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This week I would like to share the helpful comments I received to my post Check your FX costs.
Thank You for all the great ideas
One subscriber mentioned Interactive Brokers saying they had extremely low dealing and currency costs. He keeps his foreign stock sales in the foreign currency, for example the proceeds from a sale of a Japanese stock are held in Japanese yen. This lowers his dealing costs.
Another subscriber, who like me created a big broker comparison spreadsheet, said Interactive Brokers also came out by far the cheapest for his needs.
A European subscriber said he opened currency accounts in all the main stock markets he trades in. He funds those accounts before making a trade. This helps him keep his dealing costs as low as possible. As the amounts in these currency accounts are small, so he does not worry about currency risk.
What I am thinking of doing
Currency accounts is the solution I am looking at.
I am going to start with Japanese yen as the currency is undervalued and it is also a market where I am finding a lot of undervalued quality companies at the moment.
I already asked one of my brokers if they have Japanese yen accounts. They said yes but that it costs €11.90 per month. Paying just to have an account is not what I had in mind, so I am still investigating.
Wild movements everywhere
What is going on in the market is a question I am sure you have also asked yourself.
I am seeing wild movements everywhere; developed markets, emerging markets, even in bond markets as we saw in the UK over the past few weeks.
Just as I think markets are finding a bottom, more bad news follows, and down it goes again.
What have I been doing
This is what I have been doing.
I have sold three stocks that hit their 20% trailing stop loss levels. Even though two of these companies were still undervalued I did not want to ride them all the way down to wherever they may go.
I have been building my buy list, 11 companies at the moment. I have continued searching for quality undervalued companies, the same ones I recommend in the newsletter. But I have not bought yet. I keep them on a separate buy watch list where I keep a close watch on the stock prices and company news (trading updates mainly).
I am careful of cyclical companies. At the moment I am finding a lot of dirt-cheap shipping, construction, wood and pulp, chip, and auto supply companies. But as you know these industries had really strong tailwinds which have turned into strong headwinds. So, I am avoiding them focusing on quality companies such as the Asian chocolate manufacturer recommended in the crash portfolio of the latest newsletter.
I have not been very active
So, as you can see, I have not been actively buying and selling, I have just been doing research.
I also try not to look at my portfolio often even though I find it hard to do.
What I noticed is that even though prices may have moved 2% to 3% the change to the valuation of the companies on my buy list has been minimal if anything at all.
What is on your mind?
What is most on your mind at the moment?
I would really like to know what I can help you with. Here are 3 questions to help you.
- WHAT is your single most important question on investing at the moment?
- WHY are you looking for a solution today?
- HOW DIFFICULT has it been to find a satisfactory answer / solution?
To let me know simply reply to this email.
Your bear market analyst wishing you profitable investing
PS I know markets are still uncertain BUT have you already started building your buy list? If not, why not sign up today and start now.
PPS It is so easy to forget and put things off why don’t you sign up right now?
