Havelock Europa creeping up (SP=15.88p)

Havelock Europa seems to have weathered the recent financial turmoil reasonably well. Our latest views were posted out to diy-investors members last week, see research HERE.

The shareprice graph has a nice shape to it (see below)...

The following points are worth noting:

• Very low PSR (0.06)
• Rising 200 day moving average (shareprice turned up just above this!)
• Strengthening on-balance-volume (OBV)
• Buy signal on the MACD indicator
• Rising relative strength - but not overbought

I'm also wondering if the rise of the 'new' Academies, controlling their own revenue and formula funding, will help the schools fit-out side of the business. This coupled with increased retail fit-out activity and the POS angle, may bring a turnaround.

Let us know what you think, by e-mailing us at feedback@diy-investors.com (or post a message here).

The answer is a resounding "Down"!

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed tonight at 10,811 (down by 634 points or 5.54%) - answering the question that I had posed on 3rd August. See below...

Checkout the full story at MarketWatch

We could be in for an interesting day on the LSE tomorrow!

Which way for the Dow?

The trading session for the Dow Jones Industrial Average today will be watched very closely! At the close last night, the DJIA has dropped by 265.88 points - a drop of 2.19%. It had also closed below the 200 day moving average - raising a question in my mind about which way will it go? See below...

You will see that, in the recent past, the DJIA has shown a tendency to bounce back within a few trading sessions of having closed below the 200 day m.a. (see Summer 2010 for examples of this). Also, I've noticed that the common 2-day reversal pattern (Hi-Lo, Lo-Hi) featured in March this year (see the L.H. circle on the graph above).

Today, I believe there will be a clear and decisive outcome. Either another 2-day reversal (mirroring March) or a decisive break even lower. Which will it be?

Well, logically, you might think that with the US politicians getting their act together at the 11th hour - it will indeed turn and start a new uptrend. The bears, on the other hand, will argue that there are a lot of pointers to a continuing downtrend - not least of which is the sheer size of the budget deficit.

For my part, I'm not going to predict or even guess - but I will be watching and ready to take action (within my US trading account).

What do you think? Will the DJIA finish up or down tonight?

Real Good Food Group (AIM: RGD, SP=68.5p) - Repeating Pattern?

Checking Sharescope this evening, I've noticed that Real Good Food Group (AIM: RGD) appears to have broken above the resistance line, marking the lower highs of recent weeks. Could it be that it will repeat the pattern of the period between 19th May and 3rd June? During that time, the shareprice rose by about 50% in a few days. Looking at the graph (see below), it might be about to repeat the same pattern.

The 8 day (fast) ADX appears to be giving a buy signal. The only slightly worrying aspect is the fact that the shareprice is well above the current 200 day moving average. Is this a true breakout or a false one? Only time will tell. Will RGD go up again in the next two or three weeks or back down towards the 200 day moving average? What do you think?

DIY-Investors.com - Portfolio Results for 6mths to 30th June 2011

I have published the details of the Portfolio Results for the six months to 30th June 2011 on the DIY-Investors website HERE

The outperformance, measured against the all-share index is significant. How have your portfolios performed against your benchmark indices so far this year? Anyone got any experiences to share?

Harvest this one while you can!

Landkom International (LKI), SP = 6.5p, has been on my radar screen for a few weeks and I was planning to prepare a research report on it when I get back from holiday. However, in view of the recent price action and the recent RNS, I thought you all might like to check it out for yourselves this week!

DIY-Investors 2011 Sharepicks - after 6 months!

As a slight distraction from a very sunny Sunday morning, I've been taking a look at the performance of the DIY-Investors.com 2011 sharepick portfolios. The results are quite interesting as you can see below...

First though, let's take a look at what the all-share index (ASX) has been doing for the first six months of the year. You may remember that it began the year on 3062.80. Well, at the close of play on 30th June, it was at 3091.90. The slight increase of 29.10 (+0.95%) means effectively no real change in the benchmark index that we use. So what then of our portfolio performance?

Looking firstly at the 10 (passive) sharepicks in the DIY-Investors.com portfolio, the value has increased by +16.90% - outperforming the index by 15.95 percentage basis points. This despite the lousy performance of MBL! You'll remember that when I took over a duplicate portfolio to actively manage it for the year, the first thing that I did was to sell MBL (to cut [stem] my losses on that pick). This seems to have been a good move as my actively managed portfolio now shows a gain of +32.73% (outperformance of 31.78%).

With the focussed portfolios (5 shares), the results are much closer. The passive (focussed) portfolio shows a gain of +66.5% (outperformance of 65.4%), while my actively managed (focussed) portfolio has just crept ahead - showing a gain of +68.46% (outperformance of 67.51%).

I'll post the tables showing individual share performances on my return from holiday. In the meantime, do please let us know how your own portfolios have performed in the first 6 months of the year.