Regular features from April 2006 124th Issue

Equity Investment for the adventurous

Last year, as regular readers will testify to, I had great success in picking nine funds to recommend to speculative investors or as the adventurous section of a balanced portfolio.

All of them made amazing gains the greatest being +75.39% and the smallest gain +28.74%. Of the nine funds picked, the average growth turned out to be almost 50%.

Of course I am not a fortune-teller and forecasts like this are speculative at the best of times. What I can say is that my forecasting is based on over 20 years of experience in the investment industry and an almost unhealthy compulsive habit of devouring the financial media.

Having said that my forecasts are as likely to be as good as the best financial analysts in the business or as bad.

From the public point of view, the good thing about forecasting in a journal like this is I can be held to account by some savvy investor.

Most of this forecasting is based on common sense and as I said an addiction to investment information.

Many of the funds I am picking this year are the same. Firstly I like the fund managers Fidelity, J. P. Morgan and Merrill Lynch to name a few.

Secondly as I always recommend Swiss domicile to my clients because of not least the best consumer protection available, I think it only fair to recommend Swiss based funds only.

If you would like to know all the reasons for recommending Switzerland , please let me know.

If you are a potential investor reading this I would like to make one very important point.

If you were an investor with Swiss Invest Center your portfolio is reviewed every quarter and if we thought that the markets were going to take a turn for the worse then we would switch you (for free) into a guaranteed fund or a less volatile one that those being recommended here.

While it should always be understood that equity investment is for those with at least a five-year time frame, it would be stupid to let funds go down the drain when switching in and out is available. But for this article let's stick with the recommendations until 2007

Real money is very important to most clients and I would rarely recommend such an adventurous portfolio as this to a client unless they were fully aware of the consequences.

This article is just recommending some speculative investment and for that reason at the end of the year I will have to account for the whole year performance. I may have to eat humble pie but on the other hand I may be able to gloat again about my investment expertise.

After all those caveats let's take a look at the funds I am recommending this year and their performance over January and February.

Here they are

Performance from

Fund Manager Fund Name 01-01-06 to 14/03/2006

Merrill Lynch Japan opportunities Fund -6.42%

Fidelity India Focus Fund +14.74%

Merrill Lynch US opportunities Fund +9.3 %

J. P. Morgan Latin American Equity (A) +15.50%

Merrill Lynch Emerging Europe Fund +15.51%

J. P. Morgan Europe small caps (A) +14.71%

J. P. Morgan Eastern European Equity (A) +9.05%

Vontobel Swiss small companies +11.17%

So there it is. Some have dropped out and there are a few new picks-notably India .

I looked at China as well but feel that data coming out of China is unreliable. Their currency will surely be forced to revalue again and it is way too volatile to lose any sleep over. Also their authoritarian political regime could cause investor panic down the line.

India on the other hand looks to me a much better emerging market this year. Some people think that the Indian growth story is much too restricted geographically but their language skills especially in English is such a great boost to the growing service industry together with their general education and democratic system leads me to believe that there are still tremendous opportunities for growth there with less volatility than China. Can you afford not to be there?

Emerging Europe looks good again this year also and I have added an additional fund in J. P. Morgan. I have always felt that Eastern Europe under the old communist regimes had third world economies but was populated by first world people in terms of their skills and education. I see the new EC countries like Poland , Hungary , Romania etc. being huge opportunities for the expat investor in particular.

The one thing for sure is that I will come back to these funds at the end of the year and we can then check if I can outperform last year or finish up with egg on my face.

I may well do an interim report in August this year (Deo Volente)

Your comments appreciated to jerry@swissinvestcenter.net

Mag's Page

Do you remember those adhesive sun visor strips that people used to have across the top of their car windscreens? It was easy to see that they were bought and installed by men - they always had the little ladies name above the passenger seat.

I once planned to have one printed 'Me' and 'Him', both as a one-woman protest, and to avoid having to get a new one printed every time the 'Him' was changed. However too few men and too many cars rendered the plan impractical.

What brought those sexist sun strips to mind again was the sight of a large new sticker on a neighbour's caravan, declaring that 'Roy and Doreen' were the proud owners. The sticker was endowed with a touch of class by the addition of a picture of our local Cathedral of which they are not the proud owners.

Caravans seem to be an increasingly popular addition to the front gardens of many British homes. Most often seen on Council estates, they sit rotting away where the pansies and petunias should be, serving no useful purpose whatsoever. The curtains are always closed despite their often-advanced state of decay.

The caravan of 'Roy and Doreen' does not fall into this category. It is pristine, and like many others used regularly between March and October for weekend breaks, either to the seaside or to quiet country parks.

Quite what motivates Brits to behave in such a migratory way is a mystery. First the caravans must be furnished and equipped to resemble as closely as possible the owners' home. Then it must be loaded with familiar foods from Tesco (caravaners never eat in the hostelries at their chosen destination.) The whole kit and caboodle must be carefully manoeuvred from its' petunia patch, and attached to a suitably large car or 4 WD. These days the vehicle of choice seems to be an expensive 4 WD, no doubt intended to dispel any notion that the owners could not, if they wished, afford to stay in a 5 star hotel.

By early Friday evenings in the summer Britain's roads are awash with these mini mobile homes bobbing slowly along, and defying attempts by serious motorists to overtake them. It is perhaps fortunate that Thai people have never adopted the caravan habit, as it would surely treble the Songkran road carnage, if only because whole families would be bobbing along inside.

Meanwhile our British weekend campers have arrived at their chosen site. Here the caravan is connected to a mains electricity supply, to enhance the sense of peace and tranquillity. Chairs, tables and Bar-B-Que are arranged outside, and covered with an essential piece of equipment called an 'awning' to protect them from too much rain or sun. The proud owners then proceed to do exactly what they would have done at home.

Two days later the whole process is reversed. The intrepid campers return home suitably refreshed, to clean out and wash the caravan ready for the next expedition. I can only assume that at the end of their useful lives all caravans are consigned to 'Rot In Peace' on Council house front gardens, where they must be immune from any byelaws governing littering and eyesores.

So for all of you over there melting in the increasing heat the moral is - stay home, relax and let the holiday come to you!

Have a happy, safe and very wet Songkran.

Useful Telephone Numbers for Hua Hin

Railway station
032-512 770, 032-511 073

Bus station of Hua Hin
032-511 654, 032-512 543

Bus station of Prachuabkirikhan
032-601 901

Bus station of Pranburi
032-621 443

Hua Hin Hospital
032-520 401

Dog Rescue Center
0-1981 4406

Wild life Rescue Center (Tayang)
032-458 135

Department of Land Cha-am office:
032- 430 846-7

Department of Land Hua Hin office:
032-536 164, 032-512 407

Department of Land Prachuabkirikhan:
032-611 211

Department of Land Pranburi
032-622 199

Local Government (Hua Hin)
032-521 340, 532 471

Local water supply
032-511 677

The Power Board of Hua Hin
032-512 215, 032 513 165

Observer office:
032-531 078

Red Cross.
032-512 567

San Paolo Hospital
032-532 576-85

Polyclinic International
032-516 424, 032-516 425

Shell Cooking Gas
032-511 144, 032- 515 620

The Communication Authority of Thailand
(Hua Hin)
032-511 351

Rotary Club of Hua Hin
0-1916 6637
Meeting every Thursday 8.pm
at Hua Hin Grand Hotel & Plaza

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