Portfolio
Go home Yanks
Nephew Wilde
The last week has been a period of gloom for me and other small investors too, I would expect. But what advice can anyone give? The best way in which to release tension is to find a scapegoat for one's troubles. This is what I have done and now find myself deeply tempted to daub crude signs on bill boards with the unoriginal words Go home Yanks '. For they have largely landed us in the present mess. They put the Monetary Fund's convertibility discipline into suspense, thus debasing the Bretton Woods system and with reckless abandon flooded the world with almost spurious paper money. One result, of course, is that the Arabs are no longer willing to soak up dollars in return for that precious commodity, oil; thus we now have the threat of petrol rationing.
Well I sincerely hope that a new spirit of commonsense will begin to prevail for in the present climate there is little hope for investors. Yet though things are bad I have not entirely given up hope of achieving success on the stockmarket. Certainly this week's choice gives me plenty of encour-. agernent. Guinness Peat is the share and this commodity dealer and banker has been experiencing conditions that could prove exceptionally favourable to the group.
Guinness Peat derives a large proportion of its profit from commodities, merchanting and processing, connected mainly with rubber, non ferrous metals, cocoa, coffee, sugar and oils. Another and growing side of the business is in finance, through insurance broking and investment dealing. Why I am so optimistic is that the commodity market has been buoyant not just for speculative reasons (though as a form of currency hedge it has been an attractive medium) but because of sound supply-demand fundamentals too. As for the future, with expansion underway in Europe the outlook for newly-formed Guinness Mahon is rosy. At least now I feel I have a stake — albeit indirectly — in the thriving commodity market.
I am selling Henry Wigfall — unfortunately at a small loss — to finance this purchase.
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