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Year 2015 Predictions!

First of all, Happy New Year to all. 2014 was a mixed year for my predictions. While my prediction of all indexes (DOW at 18K, S&P over 2014 and Nasdaq near 4800 were very close to my predictions at start of 2014). I am proud of my predictions at macro level. However my recommendations did not do that good. Overall couple of recommendations like Yahoo (up by 28%) and RAD (up by 57%), there were some bad ones like NBG (down by 68%) and SRPT (down by 28%). Overall portfolio based on my recommendations would have been down by 3-4% (assuming equal amount investments). That's pretty shabby compared to S&P returns of 13%. Most of my recommendations are normally in small cap. When compared to small cap index which returned about 4%, it's ok.  Maybe I should stick with macro predictions:-)
So here are some:

  • OIL had it's 2nd worst year of all time. So what's outlook for oil in 2015. I think it goes up from here. After coming down by 50% in 6 months, it would go up by 15% in 2015. So expect oil to trade about $60
  • Here are predictions for major indexes:
    • DOW: Close to 20K
    • S&P: Close to 2200
    • Nasdaq: Close to 5100
  • Given that 3rd Presidential year is always good for stocks, it should not be very difficult for these indexes to make new records in 2015
  • Russian markets could surprise on positive side in 2015 - again this could be tied to oil finding some footing as well as no major land grab by Russia and Russians defending their currency
  • Europe would continue to be drag on overall world economy
  • So my best investment advice would be to stick with index based ETFs. Here are few recommendations:
    • XLE (around $79)
    • SPY (around $200)
    • TAN (around $33)
    • XLF (around $24)
    • IWM (around $118)
    • IBB (around $250) - Biotech had gone up quite a bit so wait for it to cool down before jumping in
    • QQQ (around $90)
I would still be investing in individual stocks since they still provide a good way to play "covered call" strategy. But those recommendations would be in next article.
Till then enjoy your holidays and happy new 2015 year!
/Shyam

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