The Weekend Rebel Review -

a short week but a big New Year ahead.

This is just some thoughts, it isn't investment advice or incitement to buy in any way, just my views - please do your own thorough research. I’m not an analyst, I’m just a private investor looking after my own money. Nothing I do or say is meant as advice or should be taken as such. Here I publish my ideas and research that I have done and discuss the way I invest.  Anything written here needs to be verified for its accuracy. Assume any stock I write about I likely own, so my views are biased. Inevitably I will get things wrong, everyone is responsible for their own decision making and what they buy and sell. Subscribing and reading this article means you accept the above and you take full responsibility for your own actions and decisions. Small Cap stocks can be illiquid and very hard to sell at times when demand is weak so caution is required. Please do your own research, know your own risk profile, understand what you are buying and make your own educated decision to buy and sell.

Good morning, happy New Year to everyone and welcome to the first Weekend Rebel Review of 2024.I should thank all the people that read the year end review, 4.4k views in a week is 1000 or 30% more than any previous Weekend Review. A slightly shorter review this week as it has been a short week and not much happening. It all kicks off next week.

New years start with so much optimism but it often never lives up to the hope. I dare say this week was disappointing for many who were waiting for follow through from last year, but often the year starts weak on the first day as there is still a lot of fund shuffling.  How the whole month goes is more important, “as goes January, as  goes the  year” is the saying. Personally, the pull back doesn’t surprise me.  We have had a very long run up on the S&P and it was near to testing the all time high, but to get through that level, a chart often needs a pull back.  Markets are way too over bought to go right through a big previous market high without  retrace, in order to draw in new buyers that want to buy on a dip than buy into such a big high.  Here’s the S&P

The S&P  is 120 points from the previous high and it has fallen back to the first main support and held for now.  This may be it or we may rally slightly here and pull back to either of the lower supports as you can see in this close up:

I think the support at 4650 may get hit but that’s hardly much lower than here, the support at 4540 might get hit, but I least expect that, but it would only be 3% from here so not worth trying to trade in and out from, in fact that would be the greatest risk here, imo, selling to trade and getting caught out by a sharp bounce imo.

The VIX has made a big bowl which isn’t nice so perhaps the lower support may get hit.

The Russell 2000 has already given back 5%, similar to the Dow Transport.

Fear Greed has dropped back out of Extreme Greed.

I am shrugging all of this off personally, it is daft to constantly watch the S&P for direction when invested in the UK as if the UK stocks that are cheap get sold, they bounce back the biggest and fastest imo, like MKS  yesterday, after it’s big run up, was off 3p+ at one point but got bought in the afternoon to end just up.  The cheap stuff will out perform. I gave back around 1.5% this week which is a pretty modest move for my portfolio, I expect those size of moves per day.

All in all, that little lot says to me, there may be more of a fall to come but not to get too worked up about it, it’s pretty normal in my opinion.

The one thing I did notice was that FTSE250 and Aim All Share fell around 2%, the FTSE Small Cap was off around 1%. The Small Cap Index is what I favour and presented a choice of stocks from all three indexes, I try to favour the ones in the FTSE Small Cap index, especially if they are divi payers and directors have been buying. Stocks with these attributes deserve a premium to other small caps or 350 stocks imo.

It has been a quiet, shorter week and there are rarely many big trading updates in the first week.  Pleasingly, the big two I noticed were Next (NXT) and Clarksons (CKN), both of which upgraded their guidance.  Lidle and Aldi said they had had good a Christmas too. JD Sports (JD.) was the disappointment – I was quite surprised, I held these as a trade 6 months ago but they disappointed in performance so I took a small loss and sold – would have been a big loss to have held as the shares tanked circa 20%, so you cannot bank on every retailer doing well.

This makes the week ahead interesting.  We get B&M (BME) and Greggs (GRG) on the 10^th. Sainsbury (SBRY) update on the 11^th along with the share of the moment, M&S (MKS), Dunelm (DNLM) on 12^th and AO., ASC and CARD could update too – so a lot of retail update next week and I am sure there will be more that haven’t pre-anounced the date. As a holder, I’ll be watching out for W7L who will likely have a trading update this week and who has broken out on a rising trend to create an even steeper chart.

So it will be next week when things start to stimulate interest in sectors, housebuilders BDEV and TW. among others, should have updates and house prices have been firming. So I am expecting a lot of action going forward here.  Here’s a list of next weeks likely news candidates that I have listed, it isn’t all of them and as some don’t give dates then the dates are approximate, unless stated.

6^th SCT             trading statement (approx)

6^th COST          trading statement (approx)

7th RCH           trading statement (approx)

7^th BDEV          trading statement (approx)

7^th TRMR         trading statement (approx)

7^th MAB           trading statement (approx)

7^th JDG             trading statement (approx)

9^th BME           trading statement

11^TH SHI           trading statement

10^TH QUIZ        trading statement (approx)

10^{t h} BME         trading statement

10^TH GYM        trading statement confirmed

10^th GRG         trading update

10^th PSN          trading statement confirmed

10^th SBRY         trading statement

11th GAW       trading statement approx

11^th AO.           Trading statement approx

11^th CHH          trading statement (approx)

11^th HFG          trading statement      

11^th GAMA      trading statement (approx)

11^th RW           trading statement

11^th SN.           Trading statement (approx)

11^th GLE           Trading statement

11^th MKS          trading update confirmed

11^th TW.           Trading statement confirmed

12^th XPP           trading statement

12^TH TRST        Finals               AHEAD

12^th DNLM       trading update

12^th ASC          trading update approx.

12^th KGF          trading statement approx.

12^th CRN          trading statement approx.

12^th JD.            Trading statement approx.

That’s about it for this week, having been a short week, I am sure next week will produce far more material for next weekend’s review.  Expect some big movers over the coming week imo, the market is under-estimating many companies.

Remember, do your research, this isn’t advice, just punter opinion.

Rebel