January 2012 wrap-up

January is done and it looks like things are once again resuming an upward track.  Here's my quick summary of the influential world events that transpired and how I reacted to them.

The world markets have had a bit of a chance to make sense of the European debt issues and have realized that the world wasn't ending.  On the other side of the coin, that made for a great buying opportunities in October/November.  I did buy a few things, but I was too chicken-shit to go-big/go-home.  Emotions are a hard thing to ignore but at the same time a great way to moderate your impulses.  I'm still learning to control mine when it comes to investing.

The US FED announced it would be holding interest rates at the same pathetically low level until at least 2014, AND that a future round of Quantitative Easing (money printing) were not off the table.  The Bank of Canada also announced they weren't going to raise rates any time soon either.  (But they never say for how long and update every quarter)

Natural gas has hit 10-year lows and some folks think it can go even lower.  But this to me says it's time to start buying nat-gas producers/pipelines.  PM Harper recently announced that there will be few regulatory hurdles for future pipelines to get our petroleum to markets both in the US and Asia.  Which means to me is that the Federal government is going to buy off a lot of first nations peoples to get the land rights they need to build the Northern Gateway pipeline.  (Enbridge will be the beneficiary of this good fortune).

I've started to accumulate some SMALL-CAP nat-gas producers.  Some which pay out a lovely dividends and some which should be bought out.  I'm expecting to double my money on one of my holdings.  But I'm not expecting it to get bought out for the next 2-3 years.  A pipeline to get the stuff off the continent will have to be under construction before this will happen.

Since the end of December until now, the TSX is up about 5.5%.  My net worth has increased by 10%.  2% of that can be attributed to the take-over of one of my holdings by a larger company.

Future: I'm anticipating some slow, slow growth for 2012.  Dividend payers are the place to be.  There might be a few burps here and there due to sovereign debts,  (like if the US bickers again about the debt-ceiling) or a few oil price explosions.  (If Iran decides to pick fights).