Slack Investor remains IN for US, UK and Australian index shares.
Power to the US – It might be bewildering from afar (and probably from within!) – but Wall St booms again with a 3.0% monthly rise. A small rise in the Australian Index (+0.6%), and the UK Index sinks with a -4.1% fall. All Markets are staying clear of their designated stop loss limits – So Slack Investor puts away any Index decisions for another month.
All Index pages and charts have been updated to reflect the monthly changes – (ASX Index, UK Index, US Index).
A recent bit of Beneficial Slackness
Slack Investor as long been a fan of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” and it is worth a read in full. But in particular the stanza
“... If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same; … ”
– Rudyard Kipling -1910 – Source
I like to think Slack Investor is in tune with the ebbs and flows of fortune – and he was on the good side of a stroke of luck this past week. In my last monthly update July 2018 I wrote of my worry with my holding of Altium (ALU) shares. I feared that the declining share price in July might indicate that there was bad news ahead at their reporting date. The upshot of the post was that I would leave this sort of stuff to the day traders and continue with the Slack plan of only making sell decisions at the end of the month.
The imposter of trumph prevailed on this occasion with a rise of ALU share price of over 30% on the day of their positive results announcement (FY18 Revenue up 26%).
With an estimated 2019 P/E ratio of 53.4, there is no doubt that the stock is relatively expensive. But, it is a growth stock with some very good tail winds. With the “internet of things” there will be more and more household appliances connected to the internet and to each another.
The current Australian household has an average of 14 connected devices under the one roof – this is expected to grow to over 30 devices by the year 2021. – from Andrew Mitchell – Livewire
Altium sells design software for printed circuit boards (PCB) which appear in all of these devices. ALU has been increasing its market share for PCB design software from 18% to 22% in this past year – and aims for 30% by 2025. These are good omens and I am happy to be an owner of ALU. To risk one more quote from “If”
If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;– Rudyard Kipling -1910 – Source