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weekend reading
What caught my eye this week. I was delighted to hear from Monevator reader Elizabeth Wong a few months ago, when she sent me a copy of her new short story and said it might be of interest to people around here. It was! The Landless is a thought provoking tale that takes many of [...]
What caught my eye this week. I noticed an article in This Is Money this week featuring a reader upset that their pension hadn’t been life-styled into lower-risk assets as they’d hoped. Instead, they wrote: …my money remained in a fund rated moderate-high risk/high reward until March 2020. At this point, I realised what had [...]
What caught my eye this week. Going on the comments I’ve heard and read this week, many stock market types have flopped into the Easter Weekend like a late-night drunk who only makes it as far as the living room sofa. Relief! Sweet relief. Of course, UK investors may have a four-day break from seeing [...]
What caught my eye this week. Nobody asked for it and now it’s here – the new Monevator shop is open, offering in-joke themed investing T-shirts and vaguely punny sweatshirts to all. Perhaps you’ve already spotted Monevator members striding about town sporting fancy wares like this: Yes, those cool cats got early access. Thanks to everyone [...]
What caught my eye this week. You don’t need to commission a full-on report to know that we all have wildly different ideas about money – and about how much of it is, well, a lot. And you don’t need to be a dedicated peruser of the personal finance Internet to know the rule is [...]
What caught my eye this week. It’s not been easy to find reasons to be optimistic about the shrinking British stock market in recent years. But I think how private investors, fund managers, the investment trust industry, and investment platforms worked together to defeat US firm Saba’s designs on the trust sector might qualify. As [...]
What caught my eye this week. Has winter dragged on for you too, or is it just me? I asked ChatGPT if the weather has been unusually cold and it waffled on for a bit with some anecdotes and then said I should check with the BBC. Which seemed pretty unhelpful, but then I thought [...]
What caught my eye this week. I don’t know about you, but I really miss that six-month spell last year when we all fretted about what was going to happen to pension allowances, inheritance tax, AIM shares, and all the rest of it. Everyone knows financial planning is dull as dishwater. So why not living [...]
What caught my eye this week. I enjoyed Life After The Daily Grind’s article asking whether money and miserableness go together. It was sharply written and thought-provoking. But I didn’t really agree with the main premise. Over the last decade or so several of my friends have ‘made it’. From wealthy enough to eschew the [...]
What caught my eye this week. There’s a mildly titanic battle going on in the beleaguered UK investment trust space. Everything from the rise of index funds to the 2022 reset in interest rates to steady outflows from all UK equities – not to mention lousy performance in many cases – has left the sector [...]
What fintech gives with one hand it takes away with the other, plus all the week’s other good reads!
What caught my eye this week. I can’t deny the Monevator Christmas party is always a little awkward, but I look forward to it every year. It’s the anonymity that makes it tricky. Not just keeping our identities secret from the waiting staff, but also from each other. Finumus doesn’t want anybody to know who [...]
What caught my eye this week. Data from MoneySuperMarket on household disposable income was presented by This Is Money this week as a regional ranking of which city’s citizens have the most spending power: Disposable income is defined here as what you have left to spend after paying some 31 kinds of outgoings – from rent [...]
What caught my eye this week. With 2024’s decline in mortgage rates arrested – if not yet quite beaten-up for resisting said arrest – it is likely house prices will continue to go nowhere for a while. Especially given the higher stamp duty for buy-to-let landlords that came in with the October Budget. The now-5% [...]
A bit about Bitcoin on the cusp of $100,000 then all the week’s best money and investing reads…
Feel free to skip one more pundit’s view of the Budget if you’ve had enough. I’m not claiming to be John Maynard Keynes. This is just how I see things. When asked why he robbed banks, the US heist wiz Willie Sutton said: “Because that’s where the money is.” Those hit by what passes for [...]
What caught my eye this week. I was bemused to see Adrian Chiles penning a glowing paean to the Delay Repay compensation scheme in The Guardian this week. I’d always imagined such warm feelings were an Investor family quirk. As Chiles writes: After a bit of a fiddle setting up your account, you automatically, as [...]
