Every person I’ve spoken with in Britain says Trump will win. “Social stigma disappears in the booth, you have no idea whats coming.”
— Downtown Josh Brown (@ReformedBroker) October 5, 2016 [1]
The first to die was Protesilaus
A focused man who hurried to darkness
With forty black ships leaving the land behind
Men sailed with him from those flower-lit cliffs
Where the grass gives growth to everything
Pyrasus Iton Pteleus Antron
He died in mid-air jumping to be first ashore
There was his house half-built
His wife rushed out clawing her face
Pordacus his altogether less impressive brother
Took over command but that was long ago
He’s been in the black earth dead now for thousands of years
Like a wind-murmur
Begins a rumour of waves
One long note getting louder
The water breathes a deep sigh
Like a land-ripple
When the west wind runs through a field
Wishing and searching
Nothing to be found
The corn-stalks shake their green heads
Like a wind-murmur
Begins a rumour of waves
One long note getting louder
The water breathes a deep sigh
Like a land-ripple
When the west wind runs through a field
Wishing and searching
Nothing to be found
The corn-stalks shake their green heads
– From Memorial [2], by Alice Oswald
Given my views about what drove Brexit, it’ll be no surprise to hear I thought Trump would probably win. Surely everyone by now understands there are bigger themes at work? If you still want to argue, I presume you’re on-board with them.
Please don’t tell me it’s all about economic inequality. See the exit polls in the links below. Trump voter average incomes skew higher than Clinton’s.
(Also, for the umpteenth time, you personally might have voted for UK sovereignty. Fine, I respect that. But that wasn’t why your side won the referendum.)
I know some loyal readers hate these political asides. Unfortunately for them I want to speak out more than I want to keep them happy. Please skip to the links below for vanilla personal finance.
Sure, my hope is populism starts to recede as this pressure valve is released. That the extreme end of liberal thinking looks up from its personal political navel and re-engages with wider concerns. That Trump moderates in the White House. That the checks and balances work. That things don’t turn out as badly as they can do once his sort of rhetoric is legitimized.
But if so, it won’t be because people who were appalled by it all just bury their heads, hold their tongues, and shrug.
It will be partly because they shouted it down, however modest their platform.
For now, regime change is in the air. Politically and in the markets.
Have a good weekend.
Hail President-Elect Trump
“Our suspicion: the civilizing forces that make rich countries rich are quite fragile.
The big economic worry about a Trump presidency therefore isn’t that it might kick inflation up a notch or reduce manufacturing productivity by limiting import competition.
The thing to be worried about is that the elevation of a man who doesn’t seem to respect some of the most basic values of an open society could contribute to the corrosion of America’s institutions.
The impact might be subtle at first, and could even be masked by a period of strong growth thanks to fiscal profligacy. But eventually we would all end up much poorer than we otherwise would have been.”
– Subscriber-only content, FT Alphaville [3]
- Why America elected Trump [Video] – Guardian [4]
- Trump victory is our post-crisis political reckoning [Search result] – FT [5]
- 7 takeaways from the victory of Donald Trump [Search result] – FT [6]
- Trump and Brexit: Why it’s again not the economy, stupid – L.S.E. [7]
- First Brexit, now Trump – Simple Living in Suffolk [8]
- The election exit polls [Note higher-income Trumpers] – New York Times [9]
- Trump and Brexit: Demographic voting data, side-by-side – BBC [10]
- Simon Schama: Accepting the result, not staying calm [Search result] – FT [11]
- Win has “emboldened the forces of hate and bigotry” – Harry Reid [12]
- Markets buy certainty – The Reformed Broker [13]
- Also: Off the lows – The Reformed Broker [14]
- Trump and the markets: Six impossible things [Search result] – FT [15]
- What does Trump mean for markets? [Hint: Up] – Pragmatic Capitalism [16]
- Also: The failing pursuit of the truth – Pragmatic Capitalism [17]
- More on the potential for a Trumped up stock market bubble – AWOCS [18]
- Goldman Sachs and ‘Gandalf’ bullish on US stocks, too – Bloomberg [19]
