Actively manage your pension
Most people are quite happy to allow a fund manager to look after their pension, even those who actively manage other investments. I suggest the opposite. There are very good reasons for concentrating on your pension.
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More bull market?
FT Alphaville is skeptical of Morgan Stanley strategist Teun Draaisma’s bullish outlook. Looking at the arguments he makes in detail, I think he has a point, although I would be more worried about the downside.
Gay English for the hoi polloi
It appears that some people are using the phrase “the hoi polloi” to mean “the elite” rather than “the masses”. I have never come across a better argument for a classical education.
Turtles everywhere
I was on holiday last week, which, together with being sick this week, is why things have been a bit slow here. The highlight of the holiday was the invasion of the hotel by 50 or 60 green turtles.
Abolish planning laws; solve housing "crisis"
Imagine that the UK had enough housing that every single household occupied a detached or semi-detached house (two thirds of them in detached houses) and all the country’s 12 million currently occupied terraced houses, maisonettes and flats were empty. You might think that to provide so much housing we would need to “concrete over the countryside”, in fact we would need to switch just 2.5% of the UK’s land area to urban residential use. Switching much less would provide a more than adequate supply.
The myth of environmental myths
Time for another sample of incompetent journalism, this time from The Times. The headline claims that walking to the shops damages the planet more than going by car. Of course this is not even remotely true, and a few seconds thought is enough to tear the argument apart.
The software trap
Software companies have long ignored piracy most developing Asian countries, as a way of building market share. They are now starting to crack-down, and Adobe have apparently started on Sri Lanka. A friend of mine asked me what a business faced with a sudden increase in its costs (licences for some of this stuff are expensive), could do by way of switching to open source. This is my reply.
Wogen not irrationally priced
Richard Beddard appears to be willing to agree with me that most active investors will under-perform. We still disagree about how investors’ chances of out-performing are. Richard has focused on a particular company , Wogen, as an example of irrational underpricing. Naturally, it is now essential that I poke a few holes in his bullish analysis.
Lifecycle investing: when to switch?
The comments on a recent post questioned whether life cycle investing is a good idea. I think the idea is sound, but I think it is important to point out that thinking purely in terms of terminal wealth at retirement over-simplifies things.
Choosing tracker funds
In a comment on my recent post on why investor’s should not try to out-perform, Robin Sole brought up the important issue of how to choose tracker funds, and the lack of a good totally passive approach to investment.
What to avoid: Large cap growth
Given the size effect and the value effect, it would appear that the worst investment style is large cap growth. I spent some time looking at returns on the French Fama research portfolios and both effects seem to hold, but with some interesting twists.
The end of academic publishing
It has been clear to many analysts (including myself) for years that publishers of academic journals were facing the slow death of their business. Despite the view of publishers and the more optimistic analysts that peer reviews journals were irreplaceable, the evidence continues to emerge for a slow, but certain, decline.
You, investor, are a sucker: part 2
Richard Beddard’s response to my previous post, is not the end of the argument, although I will go along with his approach and answer his questionnaire.
My view of what it takes to out-perform is not very different from Richard’s, but it is an arithmetical necessity that most investors will not out-perform. I am very skeptical of anyone who claims that they are in the minority who can reliably do so.
The City and the tax haven
Richard Murphy has a good definition of a tax haven, but I disagree with his idea that having a large financial services sector is an important characteristic, although I do agree with his view that the UK and Ireland are both tax havens.
Will equity returns stay high?
The fascinating information on the drivers of returns on equities between the fifties and the nineties dug up by Richard Beddard, has a worrying aspect. Much of the gain came from one-off changes, so returns may not be as good in the future.
Switching back from (K)Ubuntu
I used Ubuntu and Kubuntu for over an year, but I recently switched back. Ubuntu has its strengths, but its fans forget its weaknesses. Software installation with Synaptic is superb (the best on any OS), as is the range of packages available. However, other admin tools are lacking.
Moneysupermarket IPO and web business valuation
Whenever there is a website IPO, those of us with profitable websites pay attention. While a small, privately owned website will need to be valued at a steep discount to a large, listed business, it is a useful indicator of value.
Web metrics are insane
To be precise, trying to find a single set of metrics to compare the audience of different types of websites it insane. That is why Nielson/Netrating’s decision to measure time spent on websites, rather than page views, does not really matter much. Those looking for a single measure across all websites are reducing a mistake of the dotcom boom.
Don't eat killer fruit!
One of the reasons given by The Guardian for the failure of a scheme to encourage children to eat more fruit, is that schools are reluctant to give children fruit with stones because they might choke. What is even more amazing is that the journalist writing it could let this idiocy, and the disturbing reasons for it, pass with absolutely no comment.