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 I’d gathered from furtive half-glimpses at my live portfolio-tracking spreadsheet in the quiet moments before the cake was cut.
Rather, I’d forgotten one of my recently re-upped stocks was due a 10-to-one stock split at the end of the week!
Phew – it turns out there’s a benefit to my usual active obsessiveness after all. But also an even-bigger case for slipping my reading glasses into my wedding suit and never mind lumpy pockets in the photos.
Alright that’s it for a soaring treatise waffly intro this week. Thanks to my email software, I know a select few of you are out there banging ‘refresh’ repeatedly in your eagerness to get your weekly investing reads.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
From Monevator
What next for Bill Ackman and Pershing Square Holdings? – Monevator [Members]
US historical asset class returns – Monevator
From the archive-ator: Five lessons for investors from an Olympic superstar of 2008 – Monevator
News
Note: Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view click through to read the article. Try privacy/incognito mode to avoid cookies. Consider subscribing to sites you visit a lot.
Housebuilder says consumer confidence has returned amid cheaper mortgage rates… – Guardian
…but landlord sales are rising as financial pressures grow [Search result] – FT
Founders in line for £850m as Hargreaves Lansdown agrees to sale – This Is Money
Various US trading platforms suffered outages during the recent sell-off – Sherwood
Volatility pros say record VIX surge on Monday was a head fake – Bloomberg
Products and services
Hargreaves Lansdown’s private equity bid could herald fees makeover [Search result] – FT
NS&I offers new two and five-year fixed savings for the first time since 2009 – This Is Money
Get up to £1,500 cashback when you transfer your cash and/or investments to Charles Stanley Direct (T&Cs apply. Capital at risk) – Charles Stanley Direct
The cheapest ways to watch Premier League, EFL and other football on TV – Be Clever With Your Cash
Are private banks still worth it? [Search result] – FT
Open an account with low-cost platform InvestEngine via our link and get up to £50 when you invest at least £100 (T&Cs apply. Capital at risk) – InvestEngine
Why is home insurance more expensive for period properties? – Which
The new ’74’ number plates banned because they’re too rude – This Is Money
How an Australian built herself a tiny house fit for a big life – Guardian
Comment and opinion
The well-off people who can’t spend money – The Atlantic via MSN
Taking the keys – Humble Dollar
No purpose or place – Life Beyond the Daily Grind
Meaningful investing that actually matters, with Meb Faber [Podcast] – 50 Fires via Spotify
Market volatility is business as usual mini-special
Why the markets are down (and it’s okay not to care) – The Atlantic
Reasons to sell – Spilled Coffee
I can’t explain – Behavioural Investment
How long can stocks underperform? – Of Dollars and Data
No news trumps fake news – A Teachable Moment
This is normal – A Wealth of Common Sense
Naughty corner: Active antics
CNBC’s perfect market-timing indicator – Charlie Bilello via X
Does WallStreetBets deliver alpha? – Alpha Architect
Classifying economic regimes – Verdad
A great company that’s a turtle not a hare – Morningstar
The active management reinvention project – Investment Ecosystem
Kindle book bargains
The Happy Index by James Timpson – £0.99 on Kindle
Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt – £1.99 on Kindle
Smarter Investing by Tim Hale – £9.29 on Kindle [£9.29! But rarely reduced]
Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking by Matthew Syed – £0.99 on Kindle
Environmental factors
North-South charger divide threatens EV revolution – This Is Money
Ocado starts trial selling everyday products in reusable packaging – Guardian
Inside Silicon Valley’s grand ambitions to control our planet’s thermostat… – Noema
…but many are wary of planet-scale engineering projects – New York Times [h/t Abnormal Returns]
Great Barrier Reef at record temperatures – Semafor
Lab-grown eel meat is a slippery business – The Generalist
Robot overlord roundup
Where Facebook’s AI slop comes from – 404 Media
Are we in an AI bubble or not? Arguments for and against – Sherwood
LLMs are a dead-end, new AI prize founder claims – Free Think
It’s practically impossible to run a big AI company ethically – Vox
AI Friend or AI Friendo? – Spyglass
Off our beat
The new-ish weight loss drugs are starting to look like miracle cures – Wired
You’d be amazed how little being an Olympic hero on Team USA pays – Sherwood
“Why I hate Instagram now” – The Atlantic via MSN
Etsy is struggling to keep its platform curated for handmade goods – Semafor
A ‘strategic Bitcoin reserve’ is an absurd idea – The Overshoot
How to know if you’re living in a doom loop – The Honest Broker
A few little ideas – Morgan Housel
And finally…
“A bubble can easily be punctured. But to incise it with a needle so that it subsides gradually is a task of no small delicacy.”
