Feb ’24: Envyidia

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I’ve had quite a lot of culture to enjoy in February.

Aside from some travel for the Six Nations rugby, I’ve been to two shows – one in London’s Royal Opera House and one on the south coast.

Thanks to HMG for the subsidy

Both events were either full or practically full. Covid feels fully behind us now. But the prices have stayed with us.

A cultural lighthouse

I was struck by the demographic difference between these two nights out. I know, I know, the demographics of opera and concerts are not a fully reliable guage. But I was practically the youngest person in the audience at Poole’s Lighthouse concert hall, whereas I felt 2nd quartile old in London’s Royal Opera House. Is this a reflection of where the money sits – with retirees only in Dorset, and with well-heeled workers and tourists in London? A rhetorical question, for now.

Markets in February 2024

The USA stock market continued to be the main story in February.

Though if you were paying attention, the Japanese market has been setting new records too – the Nikkei 225 is up 20% Year to Date.

It wasn’t just Japan that’s booming, with Asia ex Japan up 4.5% in February itself. Over in Europe and Australia we had much less excitement; Europe ex UK was up 2.8%, Australia up only 1.2% and the misery-guts UK’s market rose only 0.5%.

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Jan ’24: A giant tax bill lands

FIRE v London1 Comment

One of several highlights for me in January was visiting Salisbury cathedral, which I did on an impulse while travelling back from the Coastal Folly.

My main frame of reference to the cathedral being those notorious Russian nerve agent assassins citing it as their reason for visiting England, something which to a Londoner had as much plausibility as as Putin’s claims that Ukraine’s Nazis started the war. I hadn’t taken seriously the idea that the cathedral might actually be a reason to visit England. But I would say I was wrong – it is stunning, and surprisingly moving. Photos really don’t do it justice.

Elsewhere in the world, the focus has shifted from the Ukraine war to the Gaza crisis – which has escalated to the Houthi shipping attacks off the Yemen.

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In praise of Berkshire Hathaway

FIRE v London8 Comments

I think I first clocked Warren Buffett’s (and Charlie Munger RIP’s) Berkshire Hathaway around the year 2000. I loved the story. Starting from, as the story was told back then, humble beginnings and a paper round, Warren Buffett (and Charlie – who I will stop mentioning but absolutely deserves practically half the credit) had built Berkshire into a giant. 

Buy & hold – what’s not to like?

Berkshire was the holding company of an investing approach par excellence. Buy great businesses at a fair price, hold forever, reinvest dividends, job done.

The business had never paid a dividend or split the stock, which by that point had reached over $70k per (Class A) share. It had annual meetings in Omaha, its home town, which were already becoming a cult following. 

There was also something about Warren Buffett’s penny pinching ways that appealed to me. He lived in his first house, he drove practically his original car. Part of his aversion to splitting the stock was the (tiny, in the scheme of things) cost of a stock split (though he did thankfully create the B shares in 1996, which are identical to A shares but a fraction of the price). He preached from the book of compound interest and his lectures were very compelling.

And yet

There was something sufficiently compelling about Berkshire Hathaway to me, as a baby FIREr back in 2000ish, that I named one of my assets after the business. That asset remains to this day, though it has sadly failed to prosper in line with the mighty BRK. 

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