Back in my August 11, 2017 column – Could I Be Any More Worried For Australia – I expressed my negative views on the future of the country given what I was seeing in the residential property market, prestige car sales, wages growth, retail sales and specifically the impact this was having on ASX-listed companies exposed to these bearish trends. The Australian dollar was also seen at risk because of it viewed as a ‘proxy’ for everything that could go wrong domestically. At that time the Australian dollar was hovering around the USD0.80 mark and has since dropped to USD0.735

It seems in the current age of poor banking performance that funds are being directed into other companies and sectors with those staging the best performance over the past 12-24 months experiencing the best buying interest. However, we have always been told that past performance is not a guarantee of future returns when assessing fund managers and the same I believe is applicable to share price performance. It definitely can provide a false sense of security.

I finished the end of 2017 with a distinct bearish view on Australian banks and retailers warning of their extreme vulnerability to tightening lending conditions, rising living costs and a massive oversupply in the housing market. At the same time, many of the opportunities that presented themselves were all concentrated in the mid-cap space, specifically in the lithium, rare earths and other stock specific opportunities.

As we enter the final month of the year I thought it would be wise to begin focusing on what my most favoured potential winners for 2018 will be. So each week from today I will highlight the opportunities that I favour most for a stellar year.

The past few months I have been explicitly identifying long opportunities in what I call “The Green Movement” which essentially encompasses all the beneficiaries of the global push to a healthier lifestyle. Electric cars, clean energy and better quality foods.

Currently my market positions are 90% short in keeping with the bearish view I have expressed here on equity markets, particularly the Australian market. The local market continues to look increasingly vulnerable for a serious decline as the “excesses” of the past two decades begin to be a burden on consumers.

Today, I wanted to highlight gold. Like many I have been an underlying gold bull since late 2015 as my old columns will highlight, but have been frustrated by the lack of momentum that the bullion price and gold stocks have experienced. Where is the boom?

In my last note I highlighted many reasons why I am worried about the Australian market in particular the property market and its impact on the banking sector and the broader consumer. We have continued to see weakness in these specific spaces with many consumer stocks reporting poorly and a Four Corners program on the ABC airing this week that showed a small glimpse of the troubles property investors are already feeling.

As we approach the 10-year anniversary of the GFC, led by a housing collapse in the US, Australia is dangerously at risk of repeating the GFC of 2008 which we somehow miraculously escaped without a recession. This places Australia now as the longest streak of economic growth in history.

So how does 2017 look? This year will be littered with more uncertainty than ever before. Equity markets have already surged in the last quarter of 2016, seeing many of our trading opportunities already unfold, while the growing populism movement across the globe means potentially big corrections.