Contrarian Investor: The January effect - or not?

David Stevenson says 2016 could still be a rewarding year for investors, despite a turbulent start to the year for world markets.

What a start to the year. In the first week of 2016, the FTSE 100 index plunged 3% while the S&P 500 tumbled by 4.5%. Just as an aside, gold increased 2.4% in value. For equities, these are terrible numbers when compared to recent years. If we look back at the first week of trading since 2011 with the S&P for instance, there is only one week of losses and increases of as much as 1.2% (2013). The FTSE All Share index also shows three years of positive weekly starts with only two years recording small losses - 0.05% in 2012 and 0.28% in 2014. Have we started as we mean to go on? Tim Edw...