What caught my eye this week.
The online brokers keep sending me pointers to cash and cash-like investing opportunities – from the interest rates they pay in SIPPs to ideas for money market funds and cash-like ETFs that track short-term bonds.
Indeed one low-cost share dealing platform has emailed me the same variation for three weeks in a row. Clearly it’s working for them, which tells us the appetite for cash among retail investors is ravenous.
And to be sure, explaining how to hold cash – and ‘nearly-cash’ – with an easily-traded ETF is giving the customers information that they want.
But it will also be aimed at discouraging those customers from moving their money off-platform instead, to traditional savings account or similar.
It’s a battle for attention, just like Netflix versus Sky.
What probably won’t have gotten so much consideration though is what’s the likeliest best long-run return for the typical retail investor.
Because the reality is that over time periods of more than just a few years, cash and very short-term government bonds have typically delivered lower returns than longer-term bonds, while equities have historically left cash in the dust.
Moving to cash in 2021 would have been a market-timing move for the ages.
But the odds of that being the case in late 2023 – even after the strong recovery we’ve seen in US markets this year – seems to me much lower.
Cash-ing
Don’t get me wrong – I love cash.
I consider it the king of the asset classes in all market environments, even when it’s badly lagging. The security just can’t be beaten.
But the fact is holding a lot of cash is a luxury that few of us can afford.
Back in 2010 as we continued to climb out of the wreckage of the financial crisis, I warned:
I think it’s currently sensible to prefer shares to cash or bonds. For now, the yield situation looks good for equities.
Also, financial insiders are still reporting there is a lot of cash on the sidelines after people stopped investing in equities and other risky assets during the bear market.
So even now, cash is king in a lot of investors’ minds.
Usually there’s very little cash around at the top of a market. In fact, people often start borrowing to invest – a classic sign of a toppy market!
Again, cash is trash doesn’t hold right now on that score.
Unfortunately, some shell-shocked investors who took too much comfort in cash after the financial crisis never got back into shares.
They then missed out on one of the greatest stock market bull runs of all time.
Cashing in
It’s hard to argue that shares are exactly cheap right now – at least not the US shares that make up the bulk of global market funds.
And most people should always have some cash for diversification, even beyond their emergency fund.
Also, cash is typically a better deal for switched-on private investors who can chase the best rates than it is for institutions, so I’d even agree with holding much more cash than their model portfolios might suggest. At least until you’re knocking up against the savings allowance.
Finally, there’s a craze at the moment for holding low-coupon gilts as a cash substitute outside of tax shelters. Gains on gilts are capital gains tax-free, so this is better than paying tax on interest from savings. It’s interesting stuff to explore and one can happily get lost in the weeds.
Nonetheless, I’d urge readers not to lose sight of the prize if you’re a typical investor with decades ahead of saving for the long-term.
Unless you’re a mega-earner, cash(-like) returns won’t get you where you need to be.
Have a great weekend!
From Monevator
How to build an index-linked gilt ladder – Monevator [Members]
The Big Shrug: our movie pitch – Monevator
From the archive-ator: How to run your portfolio like a hedge fund – 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.
