by The Investor
on December 18, 2009
Note: Today is the last day to buy from Amazon
with free delivery for Christmas!
I hope you’ve all remembered the research from last year about how expensive gifts are a waste of money:
Academics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business recently discovered that:
- Most gift givers assume an expensive present is better appreciated…
- …yet gift receivers don’t appreciate expensive presents much more
This backs up what I’ve long noticed – expensive gifts aren’t much better received than cheaper ones, and if anything they make the recipient feel slightly awkward, unless it is an excellent gift in its own right.
By far the best presents – short of unmarked cash neatly packed into a lightweight briefcase – are gifts based on an experience that you shared with whoever is getting the gift, which you spring on them later in the year.
I don’t mean you need to steal the towels from the hotel you enjoyed a naughty weekend away at, or to keep some of your romantic meal in a frozen doggy bag for Christmas.
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by The Investor
on December 16, 2009
One way that foolhardy brave investors look to beat the market is by following the share trading of company directors in their own company’s shares.
Directors are not allowed to trade on inside information.
But they are arguably best-placed to read the runes about their industry, and to know how much their own confident talk is hot air, versus a hot tip.
At the very least, if the financial director of Widgets, Giblets and Co. is prepared to put £50,000 into shares of the company he manages, you can be pretty sure it’s not about to go bust.
Now academics have produced research that claims to prove that following director buying of Value stocks can indeed generate superior returns.
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by The Investor
on December 15, 2009
A reader emailed me yesterday thanking me for my overview of the ins-and-outs of absolute return funds, but wondering if I knew where they’d all emerged from.
As a long-time UK investor, “N.W.” said he’d heard similar promises from funds before, but he’d been struck by how both the term “absolute return fund” and advertising for such funds had proliferated in recent years.
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by The Investor
on December 12, 2009
My regular roundup of the week’s blog and financial site links.
I am going to start highlighting a blog post that made me think each week, followed by a quick personal response. I’d like to put the emphasis back on the excellent sites out there.
Wealth Pilgrim found out this week that his buddy doesn’t do the dishes.
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