Month: January 2019

Monday, 28^th January 2019

Don’t rule out a tax on ALL your bank deposits….

Here at Money Truths it is our belief that stocks are headed down….

For sure, there will be ups and downs along the way. Bear markets, corrections and even crashes are not perpendicular in nature….

But the general direction of travel will be toward lower stock values – significantly lower stock values – over time….

Of course, this is just our best guess. And we are always prepared – indeed, we expect – to be proved wrong….

Right now, legions stand against us on the field of play. Legions that believe now is the right time to buy….

• A stampede of bulls….

The FT’s Ken Fisher was on the case last week. The headline of his column read thus….

‘Forget the investment losses of 2018, stocks will rebound….’

Fisher is bullish. ‘Don’t let the past blind you,’ he says. ‘2019 will be great….’

Fisher is founder and executive chairman of Fisher Investments. Maybe his viewpoint is entirely objective….

Or maybe what he ‘believes’ is bound-up with what he hopes might happen on a commercial basis….

Who knows? But Fisher is not alone….

‘Ignore all the Brexit hysteria and buy UK stocks….’

That was the headline of a Merryn Somerset Webb column on the Moneyweek website last week….… Click here to read more

Tuesday, 22^nd January 2019

Get ahead in the markets – harness girl power….

After the global financial crisis of 2008/09, Christine Lagarde, chief of the International Monetary Fund, made some comments that enjoyed wide circulation. She said this….

‘I do believe women have different ways of taking risks, of addressing issues…. of ruminating a bit more before they jump to conclusions. And I think that as a result, particularly on the trading floor, in the financial markets in general, the approach would be different….’

The comments did not represent an outright condemnation of the entire male species nor any individual member of it….

But the insinuation was clear: had more women been at work in senior positions on Wall Street and in other financial centers around the world, the crisis probably wouldn’t have happened….

• Lehman Sisters?

Once the crisis had been digested, many top-level bankers attended the World economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland….

They had an interesting debate around a hypothetical question: had Lehman Brothers (one bank that crashed and burned during the crisis) been Lehman Sisters, would it still have failed as it did?

The consensus opinion among the bankers was that Lehman Sisters would not have made quite so much money as Lehman Brothers did during the boom times, but that Lehman Sisters would still be in business today….… Click here to read more

Monday, 14^th January 2019

A proven safe-haven in times of trouble….

When markets become unreliable or unpredictable – or worse go into meltdown – it makes sense to make sure you’ve got some protection….

Admittedly, the options are limited….

Almost every investment or asset class is correlated to the rises and the falls in stock market values….

But not gold….

Time and again, over the years, gold has proved the place to be when it comes to protecting investment portfolios from volatility and negative action in the stock markets….

Now is a good time to consider getting on the right side of gold….

I’m not talking about going the whole hog, liquidating everything you own and transferring it into the precious yellow metal….

But a little exposure is a good hedge against market stress. And stress is certainly present in the markets right now….

• The sinking feeling….

We could look in turn at every major index in the world and find a similar story, but we’ll just focus for a moment on the FTSE 100 – the index comprising the 100 companies with the highest market capitalization listed on the London Stock Exchange….

The index closed on Friday at 6918.20 – 6.74% in arrears since the beginning of October 2018….… Click here to read more