FCA sets out new rules to protect access to cash – Which
Freeholders fight back in bid to save ground rents – Landlord Today
Ending stagnation [PDF] – The Resolution Foundation
Rightmove reveals the ten happiest places to live in Great Britain – Rightmove
Peas on toast trump avocados as cost of living bites, says Waitrose – Guardian
Elon Musk’s SpaceX valued at $175bn – Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance
Chinese woman receives $60,000 restaurant bill after sharing QR code online – Yahoo
The words that defined 2023’s company conference calls [Search result] – FT
Products and services
How to build your own ‘pot for life’ pension with a SIPP… – MoneyWeek
…and six questions to ask before you combine your pension pots – Which
Financial services: time to take account of neurodiversity [Search result] – FT
Hargreaves Lansdown has launched its biggest-ever cashback offer for pension transfers, with the largest pots eligible for £3,500. Terms apply – Hargreaves Lansdown
Nationwide’s 4.29% five-year fix mortgage is now market’s cheapest – This Is Money
Get £100-£200 cashback when you open an account with Interactive Investor. Terms apply – Interactive Investor
Should you ditch the TV license for other media services? – Be Clever With Your Cash
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
Saga launches one-stop mortgage platform for over-55s – This Is Money
Average two-year mortgage rate drops below 6% to six-month low – Guardian
Why is Vanguard pitching margin loans? [US but a head-scratcher] – Morningstar
Homes in converted mills for sale, in pictures – Guardian
Comment and opinion
Anti-acid asset allocation – Humble Dollar
Why do investors play low-probability games? – Behavioural Investment
“Bond ETFs are too volatile”, said no one. Until now – ETF.com
Character is your financial destiny – A Teachable Moment
Successful investing is hard – A Wealth of Common Sense
Passive investing harms market efficiency, but so what? – Morningstar
Risk and return are interchangeable – Oblivious Investor
Retirement planning is life planning [Podcast] – Morningstar
Math rules – Humble Dollar
When can you buy ‘something nice’ guilt-free? – Darius Foroux
More Munger mini-special
Stripe founder interviewed Charlie Munger [Podcast] – Invest Like The Best
Farewell to Charlie Munger – The Alchemy of Money
Morgan Housel on Charlie Munger’s legacy [Podcast] – Mind Your Money
Naughty corner: Active antics
Stuart Widdowson of Odyssean [Superb podcast, few weeks old] – F.F.T.F.P. via Spotify
Making the most of EIS and VCT investments [Search result] – FT
Your fav active fund can probably be replicated with market exposure plus smart beta – Finominal
Buying frenzy puts some crypto closed-end funds at ‘absurd’ premiums [Search result] – FT
Hummingbird is the best VC firm you’ve never heard of – The Generalist
Kindle book bargains
Dead In The Water by Matthew Campbell – £0.99 on Kindle
When McKinsey Comes to Town by Walt Bogdanich – £0.99 on Kindle
The Birth of Netflix by Marc Randolph – £0.99 on Kindle
A Kidnap Negotiator’s Guide to Influence and Persuasion by Scott Walker – £0.99 on Kindle
Environmental factors
Our love of orcas is making them miserable – Vox
‘Unprecedented’ mass coral bleaching expected in 2024 – Guardian
COP28 is an open-air bazaar for carbon credits – Semafor
UK ministers ‘misled public’ when scrapping clean air regulations – Guardian
Climate change reporting in parts of the US means death threats – NPR
World’s largest nuclear fusion reactor opens – Independent
Lithium has crashed back to earth, despite booming EV sales – Goldman Sachs
Robot overlord roundup
Google says new AI model Gemini outperforms ChatGPT in most tests – Guardian
Off our beat
Global tourism is back at pre-pandemic levels – Visual Capitalist
Around the world with the beauty premium – Klement on Investing
Yes, the US is decoupling from China – Noahpinion
True/useful – Seth’s blog
And finally…
“People who think about the world in unique ways you like also think about the world in unique ways you won’t like.”
– Morgan Housel, Same As Ever
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I’d bet the provider emailing you about “cash like” investments is their “tick in the box” response to Consumer Duty (and providers making loads on the cash spread). “Look FCA, we’re giving our customers options…”.
Is this a contrarian signal ?
Consensus opinion says Global equities are the default option , despite the majority region USA, being historically expensive, to eschew cash and bonds, because equities always win over any period exceeding a handful of years…
Yes. Thankyou.
@HariSeldon — Estimates vary, but they all have cash holdings near record highs in 2023. For instance:
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/fed-starting-gun-6-trillion-dash-cash-mcgeever-2023-11-29/
So I don’t see any consensus at all against cash.
With that said, I do agree that investors are getting a lot of pricey US exposure, and that this exposure is increasingly concentrated, and that those few (tech) names have recovered strongly are already driving the market again.
