2016 a Cracking Year, but help is needed.

All I hope you have all had a successful 2016. For the record I gave out 3 main calls this year. The first was Savannah Resources at around 2p, currently around 6p with a nice 300% paper profit. I also had a call on RIO at the start of the year thanks to its then 6-7% divi rate and good potential upside and landed a nice 50% profit and finally BCN which has had a neutral year so far. In total my PF is around 100% up, with a big chunk of it staying in cash this year.

Overall a very successful year.

This leads me onto my plea where help is needed.

As a family, my wife and our children have seen the effects that cancer can have on children, (not ours I should add for clarity), but to people we know. We have seen both the devastating effects on families of a child dying and the positive effects.

A few of you will know that I gave up working in investing banking and IT a few years ago and have spent the last couple of years working with children, both in and out of schools. All of us try and help out where we can and my middle child has also been affected and occasionally tries to raise money for good causes.

In December he’s decided to shave his head for standup to cancer.

If you’ve had a good year and I hope you have and want to help sponsor him then any money is appreciated. It happens next week.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Joshua-Swift

So to sign off, happy new year and I hope you are all healthy, happy and wise !

Getting eaten by sharks.

A strange title, but it sums up my view in the investing world at the moment, for a great many small investors.


For most of the past year I've been consistently saying that I am keeping 50% of my portfolio in Cash. To be honest from about September time that rose to 80%.
I've had a few new investments, either very risky or very short term, but most of it is simply out of the market.


I am more than happy to hold my hands up and say that OXUS was a disappointment. Thankfully I never advised anybody to buy in the last 6 months and when asked (which I was frequently) tried to always say that its a punt that could see you lose all of your money.
Indeed with OXS, a trawl through my posts will see that I advised buying at around 2p, taking profit and letting profit ride. I know a few folks who lost big time on OXS and I feel for them, I really do. It should only ever have been punt money or profit though and it should have been money that you were prepared to write off.


Apart from a bit of money in the likes of FOGL, most of the 20% went and remains in AEG and SAV, both strong, well run companies that form long term investments.


2016 will be the first year that we see significant amounts of AIM companies going under. Oil at or below $30 is only economic short term. Beyond 3-6 months its a death sentence for many companies.


I've got a few more blogs coming on commodity prices that have been written over the past few months but I need to get my laptop fixed to get at them, so they will have to wait for now.


The purpose of this blog is simply to re-iterate a few points.


Point 1: I could not, with a moral compass working, suggest stocks to invest in, with the current market. There are many many stocks (90%) that I can buy far cheaper now than 6 months ago. £10,000 can buy you 300% more good stocks now than it could 6 months ago. Waiting is actually a very valid strategy in the current market.


Point 2: I have been reading almost daily over the past 6 months how some extra-ordinary people feel they can call the bottom of the market i.e "you would be mad not to buy now, as the oil price will only increase going forward and will be xx(put whatever silly price you want in here) within a few months." So far they have been spectacularly wrong.


Point 3: There are a great many pundits who will never tell you to keep your portfolio in cash, this is because they trade stocks to earn a living and need to constantly pump and dump stocks to earn a living.


Point 4: We keep getting told that now is a good time to buy new assets, (by some of the same folks who said how clever MXO were buying Aje). It is NOT a good time to buy assets. The assets that are being sold are the crap ones that nobody wants. Any asset will require money to truly monitise it and most assets will be uneconomic in the current climate.


Point 5: Relax....there will be plenty of time to make money when the market turns, it is of course assuming you have any money left after buying some of the junk such as over valued shell companies, over inflated oil companies and simply piss poor commodity companies such as GGP.


No doubt a few very intelligent folks will take issue with what I've said, also no doubt they are same folks who ramp different stocks each week.


Anyway good luck in the market, keep safe, keep secure and most importantly keep your money !