Major indices saw a significantly better return this year after a dismal 2018. The S&P 500 index delivered a gain of more than 28%, it’s best annual performance since 2013 and up 10% from its 2018 peak level. The Nasdaq 100 did even better climbing 35% finishing just below 9,000 and the Dow Jones index added 22% to close just above 28,500. All major US indices comfortably covered losses suffered in 2018. Strong performance in the technology sector, lowering of the interest rates to 1.75% and easy money from the FED helped markets reach new all time highs. Although 2019 was a strong year it is important to take into consideration there was a large drop experienced in the Q4 of 2018.
Eurozone equities made a strong advance in the final quarter of the year with the German DAX finishing the year almost 26% higher just below the 13,250 level. The FTSE 100 index rallied 12.1% closing just shy of 7,550. UK equities benefited from a post-election bounce which added 370 points to the FTSE 100 in the 2 weeks after the Conservative victory. The index now stands 5% away from its record high set in May 2018 with Brexit uncertainty limiting index progress.
Both our services outperformed the market which is expected given the time spent on it compared to investing in an ETF or tracker fund which is unlikely to get a higher return but of course is lower risk. The STANDARD service delivered a return of 46.2% with three losing months and an average return of 3.9% per month. The PREMIUM service proved to be significantly more rewarding by delivering a return of 70.2% with three losing months and an average gain of 5.9% per month. Incidentally this equates to an extra 24% return or a 1.5x better return than our basic service. This service requires more time commitment and subscribers to be more attentive to react to more frequent daily notifications. This year has once again proven that it has paid dividends for those who can manage the extra time.
An average of 260 trade orders are sent out each month, excluding December where fewer than 150 trade order are usually issued. Up to 30% of those orders are activated. All orders have stop losses (some Guaranteed Stop Losses) and take profit levels so risk management is incorporated. Our objective in the Premium service is to be more active by moving stop loss to break even as soon as possible. We protect profit by moving it further where possible and even extend our Take Profit level if the opportunity is there. We provide a trade size guide but subscribers must ultimately take responsibility for their own trade size.
Low leverage on our PREMIUM service would have produced a return of £7,020 on a £10,000 trading account for the year of 2019. Higher leverage can yield anything from £10,530 (1.5x), £14,040 (2x) return or more depending on how much leverage you decide to commit to on that same size account. Returns can be multiplied but please remember that drawdowns will also be amplified. I provide trade size for each market on my notifications but it must be your decision on how much trade size you commit to your account. I would suggest keeping this uniform and only increasing size once you have made and withdrawn some profits. Past performance mentioned is no indication of future performance and may not be repeated.
This bull market seems very tired and although we remain with a bias to “buy the dips”, we do so with caution and expect more severe corrections soon. New trade orders will be issued in the first week of January. Happy Xmas!