However if there’s a consensus then it’s probably that this is a problem! 😉 Also we have the difficulty that as of now these really are incredible and cash generative businesses. They look they’d need to be undone by disruption (or regulation/break up) compared to any dramatic de-rating.
I well remember when US equities were in the dumpster and written off and I expect I’ll see it again in my lifetime (touchwood! 😉 ) Younger readers surely will.
But I find with contrarian signals you can see there wherever you look for them. 😉
@Genghis — Good point, could well be a factor.
This could be another regulatory own-goal, this time thanks to Consumer Duty. Regulators have for years been forcing financial services firms to plaster more and more warnings onto anything remotely “risky”. So we have warnings like “shares go down as well as up”, “you may not get back what you invested”, “68% of traders lose money”, etc.
The intention is good but the result is that more people stick with low-return cash-like products or they put everything into their house because “my house is my pension”, which is one type of investment the government is more than happy to pump all day long, despite it being a massively leveraged single-asset bet.
@TI #4: cash is king in the here & now, but trash in long term, even @4-5% p.a. I’ll never forgive myself for sitting out 2009-13 in cash. If you’re accumulating, risk assets are where you have to be. Even for Tactical Asset Allocation models, switch from risk on to off should go equities to bonds & not to cash. On ‘overvaluation’ of US market & Magnificent 7 v remaining 493 in the S&P 500, maybe they are, or maybe they’re not. But I’m coming around to a barbell approach of 60% in WTEF (1.5 x 60/40 with S&P 500 for the 60 equities & intermediate Treasuries for the 40) & rest split Small Cap Value & Multifactor ETFs. If US large cap growth lags, the Small Cap Value (esp. ex US SCV) should outperform, & vice versa.
@All: Be Clever With Your Cash TV licence piece in the links: Mrs TLI & I were once of that odd band who didn’t have a TV. For years living in London the TV licence folk would visit every six months to keep checking that we didn’t have a set and all was fine & dandy. Then we moved out of the smoke & the new TV licencing area had no interest whatsoever either in whether we had or hadn’t got a set or in checking that we hadn’t. They just wanted everyone to get a licence regardless. Endless bold red typeface automatically generated letters etc.
So, to Mrs TLI’s disgust, I cowardly gave in to the TV licence extortion racket & paid for a licence even though we then had no TV set, and hadn’t previously had one. The threatening letters stopped.
After a year of this, Mrs TLI said that this is ridiculous – if we’re paying for a licence then we should get a TV set, & so in 2013 we did & I would reckon we’ve watched it fewer than 100 x since. I believe that @ermine went through some similar tribulations:
https://simplelivingsomerset.wordpress.com/2014/11/30/dear-mr-tv-licensing-the-ermine-has-no-tv-licence/
Classic market timing scenario for cash investors-when do they go back into stocks and bonds?
Most investors cannot do market timing successfully
For the long term investor saving over many years for their retirement -stocks and bonds are the only way-cash won’t do it unless you can save vast amounts-not an option for most of us
Also Stocks classically have grown much more than cash ever did but these ascents are often over a few days only-if you are out of the market then there is often a serious price to pay in the performance of your portfolio
Personally admittedly old(77) and long retired (20 yrs) I am enjoying the decent interest rates on my everyday living expenses cash accounts-but remain fully invested and the stockmarket as usual seems to be climbing again even or because of my conservative bond heavy portfolio
But….gosh it is fun to chase ever higher interest rates on cash balances-been there done that and now just sit it out!
xxd09
Whilst cash gains are guaranteed (up to a point and forgetting inflation and tax) the return from equities is a risk too few people get involved with.
What is notable is that every one of my 10+ investment platforms now pays interest on cash held for the first time in Xcel.
Meaning I need to update my spreadsheet to calculate a large number of small cash interest streams that are flooding beyond my £1000 savings allowance.
For canny savers with flexible incomes, the spectre of utilising the starting rate for savings could appear on the horizon…
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-starting-rate-of-tax-for-savings
Read your ‘How to run your portfolio like a hedge fund’ post.
