Originally Posted by
COLIN
The Aussies amongst us must be glad that they had a public holiday today, in honour of Her Majesty (what happens when the Monarchy is eventually abolished, as seems inevitable? Can't see a "President's Day", doesn't sound quite right, but there will no doubt continue to be a holiday of some sort - what about a "Respect for the Aged Day" as they have in Japan?! Seems a great idea to this senior citizen.)
Anyway, back to market trends. I'm sure there would have been a rout on the ASX today had it been a trading day, i.e. the first significant market to open following the slump on Wall St on Friday. However, my pick is that there will be some consolidation on Wall St tonight and the final closing - up or down - will be relatively mild. The ASX will turn down, reflecting Friday's movement, but not nearly as severely as it would otherwise have been if it hadn't been a holiday today.
Its interesting that my NZ portfolio actually recorded a slight overall gain today, due to my holdings in NZO (heads & options) PRC and PPP, notwithstanding that my other NZX holdings are greater than these, in total.
My advice would be: look at your portfolio mix, decide what areas of activity hold the most promise for the longer-term, and only discard those shares that you assess have little prospect of performing as well as those in your chosen asset classes. For myself my chosen areas are fuel, food, healthcare and (in NZ) firms with significant offshore earnings.
So, Strat, thats my tuppence worth.
P.S. Interesting to see that the Footsie was actually slightly in positive territory when I last checked a few minutes ago. I was surprised to see that, but of course encouraged.