A week in which an Irish chap makes a rather small profit, while an American chap makes a rather large profit. Different horses for different courses.

I’m not one to indulge in mindless triumphalism in the wake of historic victories over the ‘auld enemy’ in the sports of rugby, cricket or of kings (horse racing), so I won’t engage in such a carry on here, save for a polite euphoric interjection after the opening paragraph.

Yippee.

OK I’m done.

And all of this going on while the Irish Prime Minister was bringing a bowl of shamrock to Barack Obama in the White House. Priorities I say.

Anyway, in last week’s missive I promised to return to you with details of my profit and loss arising out of my annual Cheltenham ‘Stupidity-fest’. And so here I am.

And well lo and behold have I got a bit of positive news for you?

I took the plan - you know, the plan from the man ‘who knows’. He wasn’t a jockey, wasn’t an owner, wasn’t a gambler, wasn’t a trainer. There wasn’t the mild stench of baloney weaving through the prose. No - it was straight talking, backed up with logic, reason, fact and just the merest hint of intuition. To put it politely he was an ‘anorak’ (and probably an expensive one at that).

So whatever his plan said I did. In every one of the 28 races. Whether it was £2 on what appeared to be a donkey both older and slower than the one in Shrek to win, or £3.50 each way on a 6-1 shot. Whatever anorak said, I did. I stuck to it meticulously. Nothing major, all small stakes and I simply trusted in his system.

And guess what? As the curtain came down on a scintillating Cheltenham Festival, your truly gob smacked correspondent returned a rather healthy profit/return on investment of 52%. I kid you not. Discipline and faith, and already I cannot wait until next year.

But here’s a slight lesson in the footnote to self. On Saturday when I popped into the bookies to collect the aforementioned 52% (plus original stake), a chap beside me at the counter said:

“This must be destiny Joe. In the 4.45pm race at the Curragh, there’s a horse running called ‘Our Joe Mac’. It’s tight enough odds at 10-3, but we’re talking a dead cert.”

So as my delightful 52% was slid across to me by the cashier in the bookies, I intelligently volunteered:

“Ah sure what the hell, I may as well give it a shot so!”,

And promptly slid 12% back to the cashier to give it a whirl. She still has my 12%.

To the best of my knowledge ‘Our Joe Mac’, could still be running down the Naas Dual Carriageway.

Nonetheless it has been a fantastic week all things considered, and the tale at the tail end serves as a lesson learned.

A good week for bank investors.

It has of course been a remarkably good week for investors in bank stocks. Yes, remember the evil US banks who received emergency relief funding. Well a number of the banks now deemed healthy enough have been permitted by the US regulatory authority to start paying stock dividends to their shareholders again, as well as engage in stock buybacks.

This signals the taking from the table of a rather healthy piece of profit by a certain Mr Warren Buffet. A man who invests when there’s “blood on the streets”.

At the height of the financial crisis in 2008, when the rest of us were hiding under our duvets waiting for it all to go away, Warren Buffet invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs at a time when there were not too many suitors. This served to shore up Goldman’s balance sheet and restored a bit of investor confidence. Yes, Warren moved to one corner of the field, while the rest of us sheep still cowered in the other corner paralysed and shellshocked.

Goldman have bought back the preferred stock which Buffet had invested in, yielding him a staggering profit of $1.70 billion. Airwave anoraks reckon he made around $1.40 million per day. Nice work if you can get, but I suppose they say fortune favours the brave.

It does now beg the question, what investment universe is Mr Buffet scanning with his radar now?

Is he going to start looking at the alternative energy effort now, is he still a firm believer in the electric car dream? (See BYD - Build Your Dreams). Is he going to take a position in the peak oil, scarce oil argument and take a punt there? Perhaps not as oil is an asset class where there is an uneven displacement of the information advantage, and I guess we also know Mr Buffet to be a slight contrarian when it comes to these things. Or perhaps is he going to take a long term view on the dreadful misfortune that struck Japan two weeks ago and will he invest earnestly in a full and lasting recovery? In a sense could a Japan trade be his new ‘Goldman’ trade of 2011?

Time will tell, but time also tells me that while Mr Buffet is doing, I am dithering. When he bought into the electric car dream, I dithered. And then when I finally woke up to the possibilities, I discovered that all the other sheep were also in my part of the field and so the market rally was already done. Too late.

It’s a bit like the times you make it down to the hotel pool, thinking you’re good and early, only to discover that towels of all sizes and colours are already draped on the best of the sun lounges.

So note to self, need to get up a little earlier! Early mover advantage as they say.

Appendix

This is the last of my manic missives for the time being my friends. I can’t believe that my assortment of distorted scribbles has almost reached the 60 mark. Time really does fly when you’re having fun and boy it has flown.

I am excitedly moving on to pastures new, but as the song goes, we’ll meet again! And of course I might pop in from time to time to say a big ‘Hello!’, and failing that, well then I’ll see you in Cheltenham, won’t I! Joe.