Your last point in that does give a shout-out to Trend Following, which many Hedge funds do have a sizable allocation to, and historically shows good returns, with short-term low (or even slightly negative) correlation to Equities.
There are a few Trend Following UCITS OEIC funds now available on most broker platforms.
I’ve started to use these over the last couple of years, so I don’t have to think about commodities , currencies or bonds (although they of course have allocation to equities also). Now up to 25% allocation.
Anyway, I believe Trend Following is valid and beneficial asset class for a passive investor (is part of the Dragon Portfolio…. and most hedge funds), so an article on it from @TA would be justified. Will he consider it ?
Second that one @Algernond. A @TA deep dive piece would be great. Winton Trend & Montlake Dunn are the only two dedicated funds that I’ve got details of for Trend presently. Have you found any others – either UCITS ETF or OEICS? Many thanks 🙂
@TLI
– HL only do the ones you mention (been trying to get them to add others)
– II also have AQR Managed Futures and Schroder BlueTrend
I’m in all four across those platforms.
No ETFs as far as I am aware. I know there is an ETF recently released in the US which trend follows the trend followers! (DBMF). But not sure when will be a version made available here.
Very interesting. Thank you @Algernond. See the AQR one on ii has 2 accumulating fund classes (C & F) with, respectively, a 0.75% & a 0.55% p.a. OCF so, presumably, former is retail & latter institutional??
I don’t have a tv licence – BBC news is embarrassing and the report insinuating there was an air strike that destroyed a hospital and killed 500 was the straw that broke the camels back.
I don’t want to reward poor performance. If you’re not interested in sport (and I suspect many monevator types aren’t) hard to see what you need a tv licence for.
BBC has lost around 400k licences a year past five years, I suspect it’ll be a lot more this year. Of course I’d lose heavily if they moved to funding it from general taxation as I pay so much more than my fair share – shame the cost of all services aren’t split evenly in my view – but let’s hope it moves to subscription and wokies can tell each other how much more wonderful they are than the riff raff without us having to pay for it.
YouTube free of ads is £11 a month, I got that at the same time I cancelled the bbc licence – really very convenient but it wasn’t about money.
@TLI. I managed to find the prospectus on Morningstar. C is for ‘Institutional’. F is for ‘Selected Institutional Investors’.
Needless to say, I went for ‘F’ as has the lower fee.
@TLI. Should mention. The Schroder Bluetrend is 15% vol. target, while the others all target 10%. So that’s why it looks more wild than the others.
@BBlimp. One the great things about Youtube, Netflix, Prime etc…, is that they don’t send you threatening letters when you stop paying (I got several of those from TV licensing even though filled out and submitted it twice).
There’s so much great stuff out there these days (uncontrolled by State/Corporations), I struggle to understand why anyone would pay the tv license anymore.
(I understand for some older people who struggle with ‘tech’, they feel they don’t have any other choice. The fact they are bullied by TV licensing is reprehensible).
Not sure where BBlimps post came from in this thread-definitely out of left (or should I say right field!) – I do however rather concur with Blimp and Algernond
My wife is now so much happier now getting her info from GB news but unfortunately Strictly is still a big thing for her plus Athletics so BBCi player remains
I do enjoy BBC Radio 4 extra which has old programmes from a time that the BBC didn’t continually lecture you on your sins-all the time!
I as a former veterinarian used to enjoy all the Wild Life programmes but as they all now end with doom and gloom plus tendentious comments from Attenborough – I cannot bear to watch -just sad
Country seems to be tired of being told what to do by metropolitan (London) types and certainly don’t subscribe to their mores-or perhaps I am just an old fart having a rant !
xxd09
I will buck the trend in comments here, IMHO the even numbered radio stations from the Beeb are worth the license fee without having to switch the telly on. You might argue I could listen for free to them, but could I if everyone stopped paying the license fee? Radio six music is a constant companion and although I could count the number of hours I watch BBC channels during a year on two hands, we still pay.
