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Pottering About

I am conscious that the world is changing
fast in many ways as everyone tries to handle the Covid-19 crisis and its
implications at a rapid pace and so any analysis written once a month has a
very short ‘best before’ period! 

But I suppose that some analysis, even if you disagree with it, is better than none at all, or a page of bland clichés such as I have seen issued by some advisors!

I have been issuing frequent blog posts reacting to news flow and introducing ideas that I believe are worth pondering on now as a preparation for future action. 

Pottering About

Defenceless Markets?

I was surprised to see that I had already written about the implications of coronavirus a whole month ago.  The dramatic market sell off we have seen in recent days reflects the fact that the spread is now accelerating, in terms of locations, even if the case numbers are increasing less in China.

I have commented on numerous occasions since I launched this web site almost 2 years ago that markets were taking a very optimistic view about profits growth and that the emergence of a significant negative factor that would threaten a global recession would see a dramatic set back. 

Whilst it has been possible and indeed profitable to ‘ride’ the momentum a little since central banks did their about turn on interest rate policy about a year ago, the advent of an ‘unknown’ could be expected to force an eventual reality check.

Pottering About

Many people will know that the month of January is named after the Roman god who is portrayed as looking both backwards and forwards. Let’s at least do the looking back bit to start with!

The well-known regulatory caveat that past
performance is no guide to the future is always worth remembering but we can
nonetheless learn a good deal from what happened, especially if we look at the
context.  Of course, we all hope to learn
from past mistakes as well.

Pottering About

This will be the last long commentary
before Christmas, so I am bound to mention the legendary ‘Santa Claus Rally’!  This is the suggestion that the value of
shares goes up nicely in the last few trading days before Christmas and the two
trading days of the New Year.