Tag: FIRE

AI comes to FI

FIRE v London4 Comments

Rishi Sunak, the former UK prime minister and current Sunday Times journalist, observes that every CEO is talking about AI – so why aren’t political leaders? So it seems a good time to bring some AI into the world of FI blogging.

Large Language Models such as ChatGPT have been mesmerising, but it doesn’t take long playing with them to realise they are much better with Language than with Numbers. However with the latest models bringing more inference into their logic that is starting to change.

I’ve been playing with Claude and Gemini in the context of my portfolio and blog. They are proving genuinely useful. For reference, I am a paying customer of both – and am using Projects/Gems to partition my experimentation and (I believe) avoid uploading key financial data into their wider cloud/models.

Key tasks AI has proven useful for so far include:

  • Take my 24/25 tax return and estimate my tax bill for the next financial year. Gemini notably better than Claude on this one.
  • Review a 24/25 tax return for errors. A HNW friend of mine found a £100k error in his accountant-prepared tax return using Claude.
  • Update dividend yields and TERs/OCFs in my master portfolio list. This is a task made for Claude.

As a taster I’ve appended below what Claude said when I asked it what Warren Buffett/Charlie Munger would think of my portfolio.

Continue reading “AI comes to FI” →

Mar ’25: Anticipating tariffs

FIRE v London5 Comments

What’s in the news?

Talking about the news in March, given what’s been happing on the tariff front over the last few weeks, seems a bit pointless.

We entered March with a lot of drama about Ukraine, and some notable ‘ceasefire’ activity on the diplomatic front.

We finished March waiting for ‘liberation day’, April 2nd, when Trump unleashed a basically bonkers cocktail of tariffs on every country in the world – except Russia, of course.

What’s going on with me?

In the meantime, life goes on.

I attended a funeral of a long time friend and neighbour in north London.

I visited a rather bizarre concert in the Royal Festival Hall.

And I visited hospital for my first MRI scan, participating in a clinical research programme at University College London Hospital. I was impressed, I have to say, and grateful that I live within relatively easy reach of this excellent hospital.

I also visited Dorset – Studland to be precise – and went yomping up to Old Harry Rocks, the start of the Jurassic Coast. It’s a beautiful part of the world, and less than 3 hours from London Waterloo.

Markets in March

My markets’ movements in March 2025

Markets generally drooped in March, particularly the US’s S&P500. Enthusiasm/animal spirits from Trump’s election win are being replaced by trepidation / concern about Trump not being good for the US economy after all. The dollar, and the AUD, fell against the pound.

Continue reading “Mar ’25: Anticipating tariffs” →

Feb ’25: The top comes off

FIRE v LondonLeave a comment

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.

Continue reading “Feb ’25: The top comes off” →