So hopefully I haven't missed anyone, but please shout if I have. A wide range of predictions, from the pessimistic at 5,750 to the optimistic at 7,634.
I'll try and update once a month to see whose near or far as we had towards June.
I've got the same feeling about the FTSE that I get with us at the start of each season, a mixture of hope and optimism with realism taking a distant back seat. That feeling usually lasts twenty minutes into the first game of the season when we are stumbling blindly round the pitch, already 0-2 down to what should be a weaker side.
I read the deadline as being today. I've just done it, based on my + and - factors, and was about to send it and post my thoughts behind it, as @WishIdStayedinthePub has done. I'll post it below, up to you if you accept it. (I accepted at least 2 late entries last time round)
I'm going for 7110.
That's an over 8% gain on where we finished on Dec 31, however the market has already jumped 6.2% since then.
I just think broad-brush about the world for this game, can't get into the detailed effect on earnings etc that @WishIdStayedinthePub can. Some of the factors I'm listing, I see as having more of an effect in the 2nd half of the year (indicated with *)
Positives. - Biden admin will underpin govt. spending, and encourage the rest of the world to do similar - Vaccine rollout - Better global trade relations* - Global spend on climate-energy investment* - FTSE 100 undervalued?
Negatives - Biden goes after tech giants (but this won't affect FTSE100 much) - Vaccine rollout delays, cock-ups - Brexit trade barriers emerging (see today news) - Bankruptcies * - Inflation?* - FTSE 100 not undervalued, just a dinosaur
For sure if I had put my forecast in on Jan 1 it would have been a bit lower, but as I flagged up then, the US elections were not over and it would be better to see the result and get a steer for direction of travel. I do think this time that if I get it badly wrong, it will be because I was too conservative. I tend that way when investing.
I’ve just caught up with this thread after the new year and fee like @Er_Be_Ab_Pl_Wo_Wo_Ch I should explain my dismal showing in the last round of predictions. Firstly, I have never been more glad to have been so wrong in predicting such a low number (5450 I believe without checking back). My prediction was based on two factors, the first being that I felt by the turn of the year we would be gripped by a a severe second wave of COVID 19 and secondly that there might be a no deal Brexit which if happened would likely cause a big down turn just at the date set for predictions. I also thought that unemployment may be higher than it currently is.
This area is not my field (clearly shown in my predictions!) but I must admit I do enjoy reading this thread and the way people with far greater knowledge share their advice freely and in particular @golfaddick, who often seems to give out professional advice for free!
In terms of the future @Rob7Lee posted on the corona virus thread about some modelling he had had done about the likely trajectory of the pandemic, this is entirely inline with my thoughts from working within the NHS. In short there will likely be a lot more hardship to endure before things significantly get back on track. I know I missed the deadline for posting a June figure, which with my track record is no loss, however just for fun I would say 6770.
What I am wondering is what people’s views are as to what will be the highest point of the FTSE 100 in 2021 and what will be the lowest?
I read the deadline as being today. I've just done it, based on my + and - factors, and was about to send it and post my thoughts behind it, as @WishIdStayedinthePub has done. I'll post it below, up to you if you accept it. (I accepted at least 2 late entries last time round)
I'm going for 7110.
That's an over 8% gain on where we finished on Dec 31, however the market has already jumped 6.2% since then.
I just think broad-brush about the world for this game, can't get into the detailed effect on earnings etc that @WishIdStayedinthePub can. Some of the factors I'm listing, I see as having more of an effect in the 2nd half of the year (indicated with *)
Positives. - Biden admin will underpin govt. spending, and encourage the rest of the world to do similar - Vaccine rollout - Better global trade relations* - Global spend on climate-energy investment* - FTSE 100 undervalued?
