Value in the stockmarket? Moosh thinks so.

Thursday, 25th September 2008 18:49 - by Resident IFA

In life, I quite believe in the difference between those whose glass is ‘half-empty’ and those for whom it is ‘half-full’. More and more as time passes, I wear my ‘half-full’ badge with increasing pride…a positivist with a streak of realist sewn-in. To this end, the current state of the markets is causing great concern and the ‘half-empty’ brigade could easily have their day in the sun. I have never seen so clearly that stockmarkets are driven by sentiment and little else, or so it seems. Over the last few days we have seen 100-point plus market swings up and down, depending on which bank is in trouble, which bank has been saved, the US Government doing well in effecting a rescue plan, the US Government not doing well in effecting a rescue plan, which way the wind is blowing, etcetera, etcetera. Anyway, the perilous state of global stockmarkets and global economies leads to great opportunities in some people’s eyes. The FTSE100, on today’s close, is 22.78% down on its 52-week high. So, for example, if you bought a FTSE100 Index Tracker fund today, you would effectively get 22.78% more ‘value for money’ than investing this time last year. This is undoubtedly pretty good if you have the money available and are good enough or lucky enough to time things so well. For those already invested in the markets to whatever degree and by whatever medium, the consensus advice seems to be ‘sit tight’, but there seems to be a lot of investors keen to take advantage…should it transpire that this is really ‘value’ and things do not continue to deteriorate. lse.co.uk seems to bear this point out in that we have seen record numbers of visitors in the past couple of weeks, having ‘served’ in excess of 3.85M pages to them over the last 30 days. In particular, one lse.co.uk Member who seems to see value in the market is Moosh. I always look at our chat forum and marvel at how friendly and dedicated our Members are, Moosh being a great example of friendliness and openness. He posted on Monday to say he will be keeping the Members updated as to his “whole-hearted but probably quite absurd attempt to turn £1k into £198 million in 250 trades”. I, for one, wish him all the best and say more power to his elbow. What an excellent endeavour in these testing times! Moosh posted again on Tuesday, now leaving me waiting with baited breath for more news on his exploits. Let’s hope he fares well and regularly posts his trials and tribulations. The lse.co.uk community clearly back him. Within a couple of hours tipperdave, JoBurg, and ramborai had posted tips and helpful comments for the magnificent Moosh. Let us hope I am not talking him up too much! Until next time…