I like the concept of a "new" year. For a stock market trader it's as good a time as any to take a moment to look back and torment yourself with all those things you didn't know but could have guessed that would have made investment so easy over the last 12 months, simple things that would have taken all the stress out of it, saved an enormous amount of time and helped us to prematurely and gloriously retire.
Every year there is a handful of these things that you needed to know that would have swept away all the bollocks, all the financial theory, all the research, all the complications and all the endless blah blah blah we were bombarded with. Things that made us money, a few words that we shoulda coulda but didn't distil from the many thousands of unnecessary words that we read in their pursuit.
![Gina Rinehart and Andrew (Twiggy) Forrest: dream duo?](/web/20170118153739im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/b/6/k/j/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtb5wd.png/1484533641211.jpg)
You don't have to wait for the new year to do it, you can do it any day of the year: look back over the last 12 months and identify certain X factors that you needed to know. I like to call them post-it notes, one-line instructions that you wish someone had stuck on your trading screen at the beginning of the year that would have simplified everything.
12 months ago, for instance, the most valuable post-it note might have said "resources recovery". That's all you really needed to know in 2016 because the resources sector went up 49 per cent, South 32 was up 186 per cent, Fortescue was up 249 per cent, Whitehaven Coal was up 332 per cent. "Lithium" would have been another note. Orocobre was up 199 per cent and Galaxy Resources was up 447 per cent. As they say in the stockmarket, if you have one good idea a year, it's a good year.
So what of the post-it notes for 2017? Here are our ideas:
- Donald Trump delivers $1 trillion infrastructure bill.
- US and Russia form alliance to counter increasing Chinese aggression. Defence stocks soar.
- Chinese GDP growth forecasts upgraded. House prices rise in WA as iron ore price hits $100 a tonne.
- Fortescue Metals bids for BHP. Shareholders accept in droves. "Forteshill Properties" (FHP) buys Roy Hill. Twiggy and Gina appoint themselves chairman and CEO, the richest man and woman in Australia.
- Government writes off $40 billion of capex on NBN. TPG Telecom and Vocus double.
- US GDP growth "above trend". Inflation at 4 per cent. Dow Jones at record high again, and again.
- New FOMC Chairman Trump Junior blames predecessor for being "too timid" and "asleep at the wheel". Quoted as saying: "We need hawks and doves, not chickens."
- The US hikes rates by 150 basis points, leaving rates still 200 basis points below the 10-year bond yield.
- Scott Morrison delivers yet another "challenging budget". Coalition popularity rating slumps again.
- The long awaited, predicted and anticipated Australian housing collapse fails to materialise as self-managed super funds and Chinese buyers continue to gorge on property.
- The Commonwealth Bank sponsors Australia film industry to make The Big Long.
- Broker lists and there isn't a GFC a month later.
- Mum-and-dad investor gets 100 per cent of requested firm allocation in IPO and it lists at a premium.
- Innocent customer attends a free seminar and isn't subjected to a hard-core sales pitch.
- Online stock market product doesn't use Warren Buffett quotes in their marketing.
- Forex trader starting with just $10,000 in their trading account earns between $100,000 to $1,000,000 a year trading just five hours a week as they let their computer do all the work.
- China opens five FDA-approved milk processing plants.
- In a back door listing ,Bellamy's changes name to Lithium Battery Corp.
- Major banks quote "challenging" conditions as they report record combined profits of $35 billion for the year or $1521 of profit for every man woman and child in Australia.
- Scott Morrison and the new PM Cory Bernardi abandon the four pillars policy, allowing ANZ to bid for the CBA. WBC bids for the NAB. The NAB bids for ANZ. The CBA bids for WBC. Retirees ecstatic.
- Marijuana is legalised. Blackmores changes name to Greenweeds.
- The Brexit is invoked. Mass exodus of French, Greeks and Germans heading home takes London property market down 20 per cent. English haute cuisine returns to bangers and mash or roast beef with mushy peas, Yorkshire pud and lashings of gravy.
- Silvio Berlusconi elected Italian president.
- Mario Draghi says: "We will do whatever it takes", and continues to do nothing.
- Drones become commonplace. Domino's Pizza in suspension pending intrinsic value calculation that will take into account only earnings from selling pizza not technology potential.
- Big Two Bank makes a bid for Marcus Today Investment Strategists. Bid rejected.
- ABC starts Business Program called Inside Super hosted by Marcus Padley.
- Broker wins Walkley Award for best column in the West Australian.
I remember seeing an old broker on Sky Business I hadn't seen before. Not young. With the clarity of a newbie he made the comment that his wife and he were just wishing for one more boom before they retired. This year maybe. Let the games begin.
Marcus Padley is a stockbroker and the author of stock market newsletter Marcus Today. For a free trial see marcustoday.com.au