Taking profits/hitting the chicken switch

All in all, not a bad start to the year. Getting long risk (i.e. financials) and a German manufacturer has boosted the summer holiday pot from £750 to £1,105. Two weeks in the Canaries has become two weeks in Thailand, happy days, for now.

The oilers, BP and Gulfsands, stay for the longer term, at least until BP announce their next results in February. I expect the big institutional shareholders will be busy lobbying for a bigger dividend, and that the stock could re-rate dramatically in the event of a meaningful increase.

In all honesty, I suspect this mini bull run has a bit left in it, but this is more about booking a profit, letting it 'sink in' (i.e. you stop thinking about the extra cash as money you've 'won' and start thinking about it as money you 'own') and reducing exposure to risk.

CU pointed out Man Group looking cheap the other day, and it'll be worth a look to see if the battered supermarkets, especially Tesco, could be oversold. There's a task for the weekend then - find some more cheap stocks.