Negatives - Biden goes after tech giants (but this won't affect FTSE100 much) - Vaccine rollout delays, cock-ups - Brexit trade barriers emerging (see today news) - Bankruptcies * - Inflation?* - FTSE 100 not undervalued, just a dinosaur
For sure if I had put my forecast in on Jan 1 it would have been a bit lower, but as I flagged up then, the US elections were not over and it would be better to see the result and get a steer for direction of travel. I do think this time that if I get it badly wrong, it will be because I was too conservative. I tend that way when investing.
Thanks for chipping in, @pragueaddick, I was beginning to wonder if anyone else would!
Some interesting numbers on indexes - DAX above 14,000, DJI approaching 32,000, NASDAQ flirting with 13,000. Indexes are arbitrary numbers but people seem to take notice of them.
I think the trouble the other night was a last spasm and people will be looking at the blue wave generally being positive for equities - normalisation of international relations (though not China) and fiscal boosts. Once that good news is fully in the numbers, then I suspect that risk will be taken off the table profits banked and, much like an over-heated London housing market spreading to the provinces, US money will start looking elsewhere for better risk return rewards.
As for tech - there are some mad things going on in the Nasdaq and the Dems may well raise some noise that will impact prices in the short term. But I don't think anything significant will come of it long term.
They won't want to cook the golden goose and China is now appropriately on the radar - back-hand deals will be done, House of Cards style. There's also massive secular tailwinds for tech. e-commerce is still only at 10% of all shopping, and targeted to go to 23% by 2023. WFH is here to stay to some extent. IT security is increasingly going to be an issue. There are plenty of companies with sensible PE ratios out there - I think it's a case of buying value.
What's today's news about Brexit trade barriers, Prague? Haven't seen anything in Times/Reuters both of whom love to jump on any Brexit bad news story.
My reasoning remains the same. If the props across the economy (UK and beyond) remain in place without cracks appearing, FT could easily be 7,500 or 8,000 by mid-year. I've gone for the props starting to fall apart scenario, hence 5,750. Again, my timing might be too early for when this plays out, but happy to be the pessimist in the group.
There seem to be two strands, but they come down to the same thing, the deal was rushed through and the UK side in particular hasn't read through some of the small print. Hope you have an FT sub:
Rule of Origin issue. I am guessing that this is the one that is the main reason for this sight that greeted me on my M&S Prague food-shop. M&S opened a huge logistics centre near Paris to handle Brexit disruption, and those shelves offer fresh chicken, and fresh veg, much of which is from British farmers. But, I realised, not always at this time of the year at least for the veg, and even they have been caught out by this. (Supplier of, say courgettes is in Italy, imports to M&S, who take it back across the Channel to Prague and get hit for tariffs. I may not be right that this applies to the M&S stuff, but, either way their best laid plans are not enough. It will hopefully get sorted out, but it will take time, and we are forecasting 6 months, so it went on my negative list. And I don't have my British kale or tomatoes :-(
Re trade / import issues : bbc were running a news item this morning about how there is a growing queue at Dover & the traffic is still 50% down on what it usually is, so will only get worse. Main problems are around short life food like fish & as @PragueAddick has said the onward movement back in of out of the UK means tariffs and there also seems some hidden gems that are deep within the 1000 page trade treaty.
That was one of the reasons why my mid year FTSE guess was a bit lower than it will probably end up to be as I'm just not sure that the trade deal is all it's cracked up to be......and that's speaking as a vote leave supporter.
My guess re @Gary Poole 's post about highs & lows this year is that I can see the FTSE hitting 7400 -7500 and also falling to around 6200-6300. There is so much bad news to come out over the next 12-18 months, what with company closures, bankruptcies & redundancies to firms trying to re-start business & getting people out into the shops again. Then there are issues led by the Government - vaccination delays and policy u-turns......not to mention the Budget in March where Rishi Sunak will have to announce some form of tax raising initiatives.
