Good reads from around the Web.
This graph from J.P. Morgan via Business Insider [1] tells an old story very well – that the huge volatility in the returns from shares tends towards a positive return, given sufficient time:
![[Click to enlarge-ify]](https://i0.wp.com/monevator.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/equity-bonds-time-returns.jpg?ssl=1)
[2][Click to enlarge-ify]
I know, I know – we’re all aware and cheerfully appreciative of this fact these days. We’re five years into a bull market, and everyone has forgotten what a bear market [3] feels like, let alone the mood of despair at the bottom [4].
Maybe you could bookmark the graph, ahead for the next (inevitable) crash?
Please ‘like me’! Please!
Desperate pleading is seldom appealing to anyone – unless you’re a Dominatrix who has spent a fortune on a new home dungeon in your basement and you’re husband is finally playing along – but here’s another request for you to ‘Like’ Monevator on Facebook [5].
I don’t mean via the little ‘Like’ buttons at the top and bottom of this post.
Rather, can you please follow this link [5] to officially ‘like’ the Monevator on Facebook using the Like button on the Facebook page that loads.
Several thousand people read Weekend Reading every Saturday and Sunday, so I know plenty of you do like Monevator.
Also, I’m often asked whether people can give donations or similar as a (very generous) thank you for our efforts here.
No, it’s fine, really. But please do Like us on Facebook!
I’m sick of it being under 1,000 Likes.
If we can get Likes into four figures then I can forget about it for a few years.
Comment concerns
Finally, a few people have reported comments disappearing into the ether this week – and I have found a couple incorrectly chucked into the trash.
Generally they’re comments by people with financial websites that the spam filter is incorrectly labeling as junk.
No offense, I didn’t program it! 🙂
Monevator gets several thousand spam comments every single day, and at one point I was having to deal with them every few hours.
Now I have multiple layers of protection, and they work well. But the latest updates do seem a little trigger happy.
If you repeatedly post comments that never appear on the site – and you’re not a Ukrainian trying to sell dodgy wares over the Internet – then please do drop me a line [6] and I’ll go looking in the garbage. (You’ll need to be quick, as the spam comments are ditched fairly regularly for sheer volume reasons).
On the same topic, I’m hoping to move to a more modern comment system soon that will enable you to hook up with Facebook or Twitter or else a Monevator user account.
It should also make it easier to have proper conversations with replies and so on.
Watch this space!
From the blogs
Making good use of the things that we find…
Passive investing
- The behaviour gap – Abnormal Returns [7]
- It’s investor behaviour that matters – The Irrelevant Investor [8]
- Not everyone sucks at investing – Philosophical Economics [9]
Investing by country: Mini-special section
- Don’t chase the best performing countries – Novel Investor [10]
- Benchmarking global assets – Pragmatic Capitalism [11]
Active investing
- Does ‘doubling down’ work for fund managers? – Alpha Architect [12]
- Red flags in company risk reports – Share Sleuth [13]
- Measuring leverage in financial companies – UK Value Investor [14]
- Why commodity stocks are so risky – The Value Perspective [15]
- The maths of returns – Oddball Stocks [16]
- Are social media stocks coming of age? – Musings on Markets [17]
Other articles
- Dividends versus price appreciation – Oblivious Investor [18]
- Reversion to the mean – DIY investor (uk) [19]
- Surprise surprise: US not bust – Investing Caffeine [20]
- Simplify your life – Farnham Street [21]
- Bears Anonymous – Cassandra Does Tokyo [22]
Product of the week: ThisIsMoney [23] notes that First Direct [24] has launched a 1.39% two-year fixed rate mortgage. You’ll need a 35% deposit and the arrangement fee is almost £2,000.
Mainstream media money
Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view these enable you to click through to read the piece without being a paid subscriber of that site.1 [25]
Passive investing
- The shameful secrets of ‘active’ fund managers [Search result] – FT [26]
Active investing
- [Read the FT article above, to discover the potential benefit of ‘active share’]
- Jim O’Shaughnessy: A deep dive into price-to-book value – Yahoo [27]
- We’re back to the 1990s with stock options – Fortune [28]
- The economics of US shale and $75 oil – Bloomberg [29]
Other stuff worth reading
- UK homes: £5 trillion [Again [30], a balance sheet is not just debt!] – Guardian [31]
- …still, something surely has to give in UK real estate – WSJ [32]
- …but you’re not convinced? Then put your BTL into a pension – Telegraph [33]
- Morgan Housel: Why I love investing – Fool US [34]
- Morrisons now the cheapest supermarket – Guardian [35]
- Jeremy Grantham: Oil is still all-important – Barron’s [36]
- On China: Globalisation 2.0 – Telegraph [37]
- Scott ‘Dilbert’ Adams: Why a system is better than a goal – Inc [38]
Book of the week: A surprising array of successful people sing the praises of self-help guru Tony Robbins. He’s now written a book on getting rich: Money: Master the Game [39]
Like these links? Subscribe [40] to get them every week!
- Reader Ken notes that: “FT articles can only be accessed through the search results if you’re using PC/desktop view (from mobile/tablet view they bring up the firewall/subscription page). To circumvent, switch your mobile browser to use the desktop view. On Chrome for Android: press the menu button followed by “Request Desktop Site”.” [↩ [43]]