- Trump will help kill 30-year bond rally [Search result] – FT [20]
- Bond rout underway [21], yields could jump ‘bigly’ – MarketWatch [22]
- Trump win sparks emerging markets sell-off – The Australian [23]
- Markets are indulging in make-believe [Search result] – FT [24]
- Never sell everything like this guy did, whatever you fear – Bloomberg [25]
- Gold sales went “absolutely bonkers” on Trump win – ThisIsMoney [26]
- Trump’s win yields investing wisdom – Barry Ritholz [27]
- Jeremy Siegel on the stock market’s reaction [Podcast] – Wharton [28]
- Volatility tends to decline after US presidential elections – Vanguard [29]
- Will Trump now go after Apple and Amazon? [Podcast] – The Verge [30]
- Overconfidence and the scout mindset – Abnormal Returns [31]
- Globalization and the liberal economic consensus in full retreat – IFA [32]
- US national security officials consider the future under Trump – Guardian [33]
- The German for Barry Blimp [34] is “Wutbürger” [PDF]– Oaktree Capital [35]
- President Trump: How and why [Video, NSFW] – YouTube [36]
- Michael Moore’s 5-point plan – Good.is [37]
- ACLU’s open letter to Trump – Twitter [38]
From the blogs
Making good use of the things that we find…
Passive investing
- Don’t be a ‘2% investor’ – The Reformed Broker [39]
- Always be ready to buy bad news – The Irrelevant Investor [40]
- Swedroe: “There is no logical reason to prefer dividends” [Podcast] – Meb Faber [41]
Active investing
- Jeremy Grantham’s latest gloomy letter [PDF] – GMO [42]
- How Homeserve PLC returned 134% in three years – UK Value Investor [43]
- Time to buy emerging market dividends? – Wisdom Tree [44]
- An interview with stockpicking legend Bill Miller [Podcast] – Barry Ritholz [45]
- Direct experience versus data mining – The Value Perspective [46]
- DCFs and near-zero risk free rates – Musings on Markets [47]
- Also: How Seth Klarman selects a discount rate – The Acquirer’s Multiple [48]
- Cultivating a compounding machine [Podcast] – Investor’s Field Guide [49]
Other articles
- Baby steps for future millionaires – The Escape Artist [50]
- The downside of retirement – Can I Retire Yet? [51]
- Where’s the snowball? Save hard to retire early – Retirement Investing Today [52]
- Trials & tribulations of selling £2m London home in 2016 – FireVLondon #1 [53] / #2 [54]
- Rent or buy? [Note: Mortgage interest NOT deductible in UK] – Oblivious Investor [55]
- Another US perspective: Don’t buy a starter home – A Wealth of Common Sense [56]
- Have a F-Off Account [Sweary video] – Agnes Török [57]
- How to gamify your life to accomplish big goals – Benjamin Hardy [58]
Product of the week: After the sudden spike in bond yields, could the long march down in fixed-rate mortgages come to an end soon? For now TSB [59] has dropped the rate on its five-year fix to a new low of 1.89%. You need to be looking to remortgage with 40% or more equity in your home, and the £995 fee means HSBC’s [60] 1.99% fee-free rate remains slightly cheaper all-in.
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 [61]
Passive investing
- MoneyBox interview with Vanguard founder Jack Bogle [Podcast] – BBC [62]
- Some index funds are better than others – Morningstar [63]
- Interview with Larry Swedroe about factor-based investing – Mutual Funds [64]
- Why the maths behind passive investing might be wrong [Hmm…] – WSJ [65]
Active investing
- ETFs attract more than $3.2tn to pass hedge funds [Search result] – FT [66]
A word from a broker
- The pound is the surprise winner after the US election – Hargreaves Lansdown [67]
- How to inflation-proof your portfolio – TD Direct Investing [68]
Other stuff worth reading
- Japan is calling time on the great monetary easing – Bloomberg [69]
- How economic gobbledygook divides us – New York Times [70]
- Regulator wants it to be harder for self-employed to get a mortgage – ThisIsMoney [71]
- Can a wood-burning stove save you money? – ThisIsMoney [72]
- ONS to switch to CPIH inflation measure, includes housing costs – ThisIsMoney [73]
- RIP Leonard Cohen – Rolling Stone [74]
Book of the week: Passive investing guru Larry Swedroe did a few interviews this week for his recently published The Complete Guide to Factor-Based Investing [75]. Have you read it? Give us a quick review below! Swedroe’s tome is subtitled ‘The way smart money invests today’, so please don’t be humble…
Like these links? Subscribe [76] to get them every week!
- Note some 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”. [↩ [80]]