the delivery mechanism (in others words the Firework they stick it on) doesn’t need to be particularly accurate with its targeting - an area where I suspect the North Koreans will be lacking.
For a variety of reasons I have got a real nervousness about the Markets, with probably the main factor being the Seasonal Trend of September and the Autumn often being historically the worst period of the Year for Stocks. I just re-read my slightly old copy of the ‘UK Stockmarket Almanac’ (2016 edition) for its comments on the ‘September Market’. I am sure we all know by now that September is historically the worst Month but it also makes a few other points:
Of course these are just historic trends and could easily not occur this Year but after such a strong run and with Valuations on many Stocks at elevated levels, it seems pretty likely to me that this Year we will get a Pullback. The severity of course is pretty much impossible to know but with such a Strong Bull Trend Channel on so many Global Indexes, I would contend that we could have quite a drop (10% ish) and yet still keep within those Major Uptrends. It might be nowhere near that bad of course. |
'Educational' WheelieBlogsWelcome to my Educational Blog Page - I have another 'Stocks & Markets' Blog Page which you can access via a Button on the top of the Homepage. Archives
January 2021
Categories
All
Please see the Full Range of Book Ideas in Wheelie's Bookshop.
|