OMG! Venezuela and Thailand sinks markets!!

Looks like the sharp correction came sooner than expected. It was precipitated mainly by fund and hedge managers' fears of emerging markets after ol' Hugo Chavez decided to nationalise national assets, sending the Caracas stock market plunging by 19%, an echo of the Thai benchmark SET index's 16% plunge back on Dec 19th 2006.


However, markets rebounded from the December plunge to hit new highs in 2007. Now, the Hang Seng Index is down 4.8%, or almost 1000 points, from it's all-time high of 20554 points just six trading days ago.


My inclination now is for a quick rebound over the next three days, depending on how the Venezuelan debacle plays out.

On the KLSE, I am proud of the fact that, despite the drop of 5.77 points, and a losing-winning scoreline of 250-633, my portfolio has a batch of winning minority stocks in it:

10/1 Closing Value in portfolio
1. MPI 10.90(+20) 7630
2. Sugar-wa 1.26(+12) 3906
3. Kluang 2.70(+7) 1350
4. Analabs 0.725(+4) 10150
4. Sanbumi 0.84(+2.5) 4704
5. SBagan 2.65(+2) 2650
6. D'nonce 0.96(-) 1920

So about 25% of my entire portfolio was up or unchanged.

My view is that the bull market will probably not end without the second and third liners performing a final surge.