But there's a silver lining for investors. The high jobless rate means the Federal Reserve will hold interest rates at their current low levels for some time.

This guarantees a weaker greenback that in turn boosts the carry trade. Investors will borrow dollars to buy stocks and gold.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has again risen above 10,000 points. Both the Dow and the Hang Seng Index have found support at around the 50-day moving average.

As the local market is still at fair value (15 times expected price- earnings ratio), it will not be surprising if it edges higher.

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So keep your existing holdings and hunt for some laggards.

Uni-President China Holdings (0220) makes and sells beverages and instant noodles in the mainland.

Last year its instant noodles brought in 2.25 billion yuan (HK$2.55 billion). The firm made 2.4 billion yuan from juice and drinks.

For the first nine months of this year, profit rose 94 percent to US$94.5 million (HK$737.1 million).

The stock has hit HK$4 and HK$5 in the last four months.

Last week, it finally cleared this range and hit HK$5.32 at one point.

Currently it trades around 22 times its expected PE. It should not be difficult for the stock to test HK$6 in the coming months. Dr Check and/or The Standard bear no responsibility for any investment decision made based on the views expressed in this column.