War: time to buy or sell?

FIRE v London5 Comments

My generation’s Cuban missile crisis is on the front pages. All manner of existential questions come to mind.  But as a starter, what’s a simple passive-orientated investor supposed to make of armageddon?

Past performance is no guide to future results.  But history rhymes.  What has happened in prior conflicts?

I’ve taken a cursory look at the UK and US equities markets.  Even for these markets, the most mature in the world, data prior to 1950 is pretty thin.  But I’ve found one study on each side of the pond and overlaid them on top of each other – hey, I said ‘cursory’! The background thin graph is Dow Jones; the foreground thick blue line is UK Equities (from a recent Barclays Equities Gilt Study). Both are nominal price indices – i.e. before inflation and without reinvestment.

2017 08 War stock markets graph.png

Here’s what I observe:

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July 2017: Congratulations, Mr Bezos

FIRE v London5 Comments

July saw a hotchpotch of news of all shapes and sizes.

Poor baby Charlie Gard caught the world’s attention.  I feel terrible for the parents, and also somewhat indignant about the hysterical coverage of the doctors and judges involved.  But from this blog’s point of view none of this is relevant so I will move on.

In the UK, pay was high on the agenda.  First of all with the post-election focus on the 1% public sector pay cap, now well below inflation.  Later in the month the BBC disclosed its highest paid staff, with a predictable fuss ensuing about an apparent gender pay gap. Meanwhile, across the pond Mr Bezos briefly became the world’s richest man, a rather less impressive fact when you consider how much more his gazillionaire rivals Buffett and Gates have supported charity and some of the astounding results the Bill & Melinda Gates is achieving (in part thanks to Buffett’s donated billions).

From a market point of view, what’s been going on?  The below-inflation pay cap bodes well for corporate earnings but badly for wider society.  And Bezos’s 15 minutes of fame stemmed from continued boom for USA tech stocks, as well as the wider markets. I only have a couple of the FAANGs in my portfolio but I’m not complaining.  USA equities were up over 1%, with UK and Oz markets rising a bit too.

In the currency markets, the pound and the US dollar both fell.  The Euro and the Aussie dollar both gained over 3% against the pound and dollar. Accordingly, European equities fell around 2% – this is a similar effect I think to what happens with the globally-exposed FTSE-100 when the pound gyrates. The more domestically-focused Australian equity market managed to rise despite a strengthening Australian dollar.

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June ’17/Q2 progress: Coalition of chaos

FIRE v London4 Comments

It’s the end of the second quarter.  That means it’s time for my usual monthly portfolio performance along with a quarterly review of how 2017 is progressing.

June’s news was dominated by the UK’s general election.  To my mind the electorate called it about right.  Under the UK’s first-past-the-post constituency system no voters have a say on the overall leadership, but nonetheless the overall outcome often reflects the wider mood of the nation with uncanny fidelity.  That’s what seemed to happen here: the Tories were badly led down by their leader, and Corbyn’s Labour offered a genuine and, to many, welcome alternative.  Yet at the end of the day the Tories remain in power, with an extremely short leash and an exploding collar.

201706 FIREvLondon June GBPUSDThe other news in June, which if you blinked you might have missed it, was the central banks publicly stuttering about the next policy move.  This unsettled UK and USA markets noticably, but it seems to have lasted less than a week.  From the point of view of my process however this was material; the pound gained about 3% culminating in it reaching $1.32 at exactly the end of the month (see graph).  Even as I write this, a few days later, the pound has reverted – but as I took my portfolio snapshot on 30 June my quarter-end numbers were pretty different.

Even a week before the end of June I was having a positive month.  But thanks to the pound blipping upwards at the last minute, and most of my portfolio being overseas at this point, I recorded a negative month. If the pound remains at the level it’s already returned to, then I am highly likely to post a positive July.

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