Dear Friends & Fellow Investors
Best wishes for a peaceful and prosperous New Year!
2008 was indeed a challenging year for investors and businesses worldwide. Here's to looking ahead for a new year with expectedly tough challenges ahead.
But hopefully we can all take solace from the fact that the financial crisis of 2008 has affected everyone worldwide.You and I are not alone and presumable many are worse off than you currently are. If you are a US or European equity investor, consider the fate of many other countries who have been suffering worse declines this year. Particularly US investors seem to have gotten away with a comparatively modest asset declines so far considering the US property bubble and credit crunch have been the main causes for this year's financial havoc.
The table below depicts the yearly returns of the major world stock indices. As you can see, none of them were positive.
|
Country
|
Dec-31-07
|
Dec-31-08
|
Change
|
|
U.A.E.
|
5,931.95
|
1,636.29
|
-72.42%
|
|
China
|
5,261.56
|
1,820.81
|
-65.39%
|
|
Saudi Arabia
|
11,038.66
|
4,802.99
|
-56.49%
|
|
Singapore
|
3,482.30
|
1,761.56
|
-49.41%
|
|
Hong Kong
|
27,812.65
|
14,387.48
|
-48.27%
|
|
Australia
|
6,421.00
|
3,659.30
|
-43.01%
|
|
France
|
5,614.08
|
3,217.97
|
-42.68%
|
|
Japan
|
15,307.78
|
8,859.56
|
-42.12%
|
|
Brazil
|
63,886.00
|
37,550.31
|
-41.22%
|
|
Korea
|
1,897.13
|
1,124.47
|
-40.73%
|
|
US-NASDAQ
|
2,652.28
|
1,577.03
|
-40.54%
|
|
Germany
|
8,067.32
|
4,810.20
|
-40.37%
|
|
US-S&P 500
|
1,468.36
|
903.25
|
-38.49%
|
|
Kuwait
|
12,558.90
|
7,782.60
|
-38.03%
|
|
US-Dow-30
|
13,264.82
|
8,776.39
|
-33.84%
|
|
UK
|
6,456.90
|
4,434.17
|
-31.33%
|
With this in mind, let's close this year with a positive attitude and look at some of the potential bright spots ahead. Niall Ferguson is depicting some potential bright spots towards the end of 2009 in his article "An imaginary retrospective of 2009". http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1be84cc4-cc0d-11dd-9c43-000077b07658.html
Best wishes for a peaceful transition to 2009 and good luck for the year ahead - Clemens Kownatzki
Best wishes for a peaceful transition to 2009 and good luck for the year ahead - Clemens Kownatzki
