Market uncertainty

Sunday, 9th May 2010 12:06 - by Boredmum

Damn Hung Parliament. What a horrible week that was. As I type, I have seen about 12% wiped off my portfolio over 4 days of trading. Two to three months of profits wiped out; one month’s profits went in a day. It was unbelievable. So, where do we go from here? Are we likely to see more falls or have things stabilised? Will things stabilise until such a time that we know what is happening with our leadership? This has to be a truly horrid situation in the markets. In hindsight, of course I should have anticipated this. The truth is that I didn’t expect the severity of it and thought, during the start of the week, that the uncertainty of a hung parliament was already factored-in. Apart from the Hung Parliament which has affected the markets alongside some of the things that I mentioned last week - namely the Greece crisis - I seemed to go from one trading disaster to another. I bought into DES on the rise on Thursday, knowing it was good for a few points. Purchased at 62p, went to deal as it was rising fast and hit the button at just over 74p. Yes, fantastic, a better-than-expected result and just what I needed after the past week. That feeling lasted for a millisecond as it came up with a failure message. I tried frantically to deal again and couldn’t even get a quote...the price started falling fast. I had to call my Broker, praying that my transaction had just got stuck in the system, but that it was actually transacted (this has happened a few times recently). Typical, it hadn’t gone through and when I queried why, I was told that the MMs had pulled it. Can you believe that? The MMs had pulled it...that is like tying my hands behind my back and asking me to fight. So unfair but, unfortunately, I am feeling that I am just having the most incredible run of bad luck. At least in the case of DES I managed to do a bit of quick manoeuvring in averaging-down and then coming out successfully the next day. So, where do we go from here? Views are always welcome and there has certainly been lots of news coverage saying that the markets need to know the Con-Lib negotiation outcome for Monday. A friend commented to me that that if all my shares are bought and paid for, then I should go away and forget about the markets for a couple of weeks. That is tempting...but there is always a fear of future falls.