What caught my eye this week. When I wrote a few weeks ago that pre-Budget speculation had reached a fever pitch, I was wrong. Turned out that was mere pre-Budget babble. This week was the fever. I have no more speculation to add. Not least because Whitehall-based readers seem to have picked up on my [...]
What caught my eye this week. Just 26 sleeps to go until the new government’s first Budget on Wednesday 30 October. And I cannot recall there ever being so much pre-match jitters. I could have filled the links below with forecasts, evasive action tips, and threats to emigrate. Hardly what anyone would call a honeymoon [...]
Even a crystal ball wouldn’t help most people trade successfully, plus all the week’s best reads…
What caught my eye this week. Some good news for investment trust fans this week, as the Financial Times reports: The UK government has exempted investment trusts from onerous cost disclosures in a move analysts believe will boost the £260bn industry and could support trusts’ share prices. In a joint statement this week, the government [...]
What caught my eye this week. Recent weeks have seen us debate whether you should sell ahead of – what’s still only rumoured – capital gains tax rises. But as St. Charlie liked to remind us: invert, always invert! To wit: tax-motivated sellers might create opportunities for bargain-hunting buyers. Of course every tax-fearing seller must [...]
Thoughts from the City on fixing the moribund UK economy, followed by all the week’s good reads…
What caught my eye this week. I found it hard to be outraged by last week’s decimation in the number of pensioners who’ll get winter fuel payments. Restricting the annual cash award to those on means-tested benefits will see only about 1.5m pensioners getting the goodies in future. The other 11.4m pensioners will just have [...]
What caught my eye this week. I am just back from two days away for a wedding with a slightly sore head, a very favourably updated impression of Liverpool, and our regular weekend links only now finalised and tidied up. Oh, and also to the discovery this morning that I hadn’t done as badly as [...]
From Paris with a headache, plus capital gains tax change musings, plus all the week’s good reads. (Phew!)
Capitalism wouldn’t thrive running on bullshit jobs, plus all the week’s good reads…
What caught my eye this week. Everyone knows that meetings are the bane of office life. The only people who love them are the genetically bossy, the work-shy, or the lovelorn office junior who has a crush on an attendee from another department. Anyone who gets paid to produce some kind of measurable output resents [...]
What caught our eye this week. Hello campers, TA here – standing in for TI, who’s off on his annual hols this week. That means topping up his monitor tan in some seedy foreign hotel instead of his seedy London lair. Ah well, a change is as good as rest as they say. Right, with [...]
Lamenting the rise of anti-capitalism, plus all the week’s good money and investing reads…
FIRE is more popular than ever, but some trends are making it more unaffordable too. Plus all the week’s best reads…
A nice way to think about the risks from debt, plus all the week’s good money and investing reads…
What caught my eye this week. Every morning at 9.30am in New York, a bell is rung at the famous Stock Exchange to signal the start of trading. It happens again with a closing bell at 4.30pm – repeating a routine that’s watched by almost nobody in the actual business of investing. Okay, a few [...]
Neil Woodford seeks redememption as a finfluencer, plus all the week’s best money and investing reads…
What if we could choose our citizenship as easily as we buy travel insurance? Plus all the week’s good reads…
The mortgage-fuelled mayhem that isn’t, plus all the week’s good money and investing reads…
What caught my eye this week. Seems that even Vanguard investors can be turned into – ahem – ‘tactical asset allocators’ if they are hit by one of the worst bond slumps for several generations. Trustnet reports that in 2023: […] investors withdrew £426.2m out of Vanguard LifeStrategy 60% Equity, the largest fund in the [...]
Bitcoin is still as bouncy as a newborn baby, plus all the week’s good money and investing reads…
What caught my eye this week. Well that could have been a lot worse, eh? Remember: at the start of 2023 we were assured that both a terrible recession and most likely further stock market falls were all but nailed-on. But as things have turned out, the global economy has held firm. Even in the [...]
The Fed has turned and rates are going down. Plus all the best reads on money and investing.
What caught my eye this week. Unfortunately one of my investing heroes, Charlie Munger, died this week. And he had the temerity to do it on a Tuesday. Which means that by now those of you who’ve heard of him – let alone admired the man – will have been mainlining Munger quotes for five [...]
