I spent Friday in the best possible way with the utter pretence that I was ‘working’ by meeting up with about 6/7 very good Investing Mates at the White Hart, Winkfield (the WheelieBash Pub) and it turned out a hugely enjoyable day and what was supposed to be Lunch and a few hours after, ended up going on til near 8pm or something. Most amazingly, we had our lunch in reasonable sunshine/cloud but then it started raining and it didn’t stop at all – but none of us really minded or noticed that much, and we were able to hide under the Canvas bits and carry on making out that we were working hard on our Investments !!
It was a hugely enjoyable and useful day and Thank You to the chaps that came along to while away the afternoon with me. This week I should be meeting up with another Mate at the White Hart so I have definitely got my priorates nicely sorted.
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If you have listened to Podcast TPI 49 (link below if you haven’t), then you will probably have heard my fairly comprehensive health report and since recording that last Wednesday, I can thankfully say that it really does look like the Doctors have at last discovered the problem and for my h8ters the sad news is that I am not going to snuff it, and for the fans, I guess it is good news !!
I still have the pain but it is at a much lower level and the drastic changes to my diet (to be honest, it is not the end of the world and I did need a kick up the posterior with regards to my predilection for eating anything that I see and in crazy amounts) and I even managed to get outside today in the freezing cold and light rain, to pump up the tyres on my MX5. I thought it was a bit spongy when I last drove it, and with tyre pressures at 20 psi instead of the necessary 29, I guess that would explain it. I can’t wait to drive it next and feel the improvement.
I’m typing this starting text on Sunday afternoon after writing all of the Charts bit on Saturday night. I’m well pleased that I did it this way because I was feeling pretty good last night, but today it is not too bad but definitely worse than I would like.
If you are a bit behind, I have had some sort of problem in my abdomen area for 6 months and 4 Doctors have been baffled as to what the problem is; until finally a trip to A&E when I felt extremely bad a week or so ago, came up with the idea that it could be down to excess Stomach Acid burning my Stomach Wall. Sounds horrible.
It’s been quite a frustrating week for me on the health side of things. On top of the ongoing problems around my guts, I managed to pick up the early stages of a Pressure Sore on my left hip and as a result I spent most of the week stuck to my sofa. Thankfully the Sore was caught early but even so it still took around 5 days to improve, whereas I was hoping a couple of days would be enough.
On my abdomen thing, I finally made some tiny progress with Stoke Mandeville Hospital and my Consultant is going to put me through for an ‘Urgent’ MRI Scan. Unfortunately, the definition of ‘Urgent’ seems to mean several weeks before I actually get scanned. Could be worse I guess; it could be a Cat Scan or a Lab Test………..
After a super strong start to the year, we had to give a bit back last week and have a bit of a pause. As I discussed in last weekend’s blog, this is healthy really if we are to see Markets keep rising, and in the event it hasn’t been much of a pullback. If anything, I would guess we need more consolidation before we can see more moves higher (assuming that will happen but of course Summers are often quite flat). Consolidation can just mean a sideways grind and I suspect that is pretty much what we will get.
The situation around the globe seems quite mixed with the US and UK recovering strongly from the C19 induced Recessions and with Europe still seeming to recover, but facing lots more trouble with C19 Lockdowns and further waves of infection. The UK seems in very good shape and there was some excellent news on Friday about how the AstraZeneca and Pfizer Vaccines have both been found to be highly effective at not just protecting people from severe illness, but also helping to prevent infection to a high degree. Of course the US is most likely to undergo vast amounts more ‘Stimulus’ that is likely to keep the Punch Bowl well and truly booze-fueled.
I am starting this on Saturday Night, as is my tradition these days because it is easier to break the task of writing these blogs into two bits. I am utterly trashed because I thought I would take advantage of the pleasant weather and go for a long push around my locality. Of course, as is always my way, I never know what my limits are and I ended up going probably much further than I should have, and as a result my health problems are really irritating me and I feel utterly exhausted and drained.
With all this Lockdown stuff I have felt that I have had very little exercise and in recent weeks I have been getting out and pushing around to try to get my heart rate going and stuff. This is probably a good idea but I tend to make the error of coming to a particular road and thinking, “Oh, I wonder where that road leads to?” and of course I am far too stupid than to actually take my Fone with me and to use Google Maps (where’s the fun in that?).
This is such a strange time with the Coronavirus madness still dominating the Economic picture, and governments borrowing crazy amounts of money, and Central Banks mucking around and suchlike; and yet Markets just look almost like nothing can stop them going up.
It is very normal to get a Spring sell-off and it looked quite possible that something was going to start at the end of March, but again the Bulls shook it off and even the likely highly over-valued Nasdaq, kept on moving up. This ability by Bulls to repel the advances of the Bears on the battlefield, shows an underlying strength that could easily keep going. And I suspect it will.
It’s rather nice to have ended Quarter 1 with pretty good numbers on the board and I know a lot of Readers are in a similar nicely buoyant boat, and we should all be pretty pleased.
I guess if you are not fortunate to be in this position, then unless you have been extremely unlucky and worse than this, done something totally daft, your damage can’t be too bad and we still have 9 months to turn things around. Obviously sticking to the basics like buying Quality Stocks; focus on valuation; diversified Portfolio; Running Winners and not chopping their legs off; keeping calm and not panicking etc., will probably see things work out fine.
I am starting this on Saturday Night again and trying to watch the Formula 1 Qualifying at the same time !! It is so nice to have a nearly decent sport back on the tellybox again, and I guess it could be viewed as another slug-like slow step to semi-normality. Hopefully my health aggro will not prevent me cracking on with this and as I start I am feeling quite good and perhaps I will be able to get a lot done before having to abandon it.
“A work of art is never finished, it is just abandoned…….” The title this weekend relates to something I want to highlight when we get to the Charts bit, which is essentially how an extended RSI reading (Relative Strength Index) to the upside (pretty much without exception), predicts a falling Price not long afterwards. We have been treated to 2 excellent examples of this just recently and I will show both of them.
Unusually I am starting this on Friday night because I have some other plans for Sunday; but unfortunately my ongoing health lament is really playing up today and I am right grumpy. On that particular issuette, I spoke to a Consultant at Stoke Mandeville Hospital earlier in the week, and it looks like I will at some point get an MRI Scan and most likely other stuff like X-Ray and Ultrasound, but the catch is that it could be as much as 3 months away.
I have mixed feelings about this. Clearly the NHS is absolutely jammed solid with a huge backlog of work and it is also still fighting the C19 disaster, so I can see why there is a long queue. This suits me in that I am not overly keen to go near a Hospital (which seems to be a major hot spot of C19 infection), even though I have had my first vaccination stab and my Consultant would prefer me to have the second prick before I go in. The vaccines do not prevent you getting C19, although it probably means you won’t expire – but with my useless lungs I don’t fancy getting it at all. |
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