Friday 26 September 2014

Bad timing, nasty volume spike, where now?

US Market

My return to the US market could not have been timed much worse. I started losing money as soon as I bought my shares. And then on the Monday the Dow did its first big dive. I backpedaled hard but it was too late, the money had gone.

Should I have held on? I think not. Why? A friend sent me a copy of MoneyWeek Trader published on 24 September suggesting that the financial disasters emerging at Tesco could be the catalyst for financial meltdown. I personally do not believe that Tesco is a big enough player on the World markets to have that sort of impact.

I had spotted another event that, to my mind, had greater market breaking clout. That was the great yawn that Apple's latest new product offer engendered. For years now Apple has pushed forward the frontiers of technological innovation.  Perhaps not in terms of actual hardware or even software novelty, but certainly in terms of marketing, style and fashion. If that company had lost its touch this could spell the end of the rapid turnover of products in consumer's pockets. If automatic upgrading comes to an end there will be a big slow down in turnover and businesses all over the world will suffer. The end of the line for that particular gravy train?

Even more significant to my mind was Friday's market action. Just look at that chart. Friday 19th showed a shooting star on massive volume. These volume spikes are warning that a big change is about to happen. And although Wednesday saw a recovery after the 215 point drop on Monday and Tuesday. Yesterday saw the sellers back with a vengeance. There is a support line close by and it looks as though today will see a bit of a recovery (based on the futures data). But I don't expect this to last.




UK Market


My UK portfolio is holding on to its gains pretty well despite a really ugly UK market. But I can't see that going on much longer. So a tidy up is needed there too.

GVC has come up with yet another sparkling set of results. As might be expected profit taking is pulling the price back. But I'll just hold on. There was yet another special dividend on top of an already chunky quarterly pay out. I just don't want to let go of this holding, not for any emotional reason but because of the dividend I am getting. I built up my position over a long period so It's hard to say what return I am getting, but on a purchase price basis it is running between 12 and 14% and it keeps going up. Even at current prices the full year's dividend looks like a yield of about 9%. You can't argue with that - the only possible fly in the ointment is unexpected bad news.

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