REGIONAL markets ended mostly in the red despite positive leads from the US markets overnight, where benchmark equity indexes finished at historic highs. The Dow surged 0.9% to 17,959.44 while the S&P 500 rose by 0.4% to 2,078.54. The Shanghai Composite Index led decliners in Asia, falling 3.0% on Tuesday.

Brent crude and WTI crude reversed course after two days of gains, and are now hovering around $60 and $55 per barrel, respectively (at the time of writing). Crude prices will remain volatile. Most recently, Iraq stated its intention to boost production next year despite oversupply concerns.

At home, the local bourse closed 0.29% higher at 1,749.05, extending gains for the fifth consecutive trading days. However, market breadth was negative with losers outweighing gainers by 1.9 to one.

I foresee a very challenging year ahead. On Tuesday, the ringgit weakened anew, currently trading at 3.4985 per dollar, near five-year lows. This follows reports that our country’s foreign reserves slumped by RM17.6 billion or 4.3% to RM 394.1 billion between Nov 28 and Dec 15.

My portfolio started on 8 July 2014 with a capital of RM100,000. Since then, it has outperformed the FBM KLCI by 8.3%, registering an annualised return of 1.6%.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on December 24, 2014.