Category: Investment returns

A belated write-up of the month of August.

Thinking back a month, two stories pop out for me.

One was the death of Russian mutineer Yevgeny Prigozhin – a larger-than-life modern day warlord, responsible for the ‘little green men’ at the start of the Russian/Ukraine war in 2014, the troll farms that may well have influenced both the Trump election and the Brexit referendum, several regime changes in Africa and a bizarre rebellion in Russia just (in fact, exactly) two months earlier.

The second story was the long awaited expansion of London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) rules across the whole of London. This means that polluting vehicles (about 1 in 6 in recently expanded areas) must pay £12.50 every day that they drive. The ULEZ started many years ago – under a certain Mr B Johnson as London mayor in fact – and saw some grumbling but nothing unexpected when it expanded into my area a few years back. But the expansion to London’s outskirts – 20 miles from the centre – set off a political storm when it caused an upset in the Uxbridge by-election (caused by that same Mr Johnson’s latest antics), and since then the politics of environmentally-driven policies have been upended. There will be more repercussions attributed to the ULEZ and that Uxbridge byelection, I’m certain.

My August

August saw an influx of overseas visitors. A highlight was a trip to The Hut restaurant on the Isle of Wight, which is London prices and service levels in a fantastic coastal setting.

I also managed a bit of walking on the south coast, near Weymouth.

Continue reading “Aug ’23: ULEZ expansion, market contraction” →

It’s been a dismally wet July here in London. About 50% more rainfall than normal (which, before ye scoff, isn’t that much – London is a fairly dry city – drier than Rome and much drier than Sydney). It has been long trousers weather, for the first time in several years. But at least the evenings have been long.

I’ve managed to spend a bit of time on the south coast. Over in Dorset and even getting over to the Isle of Wight.

The political weather has changed considerably too. We had three Tory by-elections, with each won by a different party – i.e. the Tories lost two out of the three. But the big news has been the one, Uxbridge (the former PM Johnson’s former constituency), on the north west of London that the Tories hung on to by a whisker. Their “success” was attributed to their exploitation of Uxbridge disaffection with the impending expansion of the low emission zone (a scheme introduced by, erm, Johnson when is was Mayor of London) to include Uxbridge. This supposedly signals the high water mark for Net Zero political consensus in the UK.

Continue reading “July ’23: Markets up, Coutts down” →

June saw UK’s former PM Mr Johnson leave parliament. Good riddance. I suspect we haven’t seen or (definitely) read the last of him but having him out of Westminster is at least a bit safer than him inside.

Closer to (my Coastal Folly) home, there has been a sad story in Bournemouth of two tourists being killed swimming near Bournemouth pier. After a lot of huffing and puffing about manslaughter, it appears as if it was an act of nature via a rip tide. A reminder of the respect we need to have for all water – especially around the coasts. I’ve had quite a bit of coastal action in June and I am finding it to be a rewarding new side to my life.

June was apparently the hottest June, globally, on record. That certainly wasn’t exactly what it felt like in England. Though a June highlight for me was a trip to Royal Ascot where it was certainly hot enough for me – and I wasn’t even wearing a top hat.

And from a market point of view, it feels like the wider themes of the year continue.

• Inflation is dropping, but too slowly in the UK. Interest rates are continuing to rise as a consequence, which is pushing the pound up (as I write this, in July, we are at £1:$1.31 – this is a factor the swivel-eyed Torygraph/Trussite factionalists completely ignore) and causing a lot of squealing about mortgage costs. The US seems to be ahead of the curve here, never having had the same spike in energy costs as Europe saw, with inflation now down to around 3%.
• UK doom/gloom-mongering. This sentiment is so widespread that even I, never the most optimistic person about our policymakers, am starting to feel the doom/gloom has been overdone. It feels like the only clear fix for the mood rot that has set in will be a general election that throws the Tories out. But that might just be my north London friends’ bubble.
• Tech firms continuing to rebound, dragging the S&P up with them. How I am cursing losing my bottle on META six months ago, and not quite investing in TSLA at $125 in January. Ho hum.

Selected tech mega-cap stocks, YTD

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