It is now almost two months since RBS analyst Andrew Roberts issued his “sell everything” recommendation to the world and I made the offer for him to have some skin the game with a bet that not only he’d be wrong, but that the majority of markets would rise. Here is that offer; https://thekouk.com/blog/sell-everything-my-challenge-to-andrew-roberts-of-rbs.html 

Mr Roberts did not take the bet and while it is still early days in 2016, the scorecard reads:

The Kouk  8
Roberts    3

Recall to win, Roberts only has to get six out of 11, which of course is hardly ‘sell everything’. Such was the facile nature of his forecast, I was generous with my offer.

In addition to the tally of wins versus losses, the orders of magnitude is interesting. A simple average of the 11 items is up a quite spectacular 3.3% – in less than two months. Not bad in the low inflation climate.

                                              Level at time      Latest         Difference
                                                  of bet                                  % 

US stocks  S&P500                        1925.0         1932.0         0.364
Brazil stocks Ibovespa                  39500.0       42793.0         8.337
China stocks Shenzhen                  1850.0         1718.0        -7.135
Japan stocks Nikkei                      17200.0       16026.0       -6.826
US house prices Case-Shiller         182.83         182.75       -0.044
UK 20 city house prices Hometrack 228800     231700         1.267
Sydney house prices Corelogic        915.00        923.58         0.938
Iron ore US$ tonne                            40.50          48.90         20.741
Oil WTI US$ tonne                             31.50         33.88          7.556
Copper US$ tonne                         4325.00      4705.00          8.786
AUD/USD                                        0.7000        0.7140          2.000

Simple average                                                                     3.271

Obviously, there are 10 months to go and given the fickle nature of markets, things can change very quickly. I will continue to report on the bet roughly every month, win, lose or draw. But the early days are looking good…for me.