On the plus side interest rates will remain where they are for another 3-5 years and don't think they will be above 2% for at least another 10 years. People talk about baby boomers being lucky with house price growth over the past 30-40 years but FTB (if they can get a deposit together) have never had it so good with stable very low interest rates. Its been 12 years since the Financial Crash & it will be another 12 years before interest rates are back to pre 2008 levels. Basically a whole 25 year mortgage term of sub 2% mortgage rates. I remember when I got my first mortgage at the start of 1988 - within 6 months the interest rate went up & within a couple of years we were seeing 10%-12% as John Major used his "one club" policy to reduce inflation. I might have only borrowed £45k to buy my studio flat in Dartford but I was paying then what I'm paying now and my mortgage is 4 times that.
There seem to be two strands, but they come down to the same thing, the deal was rushed through and the UK side in particular hasn't read through some of the small print. Hope you have an FT sub:
Rule of Origin issue. I am guessing that this is the one that is the main reason for this sight that greeted me on my M&S Prague food-shop. M&S opened a huge logistics centre near Paris to handle Brexit disruption, and those shelves offer fresh chicken, and fresh veg, much of which is from British farmers. But, I realised, not always at this time of the year at least for the veg, and even they have been caught out by this. (Supplier of, say courgettes is in Italy, imports to M&S, who take it back across the Channel to Prague and get hit for tariffs. I may not be right that this applies to the M&S stuff, but, either way their best laid plans are not enough. It will hopefully get sorted out, but it will take time, and we are forecasting 6 months, so it went on my negative list. And I don't have my British kale or tomatoes :-(
I cancelled my FT sub last year in protest of their biased Brexit coverage ;-)
There will definitely be increased friction. My investment hypothesis - wrt Brexit - assumes that that will be more than offset by: trade deals with faster growing nations, movement or repatriation of out-sourced supply chains (already happening) and investment in things like battery factories and free ports.
Whatever you think about the fundamental merits of those things, each announcement will drive the FTSE up. Mostly though, because money will come back into the UK international investors realise that Brexit wasn't what they were told it was going to be. They don't have time to read all the ins and outs and will have a very jaundiced, prejudicial view if their source is the BBC, CNN, NBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, the FT or their local newspapers of record.
M&S is likely to affected by Covid as anything else - that's what was being reported here, even if Euro Guido would like to think it was the Continent being cut off from Britain, to mis-quote the weatherman. Mrs WISITP imports all our everyday drinking wine from Portugal and we're running dangerously low! The supplier we buy from told her they can't deliver yet - not because of Brexit but because they can't get hauliers to come to Covid Britain right now!!
Actually, re M&S there was also something about the French ports restricting entry on some grounds, but - predictably - other EU countries' ports were willing to step in and shipments are being re-directed through those ports. Commerce will usually find a way ....
Actually, re M&S there was also something about the French ports restricting entry on some grounds, but - predictably - other EU countries' ports were willing to step in and shipments are being re-directed through those ports. Commerce will usually find a way ....
I am not sure yet what the M&S problem is exactly. It seems to affect the shortest shelf life items. Milk and other chilled stuff in solid plastic packaging was all ok. The previous week was much worse, and the staff confirmed it was because stuff got stuck in the queues. However, that was just an example. Our bedlinen and a lot of kitchenware comes from John Lewis. They have now suspended all deliveries to EU. I fear Lakeland have done the same. I expected all this, bought a lot of stuff last year from various UK suppliers. Thats why I have enough King of Shaves gear to last me well over a year :-) It has never been tougher to be a good British patriot abroad
I ordered a replacement phone on Dec 27th when my old one died on Boxing Day. Shipping was described as "Fast and free". I didnt know it was coming from the Netherlands. According to UPS, it left Eindhoven on Dec 28 and has made it all the way to Utrecht, all of 50 miles away, where it has been since Dec 31st.
Interested to know if and when it will ever turn up. Can only imagine it's a brexit thing.
Actually, re M&S there was also something about the French ports restricting entry on some grounds, but - predictably - other EU countries' ports were willing to step in and shipments are being re-directed through those ports. Commerce will usually find a way ....
