stock-market – Page 2 – FIRE v London

Sep ’25: Gains continue, and I trim

2025-10-112025-10-11 FIRE v LondonLeave a comment

September was a busy month.

In the middle of it we saw a disruptive tube strike. I don’t use the tube that much so didn’t expect it to affect me much but two important meetings were postponed, one of which still hasn’t happened, so that event has stayed in my memory. Thank goodness for rental bikes – Lime in particular played a blinder by ‘flooding the zone’ around train stations in particular.

The evenings are drawing in. But that does afford a new view of central London – there aren’t too many of those around – at the new development at Paddington station.

I took in my first concert at Wigmore Hall, a little central London treasure that has somehow passed me by for decades.

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July ’25: New high watermark

2025-08-16 FIRE v LondonLeave a comment

There wasn’t a huge amount to report from July.

Politically/economically I fear the most important event in the UK was the Labour government’s failure to enact its intended welfare reforms. This leaves the government a) unable to control spending b) unable to nudge the economy towards more jobs and more growth and c) facing politically expensive tax rises later in the year. For now, this hasn’t impacted the stats or portfolio very much, but it will have more of an impact over the next few years.

Meanwhile, it was a nice pleasant summer month in the UK. I managed to get to Wimbledon for the semi finals, which was a delight. I also explored the bird sanctuary at Arne, near Poole, and other bits of Dorset. I even visited Italy, which was surprisingly good value for money.

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April 2025 – balmy weather, barmy markets

2025-05-242025-05-24 FIRE v London4 Comments

Better late than never, I’m doing a quick update on April. More for the record than because anything particularly notable happened in the portfolio, ignoring the mid month gyrations.

It was a lovely month, April. I did a bit of travelling, but the UK had generally lovely spring weather – as the photos illustrate. I find a consequence of having both the Dream Home in London, and the Coastal Folly is that when the weather is lovely I can really begrudge being in London – a relatively new feeling for me I must admit.

*How did a non-London city picture get into this blog?*

As I write this, it’s almost the end of May, so rambling around April market performance doesn’t feel like it’s going to be of much interest to anybody. In fact with a week of May to go, the S&P has recovered from the Trump TariFFS episode. The key point is that Trump announced a u turn / 90 day pause in his tariff plan, which the markets took as a reason to return to normal. Go figure. Since when has Very Bad News in 90 days’ time been discounted away to practically zero?

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