Trade Summary July 2011

July is a really bad month. It was hit by 2 unexpected events. One is the Ezra sudden fall by over 20% over 3 days because of poor results and another by SIA falling by 3.7% overnight. The combination of 2 counters accounted for 3.5% loss in the overall portfolio. The counter trend trade on NOL also did not work out. That accounted for another 0.5% loss in the overall portfolio. SMRT drop due to poor outlook also provided another 0.2% negative impact.

The month started rather positively with overall gain of about 2.5% and ended with an overall lost of 1.5%. Total draw down within the month is almost 4%. In a month that looks very promising at the beginning and ended with disappointing results.

Month Ended	Portfolio Value	Equity Value	Cash Value	DIV (Cum)	Vested	Chg	Portf Perf	STI Perf
31/12/2010	107,021.21	98,120.00	8,901.21		91.7%
31/01/2011	104,898.73	78,760.00	26,138.73		75.1%	-2.0%	-1.98%	-1.00%
28/02/2011	105,063.58	18,350.00	86,638.58	75.00	17.5%	0.2%	-1.83%	-6.26%
31/03/2011	105,074.09	67,770.00	37,229.09	75.00	64.5%	0.0%	-1.82%	-3.30%
30/04/2011	105,679.51	24,650.00	80,954.51	75.00	23.3%	0.6%	-1.25%	-1.03%
31/05/2011	105,154.94	59,330.00	45,309.94	515.00	56.4%	-0.5%	-1.74%	-1.65%
30/06/2011	104,713.75	73,430.00	30,643.75	640.00	70.1%	-0.4%	-2.16%	-2.58%
31/07/2011	102,789.02	83,260.00	18,551.52	977.50	81.0%	-1.8%	-3.95%	-0.72%

The market is always unpredictable. We need to live with it. July was a month with many negative financial news. Firstly, the Greek sovereign default and now the US debt ceiling. Even though the US debt ceiling is essentially non-event, the lack of economic growth is casting an extremely dark shadow on the investors worldwide. With the US unemployment potentially climbing up again, investors are looking else where to put their money. Gold is making new highs. Oil is not going too much higher partly because the US are selling part of their reserves.

Moving forward, it is more prudent not to take any counter trend trades. Even though the potential for achieving larger gains, the risk is much higher. The chance of success is below 50% and it is not worth taking such risks.