In early January, it looked as if the USA would start a war with Iran, and soon after that we were surprised with news of the corona virus. Despite an otherwise positive earnings environment, in both cases equity markets around the world sold off temporarily. All in all, equities closed the month more or less flat with the S&P 500 at -1.0% and the Nasdaq at +0.6%.

Safe-haven investments, on the other hand, performed well, with treasuries up 6.5% and gold up 3.7% last month.

Our two strategies performed again nicely above average in January with High Yield Classic +8.33% and High Yield MiniMax +5.06%.

Towards the end of January both the ECB and the Fed confirmed their policies and did not raise interest rates. These decisions should continue to create a positive environment for the equity and bond markets in 2020. Let’s keep fingers crossed…

Next month for the first time since last summer the system suggests to allocate a position in Bitcoin again. Last month the cryptocurrency has seen a 30% return so there may in fact be a future potential. While depending on your trading platform you could buy Bitcoin directly, I am using the new Swiss ABTC ETF for this purpose. 

Stay happy, healthy and wealthy!

Omar