Bullish Thoughts: Praying for the portfolio in 2013

Bullish Thoughts is a religious being by design and later on by choice. Being Catholic he was baptized while just a few weeks old while as an adult he chose the kind of Christian life he was going to live. So he does have a rough idea about Christianity and its dogma.

Over the past couple of weeks…if not months if we roll back to Judgment Night by Emmanuel Makandiwa back in April over Easter…a lot has happened that has caused many to rethink the meaning of their faith.

Many Christians grew up with the notion that you live a humble life on earth like St Francis of Assisi, Mother Theresa of Calcutta, etc and then you will get the reward in heaven.

Based on Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament, that made (makes) perfect sense. John in the gospel (Ch 14:2) even talks about Jesus telling His disciples that “In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.”

However, a few weeks after judgment night, at a man’s conference presided over by Emmanuel Makandiwa, Uebert Angel & an expatriate pastor, a shirt was sold for $10k followed by $1.5k socks (all second hand).

Since then, the earthly riches gospel has spread.

Bullish Thoughts is not sure if the two “prophet friends” are trying outdo each other.

The other prophet “reportedly” multiplied money in Botswana and in Zimbabwe, the other friend prophet said gold would literally rain from the skies. Bullish Thoughts is not sure if its desperation or its indeed God’s work and doing but last week a pastor in Makandiwa’s UFIC was already confirming the rural yard gold picking story as having happened in Muzarabani or somewhere close to that region.

Praying for the portfolio…

Bullish Thoughts is wondering where this leaves you as a Christian investor. Do you pray for supernormal profits? Certainly having your bank account balance multiplied at no cost or picking gold on your yard at no cost presents a supernormal profit.

Bullish Thoughts is so much into the capital markets. He should however confess that whilst being a religious person he never really prayed (at least directly) for God to move the price of Delta from 65c to $1 in a matter of weeks.

He never directly sought divine intervention stay clear of Steelnet, Gulliver, Cairns and all those other “WAS” stocks.

He does pray however for God's wisdom in money management!

Is it high time that he does ask directly for such %age term intervention? He is however having a hard time imagining the words of the prayer!

“Dear God, make my portfolio grow by 50% in Q1 in US$ terms so that I outperform all other fund managers or investors”.

Bullish Thoughts is afraid to prescribe the return he wants to God!

What does faith and investing imply to investors? Is your return a reflection of your level faith? Are you the Job of investments where you have to lose the portfolio to regain it tripled?

Bullish Thoughts is also wondering what you do when you buy a lotto ticket. Do you lay over it and pray too?

What Bullish Thoughts is trying to reflect on is the implication of want of earthly riches and co-existence with our faith as Christians. Is our material wealth a reflection of our level of faith? If you can sell your second hand shirt which you probably bought for less than $50 for $10,000 where does it leave you in God’s eyes?

Would we say the global financial crisis from which the USA and a lot of Eurozone countries are still to recover from is more like the great flood in the time of Noah? Granted, the world is probably a much worse place morally!

  

We are all investors and in all fairness work hard too to achieve earthly riches. And we pray too for our material prosperity. Only that you probably never prayed for Innscor share certificates to end up in your Stanbic Custodial Services Account without paying for them.

Bullish Thoughts has no answer to all this but he will be praying for the gift of discernment to be able to understand the Will of God amid all this.

Econet-TN Bank transaction...

Bullish Thoughts received a dozen emails requesting for his “thoughts” on the Econet-TN Bank demerger-delisting transaction.

Unfortunately Bullish Thoughts is still to wrap his head around the whole transaction. He does however appreciate that Econet is a telecoms company and after Meikles and KFHL disinvestments, it’s unlikely it will venture into non core business (still holds MBC though).

How long it will take to straighten this out is anyone’s guess. However, in the meantime Econet’s share price is back to $4.80.

Believe Wisely!