Reading Time: 5 minutes First featured on LCP Viewpoints I’ve seen several crises over my investment career most notably the 2008 crisis which occurred at a formative time in my industry development the lessons of which certainly influenced me – and I think many of my peers – for many years after (for better and worse). So I think … More Five things I learnt in 2020
Reading Time: 6 minutes GDP growth? US non-farm payrolls? Fed funds rate ? Oil price? VIX, change in the Baltic Dry index? All of those might make good candidates, but when it comes to overuse one number trumps them all thanks to its seductive power. The Price/Earnings ratio. Let me explain why. There’s quite a lot of psychology bound … More The most overused number in investing
Reading Time: 6 minutes For a spotify playlist of all these episodes click here. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the quality of free content in blogs, articles and podcasts these days is I think on a par with what you’d get in a masters degrees in times past, if you know where to look. … More The Top 12 FinPods of 2020
Reading Time: 7 minutes The big question that every investor must be wrestling with right now as we go into 2021 is the prospect for future returns. Do we need to take more risk to earn decent returns in a world of zero interest rates? This could be biggest investing puzzle of our time (a question Josh Brown posed … More Good and bad answers to the biggest portfolio puzzle
Reading Time: 4 minutes The Economist recently put out an epic on the future of asset management. Some of the conclusions were fairly obvious and well-known (albeit still important) but a couple of others struck me as under-appreciated. Who allocates capital? When you strip asset management back to its core societal purpose it’s about allocating investors’ capital to the … More Who allocates capital these days?
Reading Time: 4 minutes It’s good news when the stock market hits a new high, right? Well … maybe, but it might not seem like it if you are about to put money to work in the market , considering how to invest ongoing savings, or even making a switch from one asset class to another. If the market … More Advice for investing at all time highs
Reading Time: 2 minutes I’ve got a whacky and unpopular theory, hear me out … The largest group of tech stocks have soared past many market cap milestones recently. If only I’d had £1 for every time I’ve read that Apple exceeded the market cap of the FTSE 100 (eye catching, but so what?) and more recently that this … More Why FANMAG stocks are under-owned
Reading Time: 4 minutes Apparently only 12% of poker hands are actually won by the best cards. It’s not the cards you are dealt that determines your success, it’s how you play them … That’s one of the central themes of the excellent book by journalist Maria Konnikova, The Biggest Bluff which charts her unlikely journey from psychology researcher, … More Think Like a Poker Player
Reading Time: 3 minutes First published in Family Capital. It may surprise you to learn that the historic city of Siena, in Italy, population 30,000, covers the same area as a road junction in Texas, population zero. How much does each contribute to GDP? How much is each worth? What would you pay as an investor to own the … More The future of investing in buildings
Reading Time: 9 minutes Think Like a Military Commander: The Red Team “One thing a person cannot do, no matter how rigorous his analysis, is draw up a list of thing that would never occur to him” – Thomas Schelling The commander had a serious problem. It was October 2010, a company of Paras had just arrived in southern … More The military’s powerful risk management technique
