INVESTORS AND THE CRISIS
What are the implications for investors ? In conditions such as these it is impossible to do more than indicate policy on the broadest lines. The first and most obvious piece of advice is to refrain from buying speculative ordinary shares, even after their recent heavy falls unless and until the political horizon clears. Nor would I advise any fresh purchases just yet of even the soundest fixed-interest stocks, not because I feel that the whole investment structure is about to collapse but because further nervous liquidation may produte a lower range of prices before a recovery sets in. Many readers will ask : Is it too late to sell ? and frankly I hesitate to venture a view.
Apart from the obvious desirability of being reasonably liquid in conditions as uncertain as those we are now passing through, I see nothing in the near-term economic prospect to justify panicky sales of either fixed-interest or ordinary shares at current prices. The trouble is the political risk, which, I ain afraid, I must leave readers to assess for themselves. My own view, for what it is worth, is less despondent than the average view I find in the City, but I should be much less than frank if I pretended to any real confidence.
Previous page