I am not sure yet what the M&S problem is exactly. It seems to affect the shortest shelf life items. Milk and other chilled stuff in solid plastic packaging was all ok. The previous week was much worse, and the staff confirmed it was because stuff got stuck in the queues. However, that was just an example. Our bedlinen and a lot of kitchenware comes from John Lewis. They have now suspended all deliveries to EU. I fear Lakeland have done the same. I expected all this, bought a lot of stuff last year from various UK suppliers. Thats why I have enough King of Shaves gear to last me well over a year :-) It has never been tougher to be a good British patriot abroad
It's predominantly based around rules of origin I believe. Hopefully these will be sorted in the near future, but I shouldn't expect disruption to last more than a couple of weeks.
I ordered a replacement phone on Dec 27th when my old one died on Boxing Day. Shipping was described as "Fast and free". I didnt know it was coming from the Netherlands. According to UPS, it left Eindhoven on Dec 28 and has made it all the way to Utrecht, all of 50 miles away, where it has been since Dec 31st.
Interested to know if and when it will ever turn up. Can only imagine it's a brexit thing.
That's where you went wrong. I'm an iPhone man personally but Samsung are pretty good too.
Actually, re M&S there was also something about the French ports restricting entry on some grounds, but - predictably - other EU countries' ports were willing to step in and shipments are being re-directed through those ports. Commerce will usually find a way ....
I am not sure yet what the M&S problem is exactly. It seems to affect the shortest shelf life items. Milk and other chilled stuff in solid plastic packaging was all ok. The previous week was much worse, and the staff confirmed it was because stuff got stuck in the queues. However, that was just an example. Our bedlinen and a lot of kitchenware comes from John Lewis. They have now suspended all deliveries to EU. I fear Lakeland have done the same. I expected all this, bought a lot of stuff last year from various UK suppliers. Thats why I have enough King of Shaves gear to last me well over a year :-) It has never been tougher to be a good British patriot abroad
It's predominantly based around rules of origin I believe. Hopefully these will be sorted in the near future, but I shouldn't expect disruption to last more than a couple of weeks.
I'm not sure it is though. Like I said, much of the stuff, but not all, on those shelves is 100% British. Kale, tomatoes, and separately chicken. The common denominator seems to be the very short shelf life and the packaging it therefore has. The red meat stuff is all there but they are vacuum packed.
A mate in London pinged me that an M&S spokesman was on R4 this morning saying that they are faced with vastly more paperwork and that they are asking themselves if it is worth continuing in Europe because of it. If they pull out, I will make it my remaining life's work to accost Rees-Mogg and shove an EU straight banana up his arse.
But there's another thread for this, maybe time I rejoined it.
I think this is what @PragueAddick is really upset about
That's what I don't understand though. The rules of origin state that it must be made within the EU or the UK. These are made in Germany, and presumably to an extent that even if they got the raw materials somewhere else they would have been "sufficiently reworked"
Seems like an anomaly in the rules to me, anyway like Prague said, for another thread.
As investments go, maybe worth keeping an eye on James Fisher (FSJ) who service the shipping industry. Could show some good profits this year.
Interesting Covid recovery play. Looked like a decent business before April. Went up on significant volume yesterday - apparently the trading statement wasn't as bad as some had feared.
They also seem to have a lot of exposure to the oil business, though and only 11% of revenue from the tankers and port ...?
I ordered a replacement phone on Dec 27th when my old one died on Boxing Day. Shipping was described as "Fast and free". I didnt know it was coming from the Netherlands. According to UPS, it left Eindhoven on Dec 28 and has made it all the way to Utrecht, all of 50 miles away, where it has been since Dec 31st.
Interested to know if and when it will ever turn up. Can only imagine it's a brexit thing.
That's where you went wrong. I'm an iPhone man personally but Samsung are pretty good too.
My budget is small. It's a moto G8, but I am very impressed with it so far. Lightning quick compared to my last phone, and a battery life of days rather than hours.
Anyway, a bit off topic. I am quite happy being the outlier in this competition, as anything 80 points below my guess will have me winning, and we will all be making a decent return too, I imagine. Only one way it's going to go then...
