World markets have turned down in January, although the AIM All Share Index still managed to complete the month in positive territory. Sentiment in the major markets has been knocked in January by a number of factors including President Obama’s banking measures and, in Europe, by the unfolding Greek debt tragedy.

It is amazing to think that Greece has somehow build up debt of the order of 250 Billion Euros. The author can remember a time when the Greeks were always devaluing the Drachma which helped overcome their debt issues and also created cheap holidays for visitors to the Country. However, now as part of the Euro-zone, devaluation is not an option. In fact, from commentary that we have read, it would seem that the Greek government has very little it can do without precipitating riots on its streets.

The January Barometer

It seems unlikely that other European countries will bail out the Greeks which could mean a difficult period ahead for the Euro, particularly as the Greeks are not the only country in the Euro-zone to have debt problems. This issue has certainly affected European stock markets in January and it could be that the issue will continue to have a negative effect throughout the year. If this crisis is not handled well there could be significant dire consequences.

a difficult period ahead

for the Euro

Often the market direction in January is a good barometer for the whole year. Whilst this ‘barometer’ was wildly inaccurate in 2009, perhaps it is due to give a correct forecast in 2010. Certainly there are extraordinary financial issues for the world to overcome and perhaps 2010 could be a down year for the markets as fear begins to dominate again. If January does turn out to be a barometer for the year, has it correctly foretold a continued out-performance by AIM?

400% Growth

One reason why AIM share prices are continuing to out-perform their larger cousins is because there are so many AIM companies recording exceptionally good growth. We have read many sets of results this year where excellent growth has been recorded and further growth anticipated.

Our accolade for the best growth we have noted recently goes to Cellcast (CLTV).  Indeed the Company has been receiving awards from elsewhere for its progress: Cellcast’s part-owned subsidiary, Cellcast Asia Holdings has recently received the Red Herring 100 Global Award and has been named as one of the world's top 100 private technology companies. Cellcast Asia is a supplier of participation TV formats and applications in the Indian subcontinent.

In announcing that its subsidiary had been named as one of the top 100 private technology companies, Cellcast included a few lines about recent performance from Cellcast Asia Holdings.  It would seem that in 2009, transactions for Cellcast Asia per month grew from 2 million in January to over 10 million by December. That’s 400% growth in just one year. We would be interested to hear of any other company can top that.

Whether Cellcast can keep up this growth is another question. Certainly the Red Herring awards have a good track record in picking very fast growing companies at an early stage. Previous companies that have been identified by Red Herring include: Google, eBay, Skype and Youtube. Cellcast could not be in that league, could it?

continued out performance

by AIM

transactions grew from

2 million ..... to over

10 million

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