The working from home revolution revisited, plus all the weeks good money and investing reads…
Does fractional share-owning add up, and would you lobby to protect it? Plus the week’s good reads…
Why do some of us invest actively, despite knowing better? Plus all the week’s good reads…
How one banker has gotten religion on simpler financial services. Plus all the week’s good reads…
If a permabear shits in the woods and nobody sees it, does the bear care? Plus all the week’s good reads…
Regrets are inevitable, but fantasising about the consequences is self-torture. Plus all the week’s best money reads…
A reminder why equities rule them all, plus all the week’s good money and investing reads…
New research shows just how divergent the UK’s property market has become, plus all the week’s best reads…
Money won’t solve your problems – the 1960s take. Plus all the best investing reads from around the web…
Show us the value for money, says the FCA to fund managers. Plus all the week’s good reads…
US workers have stopped job hopping, but the UK long-term sick abide. Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
What most urgently needs to be fixed in Britain – and it’s not the borders. Plus all the week’s great reads…
Could we really create a shareholder democracy out of Britain’s huge cash pile? Plus all the week’s good reads…
Why go back to index-linked bonds, plus all the week’s good money and investing reads…
Constructing a portfolio bottoms-up, plus all the rest of the good money and investing reads…
What caught my eye this week. The results are in from last week’s poll (now closed) and in news that will shock no one, it turns out that the readers of a personal and investing website are in general earning much more than the average UK citizen. Over 2,000 of you voted – thanks! Your [...]
Our new membership service is live, plus all the week’s great money and investing reads…
We all agree most people don’t earn much, with numbers. Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Money and happiness: part 34343 in a long-running saga, plus all the week’s good reads!
Bank runs and pension rule changes – which happen faster these days? Plus all the week’s good reads…
What caught my eye this week. This might be a Mini Budget moment for the US. Its regulators moved yesterday to shut down Silicon Valley Bank and to take control of its deposits. It’s the biggest US bank failure since 2008. Silicon Valley Bank’s shares had already been pummeled this week as the Californian lender [...]
What caught my eye this week. Three years ago this weekend I began to write on Monevator about the new coronavirus, which by late February had gotten the attention of the markets: Things were definitely feeling freaky by the fourth day of 3-4% declines. When the US market bounced higher into the close on Friday [...]
Mortgage rates are falling to a level that should sustain current prices. Plus all the good money reads!
How British workers are clinging on to the home working freedoms they first tasted with the pandemic, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Checking back on our poll about checking up on your portfolio (and around we go…) plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
A quick check in and the end and the start of a year, plus recent good money and investing reads…
Good reads from 2022 that you should grab now for Christmas, plus the final investing links of the year…
Machine learning will change the world – or so it says – plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
What caught my eye this week. Just in case anyone was wondering why the price of Bitcoin bounced so sharply off the $15,600 level it hit on Tuesday, I have the answer. That was the day I sold my Bitcoin. ((I also dumped the small amount of Ethereum that I had hedging my bets, alongside [...]
The bill comes due for six years of bad stuff, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Like a kid cramming their homework, the markets raced this week. Plus the best reads from around the web…
What caught my eye this week. War pioneer and on/off conqueror of Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte, supposedly said he’d pick a lucky general over a good one. Investors might take the same deal. Alas, there’s apparently no evidence that Napoleon stated the preference that’s famously ascribed to him. Which is a shame. Trying to invade Russia [...]
Brexit gave us the Britain we’re enduring today. What will reverse the slide? Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Political chaos finally transmogrified into market chaos, plus all of the week’s good reads…
High inflation is causing pain, but at least it’s paying off your mortgage. Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Get healthy to make more time to make more money. Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Are we about to see a GDP-boosting wave of innovation gains? Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
What caught my eye this week. Are your staff still refusing to return to the office for daily time-saving stand-up meetings where you and your pet subordinate make everyone else wait through a 25-minute back-and-forth about who will make a sales call on Thursday? Would your employees rather start their day with a coffee in [...]
