There’s doom and gloom everywhere in the financial markets. It could almost get you down.
I’ve got into trouble several times for predicting the bottom of the UK market. Back in November after I spotted that the FTSE had started to fluctuate around a mean of 4,200. And again earlier this month. Almost three months on its still doing exactly the same. Today the market closed at 4,091. If this is the recovery it’s long, snakey and W-shaped.
On Monday the Government chipped in a load more of our cash to underwrite the banking markets in the UK. Some banking shares crashed and rightly so given that they are now more or less government institutions. But the UK market has held its position.
There is a very real recalibration taking place across the economy. Some very good people are losing their jobs and we are days away from the Government officially calling a recession (two quarters of negative growth). But how much more bad news will it take for the equity markets to fall further?
The last three months has seen companies go bust, miss their guidance, go backwards and make losses. We are surely at a stage where the market is saturated with gloom and has priced it into the value of shares.
The question is when will we see an upturn? No one has experienced a market like this and has the knowledge or experience to make a call. The best we can do is look to historical trends which at this stage provide little insight. For the time being the doom mongers are on a roll feeding the downward trend.
I’ve had enough of this blogging conjecture. This isn’t Armageddon. Normal business will recover. As a personal show of confidence I’m going to invest £1,000 in a FTSE tracker and report on its performance from time to time. At the end of the year I’ll invite all the doomsayers for a drink in London on the proceeds of any profit that I make.
Of course I could lose some money. Maybe in the short term I will, but in the medium to long term I doubt it. And if I do people will be too preoccupied with their own concerns and are likely to have a lot more to worry about than postings on my blog.
Tags: equity, FTSE, investment, market, turnaround
Gosh. I agree there’s too much focus on doom and gloom and I agree I don’t like the Armageddon aspect of coverage at the moment. So I applaud you. And look forward to seeing how your money performs. Is it, like, real money or virtual money?
Real £s
Steve, I owe you a lunch anyway, so win or lose money – you can rest assured i haven’t forgotten your generosity!
Interesting project – look forward to seeing how it pans out. And agree, the doom and gloom stuff is just getting tiresome now.
Keep my 1990 Krug on ice, I look forward to opening it with you in December.
from ‘Being There’ President “Bobby”: Mr. Gardner,do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives? [Long pause] Chancey the Gardener: “As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.”and if you make a loss on your tracker, I’ll buy you a drink (not Krug tho’ only PR types can still afford that, surely), Charles
[...] dozen or more negative. My £1,000 FTSE 100 investment is still underwater at £975. I started the £1k FTSE 100 Confidence Project in January as a personal show of confidence in the UK equity [...]