Mar ’24: A towering influence

I’ve enjoyed March.

I managed to enjoy a few days’ skiing, despite less snow than any of us would like, in the Austrian alps.

Back at home, the sun has been getting stronger, and the evenings have been getting lighter – and now with Summer Time we will enjoy lovely late evenings for six months.

And I’ve been reflecting recently on a key influence in my life – the author James Clavell.

I remember as a child in the early 1980s being astonished that my mother could take on a 1300+ page book. Shogun, Clavell’s third key novel, had just been televised into a TV miniseries – the first western production ever filmed in Japan, apparently – starring Richard Chamberlain. I enjoyed the miniseries enough that soon enough I was reading the book myself – and I was gutted when, after those 1300+ pages, it finished.

Next up was Tai-Pan. This story is set in Hong Kong in the early/mid 19th century – after the British have won the opium wars. From Tai Pan, the obvious next book was Noble House – set in Hong Kong in 1963 – and featuring the author as a cameo. Another massive book – and another book which I was very disappointed it didn’t have another 500 pages.

These books inspired me to visit Asia as soon as I could. As a student I backpacked to Hong Kong and China and received a real life history lesson I shall never forget. While keen to visit Japan too, I feared the high prices on a student budget. It was over 10 years later that I felt able to afford Japan – but the country didn’t disappoint. It remains high on my all-time-best-ever countries to visit.

Subsequently I have visited much of South East Asia and those trips have had a profound influence on me. I can directly attribute that part of my life to loving Clavell’s novels. UPDATED: I re-read Shogun ten years later and enjoyed it at least as much 2nd time around.

So you can imagine my delight to hear that Disney has remade Shogun, to excellent reviews (particularly by Japanese critics – who didn’t much take to the 1980s version that I loved). I’ve been immersed in the first few episodes and I love all the memories that have been flooding back.

And to round off the month, I enjoyed a lovely coastal walk around the vicinity of a notable Tuscan tower called Clavell Tower. I am not aware of any direct link but it rounds out a month of Clavell-worship for me. It’s near Kimmeridge Bay – a particularly stunning bit of the Jurassic coast.

What author / artist has influenced you in your life? Any that have changed your course of history? Do tell, in the comments below.

Markets in March

Back to the the plot….

Markets had a good March, almost everywhere. Inflation is down considerably. Base rates haven’t yet started dropping but it feels like when, not if. The Ukraine and Gaza conflicts are not getting much better but aren’t disturbing the markets much. And the prospect of a Trump victory – and the potential destabilisation – is, for now, tomorrow’s problem.

The markets I am exposed to are within a whisker of their 2021 high water mark. Any tech exposure will likely have done particularly well.

My portfolio in March

My portfolio has largely mirrored the markets I’m in. Pockets of it have done particularly well – for instance my Interactive Brokers accounts, which are somewhat leveraged, were up almost 40% over 12 months at one point in March.

What next?

I am hoarding cash ready for the UK’s new ISA season starting next week. I haven’t managed to do much with my margin loan in the last few weeks. But in any case my leverage is down to around 16% Loan-to-Value, and should fall further shortly.

The markets feel quite toppy. I have been taking crystalling some capital gains/losses, ready for the end of the UK’s tax year on 5 April. I haven’t got too many loss-making positions left to crystallise – except for my USA Bond Index ETFs (AGG and BND) which I bought before Europe’s MIFID regulations came in, and now I can’t (easily) reacquire so I am hanging on to those positions out of almost sentimental value.

I recently tightened my target allocation – seeking to continue to reduce my leverage level steadily. My USA exposure continues to climb above my target; I am not earning enough dividends to be able to rebalance through dividend reinvestment alone and I am loath to sell long term US positions such as AMZN, GOOG and MSFT. For now, I am part of the bubble.