Fiscal Cliff

Today is the first Wednesday of the month and that means its the GASP investment club meeting tonight.

We started the club in 2000 and have 20 members who come from the area around our village. We each invest £30 a month and at our monthly meeting we discuss buying and selling shares with our investment. As this takes place at the local pub, some beer and wine is drunk as well! We come from a wide variety of backgrounds and our financial skills range from novice to expert. The "experts", however, aren't necessarily the ones who make the best decisions! As you can imagine, we have had our ups and downs over the last 13 years but we kept our nerve and currently are showing a return somewhat higher than the FTSE over the same period.

This evening's meeting will be interesting as the FTSE has started the year by hitting 6000 today following the recent "Fiscal Cliff" negotiations in the US.

The picture shows a typical spreadsheet that our treasurer produces to help our deliberations at the meeting.