What I Have Been Reading – March 2021

Valuations Not giving a damn about current income is the secret formula that sets you free from all terrestrial bounds of physics and logic. The way you pull it off is by executing on growth at any cost (GAAC?). Profits can come later once the market share battle is already won. Shareholders are willing to wait. And why wouldn’t they be patient. None of the money is costing anyone anything. The Reformed Broker     Market Leaders We were buying Yahoo 15 years ago instead of Google, because Yahoo had a bigger market share, they had a bigger moat, and it was a lot cheaper than Google. We were buying […]

March Stock Market Purchase – Cheap UK Quality Stocks

Patience is the key to successful investing. I have written about Increasing Time Horizons Is The Only Way For Individual Investors To Outperform. But with the goings on this year, this point needs to be reiterated. As Buffett has said “If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes.”   Investing is like gardening, it takes time to build something beautiful. If we were as impatient about gardening as we are about investing, we would never have any flowers or trees.   Take Tom who plants some seeds in his back yard. After a day, he checks back. Surprise, […]

11 Simple Truths

Naval Ravikant is one of the greatest thinkers of our time. Every time he tweets, millions pay attention. So when I came across his 10 simple truths retweet thread, I just had to share. There is so much learn from the wisdom below.   Human life is gradually turning from a struggle against suffering into a struggle against pleasure. Hard Choices. Easy Life. Easy Choices. Hard Life. Not wanting something is as good as having it. If the news are fake imagine history If you don’t want to have a boss, you better be capable in the wild To remove the sting of insult, stop valuing compliments. Meditation is good […]

Saving £50,000 by the age of 25 – A Real Life Case Study

If you want £25,000 by the age of 25, you either inherit it, marry into it or have a super high income. That’s at least how the modern-day thinking goes. Well, I did neither of those things. I don’t have wealthy parents, wasn’t married at 25 and the highest income I earned during that period was £31,800! Instead, I had £50,000 saved in my bank account via the old fashioned way; I saved it.   So how exactly did I do it? Read on to find out.   I’ll start my story of at the age of 18. This is when one’s life really begins, and it is the age […]

FUNDSMITH Annual Shareholders Meeting Video Presentation 2021

Much like Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meetings have been great viewing for any aspirational investor, so too has Terry Smith Fundsmith’s annual shareholder meetings. This year, just like last year, the meeting has been virtual due to the on going pandemic.  The good news is that the video of the 2021 meeting has just dropped on the Fundsmith website.   The meeting sees Terry Smith, also known as the english Warren Buffett in some circles, sit down with Jeff Randell in order to talk about a wide variety of topics from the fund, to quality companies to the companies he is invested into the current economic landscape. And […]

What I Have Been Reading – February 2021

Banking Error The recipients of roughly $500m (£360m) that US banking giant Citigroup wired erroneously will get to keep the money, a US judge has ruled. Judge Jesse Furman said Citi was not entitled to recoup its funds, even though they were “indisputably transferred by mistake”. The bank was supposed to have sent interest payments on behalf of its client, Revlon, but instead fully repaid the cosmetic company’s loans. BBC     Snap chat money Andrea Romo, 27, earns $12.50 an hour as a merchandise associate at Lowe’s in Albuquerque. She doesn’t consider herself a social media influencer, but has enjoyed sending messages to friends on Snapchat for years. When […]

Investing Through A Bubble

Goldman’s Non-profitable Tech Index is approaching 250% year-over-year performance. (Twitter)   If statistics like this haven’t given cause for concern, the market should take a long hard look at itself.  Yes I do understand why the stock market is at record highs and equities seem to be the only game in town. Yes I get the arguments of how difficult it is to value equities in this post pandemic world with all the pent up demand and fiscal stimulus sloshing around. Yes, I realise how markets change over time and today, at least in the US,  they are dominated by low capital, highly scalable businesses. Yes I understand the mantra […]

February Stock Market Purchase – Euphoria

The opening week of February saw the largest ever weekly inflow of cash into global shares, according to Bank of America’s global research team, as well as the largest ever inflow into technology stocks. Of the total inflow of $58.1 billion into equities, some $25.1 billion or close to half flowed into US large-cap stocks, the second-highest figure on record, while $5.6 billion flowed into US small-cap stocks, the third highest figure on record. Technology stocks posted their best ever week of inflows at $5.4 billion, while flows into bonds reached $13.1bn, pushing the yield on US ‘junk’ or sub-investment grade loans to below 4% for the first time in […]

IG Alternative – Buy Stocks And Shares UK

Over the weekend, there has been rumours circulating on social media that top UK spread betting and CFD provider, ig.com, will be is increasing the margin requirements to 100% on 1,000+ stocks next Friday. The rumour is IG account managers began contacting clients last week informing them that various stocks would go to 100% margin. This is because IG’s prime brokers have demanded more capital for its positions. Whilst these reports are still unconfirmed, it could prove to be unwelcome news for investors both up and down the country.   If you are an IG account holder with shares on the margin list you would either have to put up […]

The Stock Market Is Too Easy – This Should Concern You

With markets approaching the one-year anniversary of their pre-Covid-highs, it might seem surprising that the MSCI All Countries World index, the benchmark most used by global funds, is hitting new all-time highs.   Thanks to unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus by the world’s central banks, markets have recovered sharply from last year’s depths of despair even though unemployment is high, inflation is making a comeback and earnings for a large part of the economy have been wiped out. (To read more on why the markets are at a record high, read my post on the subject here). In this market everyone seems to be making money. That market appears to […]