Kwasi Kwarteng, our less-than-useless chancellor came back to the UK from the IMF meeting to the sack. The stock market reacted positively and was reacting to rumours yesterday. Is everything OK now? In a word, No! We still have the lizard with her cold-blooded right-wing fanaticism.
Energy bills.
The energy bills support is keeping bills down but it is another show of incompetence. They take your money with direct debit and then pay £66 back to your bank account. I’m well in credit with my account but still, have to pay £188 a month at the same time as I have the DD for my broadband and TV licence. I was going to pay a lump sum on my account when I got my winter fuel payment but I have been forced to pay it monthly. I did set the DD at £188 because the stupid website wouldn’t let me set it lower!
The Markets.
I did lose money because of that awful mini-budget but I took advantage of the pound crashing against the USD and I can now rethink my strategy. The stock market is recovering a bit now we have got rid of Kwerteng but we still have Toxic Liz, which is a major worry. I’ve added another company to my watch list, Beazley which is over 4% up today. I think it might be a good defensive stock if the Lizard remains as Prime Minister. Barclay’s raised Beasley’s target to 787 today. AB Foods are up over 3% as well today, and they are certainly on my watch list. They can increase prices fairly easily to match inflation. I think we need to watch what the Bank Of England is doing now. Interest rate hikes might favour the banks. I’m considering whether to buy Barclay’s again. My target for Barclays was 200. I sold at £149 and today they are at 145.92 so an attractive price again. I bought it at 90 last time. I am inclined to look for defensive shares now though and RKT and Unilever might be better choices.
CFDs & shorting
I looked at IG for trading CFDs and that platform is in pounds unlike eToro in USD. I might consider using that platform in the future. I really must learn how to short as well as invest! It will make it much more interesting. I think that platform worked more or less like eToro. I’m sure there were people shorting the market and the pound around the time of Kwarteng’s mini-budget. I prefer to make money from success but I’m sure this government’s ideology will produce a few more disasters. I would normally be hoping for a “Santa rally” about now but nothing seems normal!
A Zillion Ideas 
Leave a Reply