Baillie Gifford Us Growth Share Discussion Threads

[balto] 29/7/2013 08:28

Hello

I would need to know what is the USA's equivalent of the FSA

Thank you for your help

[ben gunn] 24/2/2013 20:10

8 Months Later. (Late Feb report)
Mid 2012 showed a mixed but positive picture up to eve of Pres. election week but following the subsequent severe late Oct early Nov shake-out and better news from Europe- a clear uptrend commenced which we bought into:
Gradually in Dec 2012
Fully in Jan 2013
Strong (as in over 80%) by the start of Feb.

At the point of writing there is still no medium term confirmation of Equity bias but the short term picture is solid and gains of over 10% in 2 months mean that this could be the start of a solid uptrend, even if a short one.
Commentators continue to see weakness in trade, confidence and GDP. The US housing market data show bursts of life that may confirm recovery but given the high levels of short term govt stimulous the net picture is hardly encouraging. The more bearish commentators continue to press for bank balance sheets to be shaken out. A return to positive real interest rates will achieve this.

[petralva] 20/12/2012 15:15

Looks like the end of nyse in it's current form...........ice will probably keep the iconic wall st........

[fatnacker] 30/10/2012 10:24

No exceptions?

[lgw] 30/10/2012 10:21

lol
I hope all our US friends will stay safe in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

[ohojim] 30/10/2012 08:36

Shocking picture of Hurricane Sandy hitting New York

[notanewmember2] 30/10/2012 08:25

Good plan. We don't want a contagion or a storm in the markets.

[jgpgw] 30/10/2012 08:22

Hurricane Sandy forces US markets to shut for a second day

Markets in the US will not be open today (Tuesday, 30 Oct 12), as Hurricane Sandy continues its path along the eastern seaboard of the USA.

"Frankenstein's Monstorm" shut US markets yesterday as well, but things are looking good for trading to resume tomorrow. NYSE warns that is is a "precautionary" plan though and if conditions get worse, trading might not resume until later in the week.

----

News

NYSE -
NASDAQ -
National Hurricane Centre -
ADVFN -

John

[monte1] 29/10/2012 13:38

What are you 'saying' John?


Has Irene gone in for gender re-assignment treatment, came out as Sandy and as a result has been piling on the pounds ?

[jgpgw] 29/10/2012 11:57

This hurricane is HUGE.

Have a look at this link and use the slider in the middle of the image to compare the sizes of Irene (from last year) to Sandy:



John

[shug5ter] 29/10/2012 11:55

Lazy lot. Cannot believe they would shut up shop because of a bit of wind and rain. What are those people made of?, toilet paper or something?.

[golly blackwell] 29/10/2012 11:24

Thanks, John.

[jgpgw] 29/10/2012 10:58

Hurricane Sandy forces US markets to shut

Markets in the US will not be open today (29 Oct 12), as Hurriance Sandy blows in on the eastern seaboard of the USA.

"Frankenstorm" (or "Frankenstein's Monstorm", for Shelley buffs) is forecast to have passed New York by Tuesday morning, so we hope our American cousins will escape without too much damage or other trouble and the markets will be open again tomorrow.

----

News

NYSE -
National Hurricane Centre -
ADVFN -

John

[ben gunn] 14/6/2012 10:19

One year later from the June/July 2011 signal.....

Our metrics have been adjusted to reflect the Global DOW index as the key underlying "positive bias towards equity markets, or negative bias".

This follows ten months of weak trends since AUG 2011 and some of our portfolios switchhing back to equities in March 2012 only to re-switch, expensively, to sovereign bonds in late April/early May 2012.
The incredible mass of the Global DOW prevents sub-trends appearing as trends and we shall use it as our sheet anchor in future.

2011 remains an excellent year for Digitalinvesting but 2012 has been damaged by this mistake in the first 5 months and we shall see what we shall see.
95% sovereign bonds with bits of exposure to gold remains our plan.

The impact of the current negative bias is that we respond to all fresh signals immediately rather than wait for confirmation at month end.

[ben gunn] 22/11/2011 16:50

Mid November Update 2011

The strong recovery from the AUG CRASH in Sept/Oct showed all the signs of putting us into uncertainty. Friday 18th Nov 2011 chart metrics confirmed that the recovery is over and the healthy recovery from the early AUG sharp downtrend has started to fall away and may be ignored. The Transportation and Forestry indeces (which show little derivative activity) also confirm that we are now 5.5 months into a downturn from the early June signals.

Learning point
Digital Investors may now add the crash definition of "a 15% fall in a 40 day period" to the normal definitions of a stockmarket crash.

[ben gunn] 15/8/2011 11:44

July/August update
The switch from equities to bonds from Early June has proved profitable.

The 2009/2011 recovery in equities was stalling and so we were able to quit this trend with strong profits on 1st June and some profits on the last bits and pieces that got moved on 1st July. (I was already on holiday in South West France by 1st Aug so it was good to have got the heavy lifting done well in advance of the USA rating shock)

The 9th June posting above was a bit cagey about the details of the SELL signal:
* for the usual reason that Digital Investing is a valuable proprietory system
* because we had to fake the "Media Index" numbers within the signal.

