You will recall from our earlier Financial Vines Updates that we advised you to increase the levels of risk on your investments. So many people, because of the losses in the stock and property markets, have been putting money back into banks, even though interest rates are at an all-time low. This is because of the emotional uncertainty that people feel. In April we discussed this point and followed it up in May with further discussions about investment risk.

As I write this, the FTSE 100 is standing at 4,900, up from its low of 3,512, and its mid-April level of 3,980. That's a gain of 39% from its low, or 23% since mid-April. Now, we know that you are not invested in the FTSE 100, but we use it as a benchmark. Your own investments will be very different, however, if you increased the risk as we suggested, you will have seen significant gains in most of your higher- and medium-risk investments.

So what should you do now?

We believe in continuing with these higher levels of risk for the time being. There will be a time to "rebase" and reduce risk again; that time is not now, but it will come, probably next year. Keep reading these updates for our thoughts in the future.