I was listening to a webinar by a fund manager yesterday & a question came up about Bitcoins & why wasn't his firm investing in them. All he said is that its a bubble.....and bubbles burst. It's the next thing now that multi-level marketing has been found out.
Comments
I'll try and update once a month to see whose near or far as we had towards June.
Special kudos to anyone within 100 points even if you don't win.
https://www.ft.com/content/a210a3ed-c3e3-4ed2-af50-b598dd99aaf8
I read the deadline as being today. I've just done it, based on my + and - factors, and was about to send it and post my thoughts behind it, as @WishIdStayedinthePub has done. I'll post it below, up to you if you accept it. (I accepted at least 2 late entries last time round)
I'm going for 7110.
That's an over 8% gain on where we finished on Dec 31, however the market has already jumped 6.2% since then.
I just think broad-brush about the world for this game, can't get into the detailed effect on earnings etc that @WishIdStayedinthePub can. Some of the factors I'm listing, I see as having more of an effect in the 2nd half of the year (indicated with *)
Positives.
- Biden admin will underpin govt. spending, and encourage the rest of the world to do similar
- Vaccine rollout
- Better global trade relations*
- Global spend on climate-energy investment*
- FTSE 100 undervalued?
Negatives
- Biden goes after tech giants (but this won't affect FTSE100 much)
- Vaccine rollout delays, cock-ups
- Brexit trade barriers emerging (see today news)
- Bankruptcies *
- Inflation?*
- FTSE 100 not undervalued, just a dinosaur
For sure if I had put my forecast in on Jan 1 it would have been a bit lower, but as I flagged up then, the US elections were not over and it would be better to see the result and get a steer for direction of travel. I do think this time that if I get it badly wrong, it will be because I was too conservative. I tend that way when investing.
This area is not my field (clearly shown in my predictions!) but I must admit I do enjoy reading this thread and the way people with far greater knowledge share their advice freely and in particular @golfaddick, who often seems to give out professional advice for free!
In terms of the future @Rob7Lee posted on the corona virus thread about some modelling he had had done about the likely trajectory of the pandemic, this is entirely inline with my thoughts from working within the NHS. In short there will likely be a lot more hardship to endure before things significantly get back on track. I know I missed the deadline for posting a June figure, which with my track record is no loss, however just for fun I would say 6770.
What I am wondering is what people’s views are as to what will be the highest point of the FTSE 100 in 2021 and what will be the lowest?
Some interesting numbers on indexes - DAX above 14,000, DJI approaching 32,000, NASDAQ flirting with 13,000. Indexes are arbitrary numbers but people seem to take notice of them.
I think the trouble the other night was a last spasm and people will be looking at the blue wave generally being positive for equities - normalisation of international relations (though not China) and fiscal boosts. Once that good news is fully in the numbers, then I suspect that risk will be taken off the table profits banked and, much like an over-heated London housing market spreading to the provinces, US money will start looking elsewhere for better risk return rewards.
As for tech - there are some mad things going on in the Nasdaq and the Dems may well raise some noise that will impact prices in the short term. But I don't think anything significant will come of it long term.
They won't want to cook the golden goose and China is now appropriately on the radar - back-hand deals will be done, House of Cards style. There's also massive secular tailwinds for tech. e-commerce is still only at 10% of all shopping, and targeted to go to 23% by 2023. WFH is here to stay to some extent. IT security is increasingly going to be an issue. There are plenty of companies with sensible PE ratios out there - I think it's a case of buying value.
What's today's news about Brexit trade barriers, Prague? Haven't seen anything in Times/Reuters both of whom love to jump on any Brexit bad news story.