Is chronic illness to blame for the UK’s missing half-a-million workers? Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
An old-time blogger gets back on his hobbyhorse, plus the rest of the week’s good money and investing reads…
It’s like the more money we come across, the more problems we see… plus the rest of the weeks good reads
What caught my eye this week. I was going to ramble semi-eloquently about how it feels to finally catch Covid, two and a bit years and three vaccination shots on from when this journey started. Perhaps I’d reflect on our early speculation and debate about the virus and the economic costs and consequences of trying [...]
Two podcasts featuring veteran investors unpicking the inflation riddle, plus the week’s good reads…
It all works out if you give it enough time, plus the rest of the week’s great reads…
Everyone has a plan until they’re punched in the face, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Landlords will soon feel the squeeze from higher rates, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
What caught my eye this week. I get the impression people are already tiring of the endless inflation talk. But I find it hard to look away. The stats just keep coming! This week UK inflation hit 7%. That’s a 30-year high and ahead of most economists’ predictions. The old RPI measure of inflation is [...]
Paying for property is getting a lot more expensive, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Is the yield curve inverting really such a big deal? Plus all the week’s best articles on money and investing…
Rishi Sunak was not duty bound to cut fuel taxes, plus the all the week’s good reads…
Whatever happened to the guaranteed equity bond? Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
What caught my eye this week. When it comes to collateral damage from the tragedy in Ukraine, investors in Russia can only come near the bottom of the sympathy list. But Monevator is an investing site. And the tumult in Russian assets since the war began is one for the ages. Russia’s stock market was [...]
What caught my eye this week. Very interesting news this week from Belgium is not a phrase that has grown stale from overuse. But as the world gropes towards a better post-pandemic work-life balance I read: …workers in Belgium will soon be able to choose a four-day week under a series of labour market reforms [...]
The Big Squeeze is more like The Big Reckoning, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Would you go back to an office 9-5 if they paid you? Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
What caught my eye this week. All of us know that a calendar year is an arbitrary period over which to measure non-astronomical progress. That’s true whether you’re looking at an expanding portfolio or a shrinking waistline. Or, worse, the opposite! Yet 90% of us do it anyway. Far be it from me to take [...]
What to get for Christmas for the investor who reads in your life, plus the last list of links of the year…
Speculative stocks have gotten smashed in 2021 but who’s next? Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Getting out of debt is an experience to be savoured like any other, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
You can’t take it with you… but you can read the best money and investing reads along the way!
If you value your time more than your money – and if you have a lot of it – then maybe you’re a time millionaire…
What caught my eye this week. I am down in Cornwall at the moment, living the outdoorsy middle-class Londoner’s cliché dream. Earlier this evening Paul Ainsworth wowed with a rib. Yesterday a Rick Stein spot did wonders with a negroni. The Camel Estuary of course outshines them all. So technically I’m on my holidays. But [...]
What caught my eye this week. I had to dodge through a queue of cars snaking out of a petrol station forecourt and onto the road on my way home this evening. There are also gaps in the supermarkets and High Street stores – albeit definitely more missing teeth than gummy and barren. Oh, and [...]
What caught my eye this week. When I began investing in the early 2000s, the September 11th attacks still loomed large in investors’ minds. Of course, that shadow extended everywhere then. The West was at war in Afghanistan and soon Iraq. Terrorist plots exploded or were foiled with numbing regularity. It all hogged the news [...]
The government hikes taxes despite all kinds of promises. Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
What caught my eye this week. Rejoice that at some point you began reading – or even subscribed – to Monevator. Because while our core message to invest passively, automate your savings, and then find a different hobby is a terrible business model for an investing blog, the evidence is clear its the best advice [...]
Could the pandemic have changed people’s spending habits forever? Plus all the reads…
Many managers are desperate to get back to the office because working from home reveals how little they do
Should the entire pension system be scrapped and replaced? Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Robinhood is making a lot of money for a free trading platform, so will Freetrade follow suit? Plus the week’s great reads…
Ted Weschler turned thousands into millions in his humble retirement account, plus the rest of the weekend’s reads…
The Accumulator has been turned into a bobblehead! Plus the rest of the week’s good money and investing reads
In today’s sci-fi stock market, company fortunes turn on the whims of kids, while billionaires pump and dump like bedroom traders.
