Go East Young Man-Made in Taiwan and the China Syndrome Part 1

The US Markets are closed today so I thought this might be an opportunity to look beyond the US shores to another favourite market of mine-the Far East.For many years the Asian Markets have lagged far behind the US and Europe.I think we may be seeing the tentative shoots of recovery in certain markets.Japan is still a wildcard but I believe that 2007 may prove to be a good year for Taiwan. In 2006 a number of emerging mkts including some in Asia have hit all time highs but Taiwan still lags and is over 43% below its high from Feb 1990.Taiwan is home to some of the largest Tech and Electronics companies in the World. Companies that produce I-Pods and the Mini Mac as well as supply major IT companies such as Dell and Hewlett Packard-the link therefore to PC and Semi-conductors is inextricable-when these markets boom so does the Taiwanese economy.If you believe that these sectors are likely to start to move in 2007-(think Vista and PC's) then Taiwan is a good place to invest.For me the best way to play this is via the iShares MSCI Taiwan Index Fund(EWT-NYSE).This fund is broadly based and diversified but heavily weighted to Technology Companies. Another boost for Taiwan is that it is one of the major trading partners of China. The Chinese economy is still one of the fastest growing economies in the world and as the mass Chinese become more affluent then they will increase their expenditure on goods such as PC's and Technology-this can only be good for the Taiwanese economy and for the iShares MSCI Taiwan Index Fund(EWT-NYSE).I will be opening a position in this fund at the mkt tomorrow.I will also post Part 2 of this communication looking in a bit more detail at opportunities to gain some exposure to China such as Hong Kong Shanghai Bank (HBC) , Templeton Dragon Fund (TDF-NYSE) and China Medical Technologies (CMED-NYSE).



Best wishes for the New Year and Good Trading

RT

The time to take Stock-not trade

Well unbelievably it is nearly Christmas, Markets get incredibly thin at this time of year and it is not really the time of year to be trading.In the US particularly Tax selling can really shift stocks and the big boys have free rein to swing things whatever way they like.
Personally I use this time of year to take stock of my positions and to try to evaluate the big trends for the coming year.My perspective is that the US dollar will come under more pressure, housing will suffer having an impact on the Market.We will see Oil and Energies start to increase in price again and anything related to Agricultural Commodities will continue to do well.
Some stocks I am looking at are Cresud, Nymex Exchange, and Silver and Gold related like the ETF Silver Trust, Silver Wheaton, Goldcorp.

Have a great Christmas and New Year.


Best Wishes


RT

Why am I here ?

Well if you are reading this far then maybe you are asking the same question.If like me you want to give up the day job as soon as possible or retire with a big enough wedge of cash to finance the lifestyle you always wanted then this Blog and my journey may be for you.

I dont know about you but I got fed up receiving letters each year from my Pension Fund informing me that they had charged me 5% of the fund to only lose 15% when after all the market was down 20% so didnt they do well-Huh !!!

So I decided to start to invest for myself...........in the past year my fund has grown just over 20% and only had drawdowns of less than 5% ..not too shabby .

There seemed to be a dearth of information about doing this so I decided to set up this blog to allow anyone who is interested to see what I was doing.I am not giving trading advice just an insight into my thoughts and trades-but by all means if you wish to join in then feel free to do so.

I may on occasions meander and muse on life in general and on the odd occasion I may even rant.I would love to hear your views and thoughts and if anyone out there is doing something similar ..then hey let us know.

I will in the next couple of days post the list of current positions in my Pension and start to inform you of the buys and sells and the reasons behind it.

If anyone has any questions or comments would love to hear them-all for now


RT