There seem to be two strands, but they come down to the same thing, the deal was rushed through and the UK side in particular hasn't read through some of the small print. Hope you have an FT sub:
French customs controls getting serious from next week but also covers issues crossing the Irish Sea
Rule of Origin issue. I am guessing that this is the one that is the main reason for this sight that greeted me on my M&S Prague food-shop. M&S opened a huge logistics centre near Paris to handle Brexit disruption, and those shelves offer fresh chicken, and fresh veg, much of which is from British farmers. But, I realised, not always at this time of the year at least for the veg, and even they have been caught out by this. (Supplier of, say courgettes is in Italy, imports to M&S, who take it back across the Channel to Prague and get hit for tariffs. I may not be right that this applies to the M&S stuff, but, either way their best laid plans are not enough. It will hopefully get sorted out, but it will take time, and we are forecasting 6 months, so it went on my negative list. And I don't have my British kale or tomatoes :-(
That was one of the reasons why my mid year FTSE guess was a bit lower than it will probably end up to be as I'm just not sure that the trade deal is all it's cracked up to be......and that's speaking as a vote leave supporter.
My guess re @Gary Poole 's post about highs & lows this year is that I can see the FTSE hitting 7400 -7500 and also falling to around 6200-6300. There is so much bad news to come out over the next 12-18 months, what with company closures, bankruptcies & redundancies to firms trying to re-start business & getting people out into the shops again. Then there are issues led by the Government - vaccination delays and policy u-turns......not to mention the Budget in March where Rishi Sunak will have to announce some form of tax raising initiatives.
On the plus side interest rates will remain where they are for another 3-5 years and don't think they will be above 2% for at least another 10 years. People talk about baby boomers being lucky with house price growth over the past 30-40 years but FTB (if they can get a deposit together) have never had it so good with stable very low interest rates. Its been 12 years since the Financial Crash & it will be another 12 years before interest rates are back to pre 2008 levels. Basically a whole 25 year mortgage term of sub 2% mortgage rates. I remember when I got my first mortgage at the start of 1988 - within 6 months the interest rate went up & within a couple of years we were seeing 10%-12% as John Major used his "one club" policy to reduce inflation. I might have only borrowed £45k to buy my studio flat in Dartford but I was paying then what I'm paying now and my mortgage is 4 times that.
There will definitely be increased friction. My investment hypothesis - wrt Brexit - assumes that that will be more than offset by: trade deals with faster growing nations, movement or repatriation of out-sourced supply chains (already happening) and investment in things like battery factories and free ports.
Whatever you think about the fundamental merits of those things, each announcement will drive the FTSE up. Mostly though, because money will come back into the UK international investors realise that Brexit wasn't what they were told it was going to be. They don't have time to read all the ins and outs and will have a very jaundiced, prejudicial view if their source is the BBC, CNN, NBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, the FT or their local newspapers of record.
M&S is likely to affected by Covid as anything else - that's what was being reported here, even if Euro Guido would like to think it was the Continent being cut off from Britain, to mis-quote the weatherman. Mrs WISITP imports all our everyday drinking wine from Portugal and we're running dangerously low! The supplier we buy from told her they can't deliver yet - not because of Brexit but because they can't get hauliers to come to Covid Britain right now!!
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/16/british-port-disruption-importers-call-for-urgent-inquiry-by-mps
As investments go, maybe worth keeping an eye on James Fisher (FSJ) who service the shipping industry. Could show some good profits this year.
A mate in London pinged me that an M&S spokesman was on R4 this morning saying that they are faced with vastly more paperwork and that they are asking themselves if it is worth continuing in Europe because of it. If they pull out, I will make it my remaining life's work to accost Rees-Mogg and shove an EU straight banana up his arse.
But there's another thread for this, maybe time I rejoined it.
I think this is what @PragueAddick is really upset about
Seems like an anomaly in the rules to me, anyway like Prague said, for another thread.
They also seem to have a lot of exposure to the oil business, though and only 11% of revenue from the tankers and port ...?
My budget is small. It's a moto G8, but I am very impressed with it so far. Lightning quick compared to my last phone, and a battery life of days rather than hours.
Anyway, a bit off topic.
I am quite happy being the outlier in this competition, as anything 80 points below my guess will have me winning, and we will all be making a decent return too, I imagine. Only one way it's going to go then...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55658942