What caught my eye this week. Have you ever described yourself as just another average kind of personal finance blog-reading mostly passive occasionally active FIRE-obsessed crypto skeptic? Well Indeedably did us all a favour this week by collating the data on what Mr Average really looks like: “Average” varies by locale, so let’s consider the [...]
Will you change your life after we return to normal? Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Is it still worth rolling over NS&I certificates? Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
What caught my eye this week. A year or so has passed since global stock markets began to recover, resuming their age-old tradition of making smart people look like idiots. Tech stocks rallied first, which was blamed on 20-something traders and lockdown mania. Later in the year, small cap stocks joined the party. Just more [...]
Wall Street reminds us where WSB took its lead from, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
We need some new blood that’s hungry for financial freedom. Plus the week’s good reads…
What caught my eye this week. Rishi Sunak didn’t hike capital gains tax in the Budget. I took it a little personally after I’d voluntarily conjured up a five-figure tax charge, partly fearing he’d double the rate I’d pay. However I’m not too miffed. For one thing, the unsheltered shares I sold were mostly of [...]
What caught my eye this week. Bit of a higgledy-piggledy digest this Saturday, which is right in keeping with a week in the markets that was all over the place. If you sensibly follow The Accumulator’s advice to watch your paint drying and wash you’re hair a third time before you check out how your [...]
Where do you put a lot of money if you’re lucky enough to have it? Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
The famous 4% rule might actually be the 5% rule when inflation is low, plus all the week’s good reads…
A few final thoughts on this week’s GameStop saga, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Working from home is winning more converts, but why did it take them so long? Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Why opinions should be heavily discounted when investing, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
What caught my eye this week. Happy Near Year! I hope you spent your New Year’s Eve in a Covid-proof bunker with Jools Holland – unlike those living near me or on my dating app who seemed to think the end of 2020 was a reason to get together for a party. Most of us [...]
A reminder to read your financial origin stories, plus the last great reads of 2020…
Some investing books you can get away with giving for Christmas, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
What caught my eye this week. Being nothing if not a business nerd, I spent Friday evening enjoying a new report from Waitrose on consumer trends in 2021. Don’t judge me! It’s not like the pubs were open. Or maybe they were? But I live alone. So I can’t go to them. Or maybe I [...]
Why buy two Bitcoins when one will do the trick? Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Beware of bullseyes pasted onto a moving target by pundits, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Investor sentiment on tech has come full circle, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Shifting to a spending mindset to run down your capital, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
The real cost of partaking in the gold rally, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
If even the masters of the universe struggle to smooth the investment journey, what hope do we have? Plus the week’s good reads…
Would you rather own a tech stock or a company that digs up rock? Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
The economic chickens could soon come home to roost, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Why direct indexing could rival ETFs and tracker funds, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
The irrelevance of alpha for private investors, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
What caught my eye this week. I have mentioned before my group of friends on an email list who’ve been debating Covid-19 since January. Well, this same group of friends was previously preoccupied by arguing the future of cash. I think cash use is doomed to dwindle in the West, probably fast. Most of them [...]
What caught my eye this week. The US may be about to see another surge in Covid-19 deaths. This is clearly tragic from a human perspective. We might also wonder what it will do to the market. I’ve been pretty relaxed about the UK’s de-lockdown. Daily cases have steadily fallen, contrary to – soon forgotten [...]
What caught my eye this week. I have a soft spot for income investing. I haven’t actually (naughtily, actively) invested with a focus on income since the financial crisis, though. (Why not? That’s a whole other story.) I still expect to live off investment income when I’ve had enough of spinning the wheel on my [...]
Will we appreciate what comes of the Covid-19 chaos in time? Plus the rest of the week’s good reads…
Some great money and investing reads for the last weekend (for now?) in splendid isolation…
What caught my eye this week. Right now it can be hard to picture the economic damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. We know it’s bad. The leading indicators – joblessness, factory orders, early GDP reports – tell us that. But the full impact is being softened by government and central bank countermeasures. Also, the [...]
A simple way to lend money to yourself to get around a mental hangup, plus the rest of the week’s good reads…