What a tumultuous week for the Stock Market. This week saw almost 5% shaving of the Dow Jones. From the sunny shores of Sydney, news of a Prime Ministerial shake-up and a devastating knock out of the world cup seemed more worthy of headlines - but the impact is clear.
Another wrap, many readers may remember that I had spoken to a friend ("Tripod") earlier and put a gentleman's bet down on where we thought the Euro was headed about a month ago.
I'm glad to say that despite the initial faltering, i'm now back to square one - even stevens. The Euro bouncing back to 1.25 last week amidst weakness and news of China's pegging to the HKD instead of the USD.
Indeed the poor performance above, is mirrored in our Blue Chip Challenge - where our 5 amateur investors (much alike Masterchef) are facing off against the market for the glory.
This week proves cash is king in downward cycles. Whilst the competition is still young - cash is the only portfolio to bring positive returns this week and takes an early start.
The best performing portfolio (the smallest loser) is Helen, whilst alas I have the weakest portfolio for the week. Luckily I don't have to face an elimination test of any sort. However, I do need to explain myself.
This week my portfolio was battered by sharp declines across the board. My achilles heel was BP which was hammered after more negative media and estimations of cleanup costs were also met with talks of a hurricane offshore from the site of the spill. Australia wasn't much better, banking took a hit this week - both NAB and CBA were lower. My star stock American Express was higher for the week - but this was not enough to hold the fort.
So we're low this week. However, how low can you go? We have seen that the Dow is reluctant to be lower than 9000 so what will next week hold? Bring on the new week!
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