The Weekend Rebel Review, Aug 17th, 2024
Two Tier Investing
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.Well that’s the election over at last but really it’s just the start.
A shorter review this week as there isn’t a busting lot to say. Having gone 75% cash two weeks ago and got to 80% cash the following week, I have bought back just over 5%. I’ve added back more CMCX and CAR, I’ve bought some CARD back and the DIA that I sold after the CEO bought 18k ahead of the court case next month and I’ve had a few MKS back, just because it seems a solid place for the cash at the moment.
Aside from that I haven’t done a lot apart from enjoy the late sun and spending some profit on the house, the water feature, the garden and planning a fish house that I’m going to build – this is a brick built building, insulated up to the nines to hold tropical fish (Central & South American Cichlids), in big 8’ aquaria, an old hobby of mine (I used to run the British Cichlid (Sik-Lid)Association in the 80’s, a side hobby from body doubling for Tom Cruise 😊) and I’m going to spend more of my time doing that as a get away from this ghastly country we now live in, until things get more enjoyable in the market.
Cichlids are these gorgeous things:
That’s a Quetza Cichid by the way, named after the colourful Guatemalan bird where it comes from, also Quetzal is the name of the currency in Guatemala too – there’s always a financial angle!
Here out, I am not sure how much I actually want to get reinvested in the UK market – I am not sure we have a government aligned investors here. I m not too bothered about buying back into the market until I see the budget in October. We have Rachael Reeves trying to convince us she’s opened the books and found a horror show that requires a £21bn grab in tax or service cuts and that the economy is in a mess, yet the latest GDP data shows and economy growing faster than any government has ever inherited I think. They need to tax more but they can give £11bn away in aid overseas and pay doctors and rail workers and no doubt many others to come huge inflationary wage rises that will cost more than the missing £20bn. If train drivers get 14%, bus drivers will want it too, then the rest of the public sector. We are already paying the highest taxes ever and it will be the 50% or so who actually pay tax in this country funding all of it – or business. So at the moment there’s a bit of a honeymoon period for Labour – but to me it seems like he’s got into the honeymoon sweet, taken his close off and it isn’t a pretty sight. Anyway, you can all decide for yourself whether you think they are good or bad for investing.
Fear/Greed seems to have topped out after the Japan carry trade debacle so as I said last week, that might be the highs of VIX and Fear which may be a positive. The middle east is still hanging there. I’ve never known Israel or Iran to back down so if a peaceful end can be negotiated there then that will be a near first I suspect. That’s another reason I’m not sure I want to be as long as I was for now.
The US and UK data was far better than markets were expecting this week. In January, the IMF claimed the UK would be the slowest growing economy apart from Germany – turns out it’s the fastest growing. That’s great news and shows Brexit wasn’t the disaster it was claimed it would be imo. I was likely more fearful than I needed to be with the data but I’d still like to see where inflation is heading to be more cool.
Israel and the middle east still worries me a lot but more worrying is the government here.
Rather than go through everything stocks today, I did a 90 min interview with Paul Hill on Vox that you can skip through if you desire. I’m gonna enjoy a bit more of the end of summer unless the market picks up.
It’s the pub’s beer festival here this weekend so I shall be enjoying that - have a great weekend whatever you are doing
Cockney Rebel
I was rather disappointed in Synthomer Edward.
While they said they were inline, brokers have reduced forecasts gradually from 20p eps in January to a small loss now. The shares were half the current price back then too.
The -0.6p eps forecast has now dropped to -1.2p.
The momentum is just not there in the right direction. I did very much believe in Michael Wilome the CEO but it looks like things are just too tough. I think there's likely better places for my money at the moment. One I hold my had up to getting wrong, there will be more too I'm sure, that's investing.
I don't know, but if they do that, it will be negative for the stock market. I thought they wanted to grow the economy but they seen gold medalists at saying one thing and doing another.