Hazy Crazy Lazy days of markets

Did you know Nat King Cole sang 'Lazy Hazy Crazy days of Summer'?

I was trying to think of a catchy title to this post and that song sort of jumped into my head. I will say it is not one of his best works but hey like everything else if you do enough output some of it will stick.

I have had a quick shufti at the main indexes.  I think it is very important to look at them all in context. More wood less individual trees if you know what I mean.

over 1 year  the Dow Jones surprisingly is the stand out with +8.02%. It towers over the Nasdaq which has given +4.21%.  

As I constantly harp on about Japan continues to completely unimpress.  Over 1 year Topix loses you -12.37% and the Nikkei -7.63%.  This aenemia is a bit worrying on a macro level. Its the sort of thing that makes you ask the question what could they actually do to improve things.  I cannot see an easy solution so I continue to recommend staying out if it.

If you had put on the arbitrage trade I considered  long S and P vs short CAC you would have gained about 1.5%. I think that should continue to move in that direction as for the life of me I cannot see how France with its domestic Macron issues is better than the US.

One point of note as my namesake the Orange Swan would point out is China China China.  It had a storming start to the year then obviously slid down the plug hole with the trade deal issues.  I quite like getting a bit of exposure to it although the worry still persists that they have a habit of pulling their economic stats out of a fortune cookie rather than base it on reality.

I am thinking of buying some broad exposure but based in USD in the form of Xtrackers Harvest CSI 300 China A-Shares ETF US2330518794 .  I am not 100% convinced but I think I would like to have a small position in case the trade deal ever actually happens and this would be a liquid way of doing that.

The school holidays are in full swing and most of you are heading off to beaches to get away from the hurly burly. I am working through as we are nearly at 100 days to Halloween and the amount of people I keep needing to chase for things is evergrowing.  The odd thing with Bankers they are great at managing other people's money when it comes down to their own they become like children that havent done their homework.  I may make a list of the best excuses and name and shame.

I should really put a disclaimer that these views are definitely mine and do not represent any investment advice. The value of Don's economic ramblings can go up as well as down.

Best 

Don

If anyone you know might benefit from talking about UK assets please feel free to give them my details.