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If I was an economist there would be a 50% chance that the market would improve, but, on the other hand there is a chance (50%) it could retrace through to December - thankfully I am not an economist so my views are not hedged.
Historically over the last 10 years of so December has been a month where indices move upwards and its normally related to some of the following reasons. December is a quite month from the perspective that traders generally take leave. U/T Fund managers report extensively per the quarter ending December and to prove their worth boost results in this quarter. A number of companies have year end reporting and because of thin trade in December the companies shares tend to increase (the better run companies of course) as management and staff generally are loose lipped about how well or poorly the company is likely to perform. Volumes of trades are pretty thin in December so it can move the price of a company which significantly - up or down. Retailers also come out with indications as to how well they perceive they will do over the Christmas period - these guys have got to move stock which they have or are currently importing for the Christmas period.
So generally December is a moving up market and in January and February is normally a good time to look to buying shares again as those who didn't do well over December will be punished through there share prices.
There are other factors but as I said I am not an economist so prefer to keep things short    

Bevan - interesting response. To my mind there is just one unknown quantity in all of this scenario - that of robotic trading - these machines have no fear or favour so don't have human emotion built into their dna so whatever the parameters are set (by humans of course)they just trade, and I believe they can move markets quite significantly to the detriment of a lot of people private investors and fund managers - as we are all fallible.
The analogy about fire is not strictly true - I experienced such an event in my life and there herd mentality of getting out of an enclosed space at any cost resulted in many people being trampled and hurt in their headlong desire to get out. I got to a higher point and waited for the rush to die down - fortunately there were no casualties.

Quote from: gcr on September 16, 2015, 10:14:09 pm

Mr Dividend - interesting thread so I looked up all of the companies statutory details. I see Texton are having a rights issue of 100 million shares in the ratio of 36.22312 new shares for every 100 held. Are you following your rights on this counter. The other aspect is that with such a vast quantity of shares coming into the market it will more than likely severely dent its dividend yield for some time to come. I see Christo Wiese is in the background of this this business - so could be interesting times ahead with your stated objective of getting dividend yields

I bought them because I liked what they where doing in the UK and liked them having CW as a silent partner - the rights issue had not come up when I bought. Interesting point you've brought up about the dividend being diluted - had not thought of that. Think I'll wait and see what they do with the raised cash - I am sure they have some decent deals in the pipeline.

 I am not following my rights - I was going to see about selling my rights if possible.

My opinion would be to follow the rights (if you have the cash that is) as with you improved holding you would be able to claw back some of your lost dividend income. The negative on the rights issue is that though they sit with a pile of cash they have to make that cash work for them, which will take time. Also it would be prudent that whatever property they bought into they would probably have to look at all tenants leases and determine whether they are real or need tweeking and this can take time even if the landlord has escape clauses in the lease agreements. My experience is that escape clauses can be challenged quite successfully by tenants and so income is deferred so to speak until the lease falls due

Bevan - you say you are a commodities trader and not an investor - so I presume given the sensitivity of tomorrows announcement (the pundit will have us believe this) then you surely would be sitting on the side lines waiting for market direction. Or are you trading in commodities that you believe will return profits if Yelland increases the bank rate?
Also what triggers your buying/selling strategies - do you watch markets around the clock and all bourses or do you only watch a select few markets?
History is a great leveler, but if you look at what has rocked the markets over the last 30 years all were beyond anybody's control - because their was limited information in the market - even though the market knows everything - it didn't with the sub prime and 2001 debacles.
Not asking you to put together a thesis of what your decision making is based on but if you outline it in simple terms maybe I and many others may appreciate the thinking that goes on behind commodities trading   

Currently the market is quite volatile, but in my opinion this largely due to 2 entities financial press and economists. So many articles are written warning of a dooms day which is eminent, and the economists who should be reading tea leaves rather than trying their hand at projections. Then on the other side of the coin you have the statisticians who also like to colour their predictions. So who do you listen to - well hopefully all of them, but just don't be led by them or heed too much what they are saying after all they are doing this as a job whereas as for us who invest in the market to gain in capital growth and get the benefit of dividends over the years. I have been investing in the JSE since 1968 and have been through pretty much every major downturn that has occurred on the JSE and still today it is an appropriate market to invest in. I believe there are too many retail investors who think of the JSE as a roulette wheel, it isn't in fact it is far more even handed than the roulette wheel.
The market indices as presently reflected on my broker platform shows ALSI 49338 and Top 40 43834 these 2 indices where at these levels on or about May 2nd 2014 but per April 24th they both reached all time highs of 55,298 and 49,038 respectively. So they have had a  quite significant retracement which is healthy

So should you be nervous in this market - maybe, markets do gyrate over time so as an investor my view is that you need to sit these dips out. Those people who bought good quality shares in 2008/9 are probably all sitting with a gain of 40% on most of their holdings which means you can take a significant knock on your shareholding before becoming worried. So don't follow the herd and sell when there is noise in the market use it as a means of increasing your holdings in the performers   

Yours seems to balance GCR, unless you both bought and sold the same share on the 20th/21st August and both transactions were lost.

Seems like my Mr Price has dumped me down the leaderboard by about R 54,000 - so yes I think you are right

The last 2 and a 1/2 weeks have presented a real opportunity to top up ones portfolio holdings and buy other shares. There is always the debate around timing the market fall, and falling knives versus time in the market. Traders try to time the market and given the number of failed traders they are poor at timing the market, so you have to decide are you a trader or are you an investor. If you are an investor then you are in the market for pretty much a life time, your approach needs to be sensible and if the counter you are in fails to perform over an extended period then dumped the counter and use the loss to offset CGT with SARS. One can also have a percentage of your total funds in speculative shares some advocate 10% but my personal limit is no more than 5%. Typical example I hold 1.5 bar Nutrition shares as speculative shares representing 1% of my portfolio bought at 1 cent and they have dropped to 2 cents today from 3 cents - should I sell and take my profit of some R 14,500 - absolutely not, also I would not be able to dump the whole lot in one sale so my cost of selling in dribs and drabs will erode my profits considerably. I have an instruction in the market to sell at a price considerably north of its current price which when it hit this number will net about 10 times my current profit. The essence of this post is sit it out and hold on to your value shares and buy more in the dips as generally the better shares reclaim their previous high quicker than the rats and mice. On the debate around property and resources a week before the drop in resources counter that I held I sold out of everything, and, I don't hold nor have I held for decades property funds
So this works for me but will not work for everyone
Just as an aside Coronation have written to all holders of their Top 20 fund to have the rules amended whereby they can invest in a wider range of shares and not restrict their choices to the top 50 companies on the JSE - should improve the value of the fund immeasurably   

Rules is rules and stick to it. BTW @jaDEB, I cannot find your name on the challenge. Nor can I find mine. I last saw mine at 256. Please assist.

Rules are rules until they are challenged, so in essence you subscribe to the penny stocks that are included in the list of choice