– John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash 1929
Like these links? Subscribe to get them every Friday. Note this article includes affiliate links, such as from Amazon and Interactive Investor.
Hi all,
If there are changes to pension tax relief announced in October’s budget (a flat rate of relief or a reduction of the annual cap for example), when would that likely be effective from? When announced? Next tax year so April 2025? Last tax year so April 2024? Some other time?
Thanks,
Bub
@Bub Bub see comments numbers 18 & 19 on Monevator’s 27th July 2024 Weekend reading (titled “A capital idea or just crazy?”) from @ZXSpectrum48k and I respectively. These were in relation to CGT and not pension tax relief on Income Tax, but the principles and thoughts read over. Noone can say what will happen in terms of any changes time of implementation, but hopefully those comments address your question.
@Delta thank you – for replying, your previous comments relating to my questions, and for your posts in general as I frequently find them insightful and informative.
That’s very kind. Thank you @Bub Bub 🙂
Some very deep pieces in this weekend’s links.
From ‘Life after the daily grind’: “What Tyler Durden and Anna Lembke are saying is essentially the same — we live in a time where there’s no driving force, no obvious reason for what we are supposed to be doing. We live in a time that’s comparable to a poorly run meeting with no agenda. Everyone is sitting there and thinking, Why am I here? and, What’s the point of this?”
Madness is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. And that’s the lived experience of the professional office worker in post-industrial society. Reginald Perrin redux.
Which leads onto ‘The Honest Broker’: “That’s how the system is built. And here’s the irony—a technology that promises progress actually creates regress. It gives you stale bread when you want a fresh loaf” and “each of these societies was, in some degree, a victim of their own past successes. At a certain point, their respect for the past began to constrain their boldness in addressing the future”.
And from ‘Morgan Housel’: “Hollingsworth once published an analysis of the life expectancy of the British peerage. It showed a peculiar trend: Before the 1700s, the richest members of society had among the shortest lives – meaningfully below that of the overall population. How could that be? The best explanation is that the rich were the only ones who could afford all the quack medicines and sham doctors who peddled hope”.
Plenty to think about there. (Thanks @TI for getting the links together and glad to hear that the wedding went well).
PS: I wonder what the HL sell out to PE has in store for the ‘customer experience’.
@Delta Hedge, “I wonder what the HL sell out to PE has in store for the ‘customer experience’.” Not a lot I reckon.
Thanks for the links as always. I’ve never noticed ‘Life After the Daily Grind’ before but that’s right up my street, so I’ve subscribed to it. Cheers!
Re the link to insurance and period properties. I live in a thatched house which we had delisted. We can only get 1 insurer owing to electrical installation ( and multifuel stove) and insurance is c. £1400 pa. If you like thatched houses, buy a conventionally built house opposite to it !
Mr O
That did make me laugh. Very similar the happiest 2 days of owning a boat – buying day, and selling day!
@Delta Hedge @Maj — Yes, if I was a betting man (and I suppose as an active investor I am!) then I’d have to bet on private equity dialling back the customer service side of HL but perhaps cutting fees to stay more competitive too. There’s a vast pool of semi-captured AuA at HL but wouldn’t it be too risky to assume it wouldn’t respond to a truly degraded service/offer sweated for dividends and debt payments (potentially, going on the PE playbook)?
@Delta Hedge — Nice summary of the links, you found a mini-special style theme hidden within the wider links!
@Wephway — Yes, good stuff, a very inconsistent poster though. I’ve featured a few links before. 🙂
@Mr Optimistic @Boltt — Hah, very good. I had a friend who did apply that logic to a square in Brixton. Three sides are beautiful period terraces. He lived in a pretty ugly block of flats on the forth, but as he said to me more than once he didn’t have to look at his place!
@The Investor. Right on the money, I have my SIPP with HL £200 PA and two trades a year. Cheap with very good customer service and admin.. If the customer service goes south, what’s to keep me there.
Just a snippet of information regarding the Charles Stanley Direct offer…
I got to end of the transfer application and found out that the transfer must be made in cash, not in-specie. That means two sets of dealing costs, the bid-offer spread and some time completely out of the market. I decided not to proceed.
@Gizzard — Thanks for updating us!