Global equities rallied with growing optimism over a US-China trade deal and better economic data helping to fuel the move up. Data has shown that stocks have risen 78.1% of the time in December since 1987 with an average rise of 1.7%. US equities led gains to post one of its best years in the past decade. US indices reached fresh highs this month with the Dow Jones index rallying 1.9%. The UK equity market rose capping a year of strong gains with the FTSE 100 adding 2.7%. All seven of the UK’s major lenders passed their annual stress test suggesting that our financial system is robust enough to withstand a financial crisis. The Bank of England (BoE) held UK base rates at 0.75% and the German DAX lagged this month declining -0.2%.
This month a total of 140 trade orders were provided due to being away on holiday for the latter part of the month. A total of 27 or 19% of trades were triggered, generally no more than 30% of trades are activated in any given month. Both services managed a gain in the final trading month with the PREMIUM service managing to deliver a significantly better gain than the STANDARD service.
The STANDARD service gained 4.6% whereas the PREMIUM service delivered a return of 7.2%. The PREMIUM service delivered a gain of £1,080 on my £10,000 account due to higher leverage (1.5) used. I also continue to trade with lower gearing on my £20,000 spread bet trading account. Using low leverage means low drawdowns however if you are comfortable in taking more risk, gains can be multiplied by increasing position size. My position size is included in my orders but users can amend this according to their account size or risk profile. Past performance mentioned is no indication of future performance and may not be repeated.