The Athelney Trust unaudited NAV rose by a modest 0.3% in November whereas the FTSE Small Cap, Fledgling and AIM All-share indices fell by 0.5%, 0.6% and 0.3% respectively. Perhaps I missed something but November seemed a bit of a non-event in share markets but no-one will say that about December. Aside from the vote to extend bombing to Syria and the climate change conference in Paris, we will have a meeting of the European Central Bank, followed by the Opec states and then the Federal Reserve. First, the ECB is expected to increase the QE programme due to worries about falling prices. Then Opec, which has exerted a vice-like grip on oil prices for 50 years, will decide whether to continue with the price-war against the American oil shale producers. Commodity markets have been shaken since, just over a year ago, Opec ramped up output with the aim of crushing the non-Opec competition. Brent crude has more than halved to $45 per barrel, down from $115 in June 2014. High-cost producers investing in oil shale and the North Sea have tried everything from increasing output to cutting costs to the bone in a desperate attempt to keep going but even that may not be enough. The Fed meets on 16 December to decide whether interest rates should rise for the first time since 2006. The strength of the dollar after such a rise is likely to result in a vast flood of money leaving emerging markets and going in favour of the U.S. How share markets will react to all this, it seems to me, is beyond logical analysis. The best strategy, surely, is to continue with a good portfolio of small caps – what else did you expect me to say!