I really enjoyed this and it clarified some of the concerns I have. Lionel Shriver's "The Mandibles" sprang to mind as I was reading. I've only just read this but when the BoE did nothing after Kwasi's budget, I got the feeling they did it on purpose.
I do worry about cbdc and the power it will hand the state. Totally insidious. However, there will be consequences that those in their ivory towers won't have anticipated. What they are , who knows ? A barter comeback, civil unrest, perhaps migration to countries who still use cash ? I suspect investment might dry up, innovation will die just it does when price caps /rent controls are imposed.
I have thought long and hard (and still thinking) about whether buy a house on the outskirts of a town with a large enough block to have chooks, veggies, a stand of trees for firewood and perhaps a pig. Didn't one of the stoics say you only needed a garden and a library ? But I need to weigh that up against enjoying sitting on my ass reading substacks :)
I'd never heard of Trend Following funds so I will investigate.
There is something about gold - my daughter loves to hold it :) I jokingly tell her she should take it to school and charge a fee to any classmates that want a 'hold'.
Lastly, I might have enjoyed being a Cathar priest
I follow the arguments for holding gold (and miners, etc.), however I find the (spot) price action over the last 6 months difficult to understand in the light of the onset of supply side price inflation, the dire general background financial environment that you lucidly describe and Dominic Frisby's comments about the real state of Chinese gold holdings.
Why do you think gold is currently languishing/declining and what might be the triggers that cause a change in sentiment towards the metal? Are gold futures' prices heralding price increases coming down the pike?
My suspicion is that the gold price is being artificially suppressed by the authorities (central banks, for example, are still accumulating physical bullion, and mad as they are would surely prefer to do so at lower prices than higher ones). We know that bullion banks play games in the paper market all the time. Suffice to say, when the price of gold really starts to motor higher in US dollars, and not just all other fiat currencies, the jig may be conclusively up.
Thanks and that makes total sense. I am also planning to look at commodity and value stocks but want to see another major market down leg first. Appreciate your perspectives!!
Excellent summary of some investment topics you have mentioned at various times in the past.
As of today my Trend Following fund (15% of portfolio) is currently up 56% YTD. My precious metals stocks (20% of my portfolio) are currently down 27% over original purchase price.
An obvious question for you, given what you say about Trend Following in this article and your very good book Investing Through the Looking Glass, why is your allocation to Trend Following not significantly higher than 20% in these uncertain times?
I currently have a 12% worth of my portfolio tied up for some 6 months in a private fund awaiting "imminent" payout and it was my intention to allocate that to a trend following fund. Needless to say I feel gutted that I wasn't able to deploy it back in April.
Thanks for the kind words. Asset allocation, and investing in general, is as much art as science - and we won't know the results until well after the fact. We're already seriously considering raising our exposure to trend-followers, but i) they don't pay coupons or dividends, ii) their own drawdowns can be hair-raising, and iii) we genuinely expect to generate higher returns - over time - from value stocks, especially in the commodities sector. So everything is a pay-off and a compromise, one way or another..
I really enjoyed this and it clarified some of the concerns I have. Lionel Shriver's "The Mandibles" sprang to mind as I was reading. I've only just read this but when the BoE did nothing after Kwasi's budget, I got the feeling they did it on purpose.
I do worry about cbdc and the power it will hand the state. Totally insidious. However, there will be consequences that those in their ivory towers won't have anticipated. What they are , who knows ? A barter comeback, civil unrest, perhaps migration to countries who still use cash ? I suspect investment might dry up, innovation will die just it does when price caps /rent controls are imposed.
I have thought long and hard (and still thinking) about whether buy a house on the outskirts of a town with a large enough block to have chooks, veggies, a stand of trees for firewood and perhaps a pig. Didn't one of the stoics say you only needed a garden and a library ? But I need to weigh that up against enjoying sitting on my ass reading substacks :)
I'd never heard of Trend Following funds so I will investigate.
There is something about gold - my daughter loves to hold it :) I jokingly tell her she should take it to school and charge a fee to any classmates that want a 'hold'.
Lastly, I might have enjoyed being a Cathar priest
Excellent article, thanks!
I follow the arguments for holding gold (and miners, etc.), however I find the (spot) price action over the last 6 months difficult to understand in the light of the onset of supply side price inflation, the dire general background financial environment that you lucidly describe and Dominic Frisby's comments about the real state of Chinese gold holdings.
Why do you think gold is currently languishing/declining and what might be the triggers that cause a change in sentiment towards the metal? Are gold futures' prices heralding price increases coming down the pike?
My suspicion is that the gold price is being artificially suppressed by the authorities (central banks, for example, are still accumulating physical bullion, and mad as they are would surely prefer to do so at lower prices than higher ones). We know that bullion banks play games in the paper market all the time. Suffice to say, when the price of gold really starts to motor higher in US dollars, and not just all other fiat currencies, the jig may be conclusively up.
Thanks and that makes total sense. I am also planning to look at commodity and value stocks but want to see another major market down leg first. Appreciate your perspectives!!
Excellent summary of some investment topics you have mentioned at various times in the past.
As of today my Trend Following fund (15% of portfolio) is currently up 56% YTD. My precious metals stocks (20% of my portfolio) are currently down 27% over original purchase price.
An obvious question for you, given what you say about Trend Following in this article and your very good book Investing Through the Looking Glass, why is your allocation to Trend Following not significantly higher than 20% in these uncertain times?
I currently have a 12% worth of my portfolio tied up for some 6 months in a private fund awaiting "imminent" payout and it was my intention to allocate that to a trend following fund. Needless to say I feel gutted that I wasn't able to deploy it back in April.
Thanks for the kind words. Asset allocation, and investing in general, is as much art as science - and we won't know the results until well after the fact. We're already seriously considering raising our exposure to trend-followers, but i) they don't pay coupons or dividends, ii) their own drawdowns can be hair-raising, and iii) we genuinely expect to generate higher returns - over time - from value stocks, especially in the commodities sector. So everything is a pay-off and a compromise, one way or another..