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The Chinese curse, "may you live in interesting times", has never seemed more appropriate.
As the global fallout from the US sub-prime crisis caused a credit crunch, brought down banks from Lehman Brothers to Bradford & Bingley, undermined the financial systems of whole countries (Iceland) and pushed the world's economies into recession, 2008 was nothing if not "interesting".
With one turbulent trading day following another, leading shares slumped into a bear market from which they are still struggling to emerge, with the FTSE 100 losing 31% of its value over the course of 12 months. Under these circumstances, some of our share predictions this time last year now look rather heroic.
Overall our portfolio lost 44%, but within that there were some steady performances.
Indeed GlaxoSmithKline not only outperformed the market but ended in positive territory, as investors sought safe havens amid the carnage. Retailers had what can be charitably described as a mixed year, but Mothercare bucked the trend, helped by the successful integration of Early Learning Centre. Providing software for the online gaming industry has proved a winner for Playtech, which also beat the market average.
There were also some catastrophes, though in fairness the likes of Immunodiagnostic Systems, New Britain Palm Oil and Albidon did manage gains in the early part of the year before succumbing to the global gloom. Albidon, our worst performer, was hit by a slump in nickel prices just as it started production in Zambia, as well as the departure of several executives and a fundraising in November.
The banking sector was, with hindsight, not the place to be and Lloyds TSB proved to be unable to avoid the downturn. Balfour Beatty, while trading well and winning contract after contract, was caught up in the construction industry gloom and Rolls-Royce fell back with other engineers. And EnCore Oil fell sharply after news it may have to redesign its gas-storage project in the North Sea.
And so to 2009. With many pundits expecting a prolonged recession and little in the way of a stockmarket recovery, many of our tips for this year err on the side of caution, though, as usual, there are a few more speculative choices.
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