Usually the media index is our key UK leading index and we stick to it like glue but the index caries a high BSY weighting and BSY helicoptered up from 730ish to 830ish on the expectation of a News Corp bid. This single factor meant that the weakness I looked for in the Media Index was missing. What to do?
I took the executive decision to use the WPP price chart as a proxy for the Media Index in calculating the June signal and was proved right when the Media Index took a heavy hit from Mr Murdoch's escapade at the Palace of Westminster.
By 1st July the two charts all aligned; so the executive decision payed off.

We dont know what will happen next but we sit in Sovereign bonds e.g. (SGIL, IBGM and IGLT), precious metals and cash awaiting a buy signal. With Washington's current political weakness it may well be that the 2008/9 crash...which was headed off at the pass by the Fed.....will now fully take place, the banks and property speculators will be decimated and, gradually, the real world can return to dominate G7 countries rather than the tricks of "the masters of the universe". No genuine recovery is in prospect until the Augean Stables are fully cleansed and this may take 2 to 20 years.

[mechanical trader] 27/7/2011 19:12

As per above.

[ben gunn] 09/6/2011 09:57

Fresh Sell Signals
Relying only on monthly charts we now have a definative set of three levels of negative signals to knock us off our "bias towards equities" stance.

As a result of the 1st June weak SELL signal we have switched 14 portfolios from Equities to bonds anticipating a repeat of the early 2008 collapse rather than the spring 2010 collapse which was followed by a strong autumn 2010 recovery.

In Mid June we will have a measure of the success or failure of this strategy and will post in detail our decision metrics. In the meantime analysis of the price trend of WPP may serve as a good marker for what is over the horizon in UK and BRK.A for the US.

[ben gunn] 16/8/2010 12:37

The June- July equity bounce has failed to break free of past highs.
This represents an astonishingly good time to sell down corporate bonds in expectation of a resumption of risk appetite collapse and time to buy Allianz Pimco Gilt and Old Mutual strategic govt bond etc.

As well as shedding corporate bonds and Euro denominated bonds we have also shed Index-Linked bonds. This simply reflects the collapse of their outperformance since deflation became more like ly than inflation. The 5% equity retention in my wife's SIPP is almost entirely in the three solar cell companies: FHL, PVCS and SOLA.
Update 14th Sept..forced to de-weight SOLA owing to rapid 60% gain-losses on the other two members of the solar energy portfolio naturally.


Equity markets are now signalling BUY once more and an effort is to be made to fine tune the SELL/BUY decision metrics so as to catch the trend earlier.


Update on Update:
The false SELL signal in Spring 2010 has proved expensive both as to transaction costs/spreads and timing of the two sets of sell-offs. From 2010 forwards the "Termination of Trend signal" will generate only a 62% SELL Off, completing the following month if and only if the crossover signal is confirmed by one of the moving averages falling that month.
This apparently insignificant "belt and braces" will be our watchword going forward.

[ben gunn] 19/7/2010 22:27

Late news
IBM produced a strong profit gain but weak sales growth means that IBM and TI shares have fallen back in aftermarket.

[ben gunn] 19/7/2010 22:21

Mid July
As predicted elsewhere the week ended 9th July gave the DOW a strong gain owing to the unweighting of down positions as we head into the July quarterlies led by Alcoa on 15th. Week to 16th July shown a half percent slip back after being strongly ahead on Wednesday. Poor data continues.

This week to 23rd may be the second and last of this quarter's up weeks and we aim to have a couple of modest downbets in place as we depart for 2 week summer holiday 24th July. The FT's Pikarda and others are confirming in July the signals we saw in early June. We are happy to get through 3 pull-back weeks and expect a return to a clear strong DOWNTURN. We remain 95% out of equities.

Re post 34944...now is the time to buy those government bonds at reduced prices and modest or zero premium to 1 yr moving average.
Similarly NOW is the time to spot turning points in those heavenly corporate bond funds and dump them all over the coming weeks.

[ben gunn] 29/6/2010 13:01

June 2010
The VIX slipped back below 26 in early June indicating renewed market resilience but as I write on 29th June it is back at 29 and the uptrend of the last 15 months has broken down.

The evidence for this lies in:
SLXX has gone sideways for 6 months castrating the buy signal
The NAS 100 leading index is leading the DOW down over 3 months (Though in the UK its matching leading index- Media Sector- has not collapsed as a bid has been made for the other 70% of BSY by "you know who".)
This unwinding of the NAS gives us "Negative Bias" so sells are easily triggered.
The DOW has broken down through its 5 month moving average.
The 1st June Unholdable and Unbuyable signals took us out of the Europeanmkts and now in June the FTSE All Share has given a strong deceleration signal together with an expensive lower low for 9 months signal.
S&P Asia Index has breached its 260 day EMA for 2nd month and EMA now falling.

Generally we have passed in 4 June weeks from equity troubles to equity distress. No more than 5% equity holdings can now be recommended.