The end of the year is nigh....

So even Donald Trump is now missing interest payments on some of his property developments?! Tut tut... For a guy who runs a reality TV show on how to make money running his own business, he often has to have his businesses taken away from him when he starts doing silly things...

But that's not the main focus of this blog posting...

... but I thought at least it would make you feel better if you happened to have just missed a R5000 instalment on your house... Trump just missed a US$334.2m payment so you're not that bad!

Last week I said I didn't buy into what I called a 'sucker rally'. It wasn't a great call if one considers that the Dow Jones has subsequently rallied some 10%, but I think we could still see a re-test of the 8000 level this week and more weakness in global equities in general.

I think it is fair to say that many traders (big and small money alike) are tired of 2008 and with the 1st of December now here, its time to pack up the trading console and drift through to the end of the year.

Throw in the issues around the terror attacks in India and the riots in Thailand and you can understand why nobody is wild about making in investments in the market. With the relationship between India and Pakistan on a knife edge and economic data out of China looking very unpleasant, it would be hard to see global equity markets go much higher before the end of the year - even in the "BRIC" economies.

Looking at the Asian markets, they're down over 1% - although I suspect everybody is waiting for the US to provide some direction. My first instinct though is that we're heading either sideways or down for the rest of 2008.

Platinum was up a bit which I thought was quite interesting, but Gold doesn't seem to be headed anywhere at the moment consolidating around the US$810 mark.

It has been a tough year for traders and I don't think we're anywhere near the bottom of the battle. The corporate landscape is likely to continue to shift for many years and I suspect we're still going to see some big names flounder.

Hopefully 2009 starts on a bit more positive note...