Feb ’25: The top comes off

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What’s in the news?

The Trump, is in the news. He gets more than enough coverage without me adding to it.

From the point of view of what affects portfolios like mine, a few things happened

  • Tariffs. Lots of chat, lots of yo-yoing. Not good for larger businesses, possibly quite good for smaller ones?
  • War, lots of yo-yoing. Might it/they stop? Or might Russia become more terrifying?
  • Defence spending is clearly going up, though I suspect by less than the claimed amounts.
  • Longer term, the life of the US Dollar as reserve currency has shortened.

What’s going on with me?

My personal life was quite busy in February. I visited the UK city with the most caves (anybody know?), I had a short break in the Canaries, I enjoyed some time on the South Coast, I went to a play in East London. Busy, good busy.

Markets in Feb

Vanguard World Equities (VWRL) fell 3.5% in February, but UK Equities (which are <4% of World Equities) rose 2%. US Bond aggregates were up over 2%, though international (non UK/US/Aus) bonds dropped 1%. So your market benchmark very much depended on which markets you are benchmarked against. But the top does seem to have come off the US S&P ‘bubble’… let’s see how it unfolds in the next few weeks.

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Buy to let: RIP

FIRE v London17 Comments

Last year was the end of an era. I sold the Modern Flat, after owning it for over 20 years.

A bit of history

I ended up with my Modern Flat in that common way that many ‘accidental’ landlords have. It was my first rung on the property ownership ladder. Until it was time to get onto the second rung. I thought I’d live there for several years – though in practice I lived there less time than I had originally expected.

The flat itself is a new build flat in central London, to a reasonable spec. It is slightly bigger than average, but has no outdoor space whatsoever. I loved living there, albeit that was a long time ago. It had a great reception space but rather cramped bedrooms with insufficient storage. This suited me fine – bedrooms are for sleeping in, and living rooms are where you live. The building had a residents’ association, a management company, and a porter. I bought the flat on a long 200+ year lease, and had to sign up to both a ground rent (doubling every 25 years) and a service charge (set by the management company).

I managed to climb onto the second rung without selling the Modern Flat. Instead, I kept it, ever since, I rented it out. This isn’t, strictly, a ‘buy to let’ property in that I didn’t buy it to let it.

I haven’t strictly treated my Modern Flat as an investment. As an illiquid asset, I don’t track it as part of my invested portfolio. Nonetheless, my decision to sell it was mostly financially driven.

Buy to let financials – the theory

The case for being a landlord, as I see it, has three key financial arguments in its favour:

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Jan ’25: Trump 2.0 begins

FIRE v London1 Comment

Was it just me, or was the media relentless in January?

We had a remarkable fracas about the so-called “Pakistani grooming gangs” scandal here in the UK, with Elon Musk weighing in. At the time it seemed remarkable but one month later, as I write this, I am pleased to say I can’t remember the details.

Of course January saw President Trump inaugurated. Which was something of a Spinal Tap moment because, if we thought his media volume level was loud beforehand, it has ramped up to 11/10 subsequently.

On the eve of the inauguration, we saw the Gaza ceasefire. One month later, the ceasefire has held – which is something I suppose. The Israelis are adamant this isn’t a peace – presumably as the Koreans were too back in 1953 – and the mood remains febrile.

Very sadly LA saw the most expensively damaging forest fires on US record. I am a huge fan of LA, and was horrified to hear the fire reached only a few metres away from the Getty Museum – one of my favourite buildings. Thankfully it appears to have been one of the best designed buildings too.

Here in the UK, aside from the Musk politics nonsense, the main theme has been economic growth – or rather the lack of it. The chancellor Reeves has come out fighting, with a raft of pretty proactive announcements such as supporting a third runway at LHR, green lighting the “positive economic outlook – “Ox-Cam arc”, and so on. I take her less and less seriously, but await Labour’s proposed planning reforms with interest.

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