Interestingly, I went to the pub quiz a few weeks ago, in a very well educated area. The question of “how much is the license fee for the BBC” got very few correct answers, the question for “How long was the hundred years’ war” was much more successful. It seems it is not too big a deal for most people, just the ones who want to see it die a death because it does not agree with their political standpoint.
JimJim
@TLI:
I half expected you to comment to Hariseldon (#2) observation: “because equities always win over any period exceeding a handful of years…” with a link to the McQuarrie paper: Stocks for the Long Run? Sometimes Yes, Sometimes No.
In any case, I recently got some interesting feedback on the McQuarrie paper from ERN – see comments to ERN’s latest post if you are interested.
I was thinking of moving some of my index funds into cash, but a 99p purchase of Charlie Munger’s “Poor Charlie’s Almanac” on Kindle (probably from a link here!) advised the following:
Have Patience
– Resist the natural human bias to act.
• Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world” (Einstein); never interrupt it unnecessarily.
• Avoid unnecessary transactional taxes and frictional costs; never take action for its own sake.
• Be alert for the arrival of luck.
• Enjoy the process along with the proceeds, because the process is where you live.
With this in mind, I resolved to do nothing. For the moment.
@Jimjim,
As reliable a source as your pub quiz is it would seem https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-licences-facts-and-figures-AB18 might be a better source of information… this is reality of bbc licence fee over the previous year:
April 2022 24,793,470
May 2022 24,768,650
June 2022 24,745,990
July 2022 24,699,170
August 2022 24,413,780
September 2022 24,448,170
October 2022 24,435,530
November 2022 24,442,920
December 2022 24,411,250
January 2023 24,401,120
February 2023 24,381,740
March 2023 24,373,130
It is similar past five years and I look forward to seeing if it accelerated this year.
The figures above would indicate if it’s only set up for wokies it’s probably not got a bright future ahead.
Anyone who’s on the edge – if you pay by direct debit you actually have six months in advance built up, so I got £90 refund the day I cancelled. Made for a lovely dinner out, knowing it was funded by money that would otherwise be going to the great and the good
When it comes to diet drugs… Anyone who actively trades and is worried about a belly might be well placed to have a good long think about passively investing and using the time spared to lift and do cardio, or better yet take up a team sport (less likely to quit).
@BBlimp – purely factually YT Premium is presently £12.99/month https://www.youtube.com/premium
FWIW, I’m happy to treat the cost of my TV license as a subscription to Radio 4’s 5:30am News Briefing, which combines with the FT to provide me with non specialist news.
On the whole BBC bias issue, all media has bias, whether deliberately or not. The nature & extent of it is very much in the eye & ear of the reader/listener/viewer & determined by their own biases/priors. I’m a slightly left of centrist is the head & a full on old school proper lefty in the heart. So, of course, I think (at some subliminal level) that the BBC has a noticeable rightwing & Establishment bias. And for those with rightwing perspectives, they’ll see the Beeb as some sort of metropolitan leftist outfit peddling ‘wokery’.
And Andy Webb is right in his piece linked above that compared to Sky & Netflix the licence fee isn’t so bad.
But for me the licence fee is not about value for money or bias. It’s about the (IMO) illogical & inconsistent reasoning of mandatory finance of a non-core / optional service through regressive taxation. The BBC is not a national utility or like the NHS. We’ve got plenty of other media to choose from, all of it successfully funded by subscription or ads (or both). No one actually needs a Telly. And yet we mandate that the BBC will, unlike all the other broadcasters out there, be funded by a single rate charge payable by almost everyone under 75 regardless of income etc. To me, it logically makes no sense, and I object to it on that basis.
Moreover, in practice, you can’t really opt-out by not watching BBC services because (in my experience at least) TV licencing aren’t interested. They don’t want to come round & check that you haven’t got a Telly anymore. They don’t want you to prove your innocence. They just want £159 p.a. regardless.
I strongly disagreed with Nadine Dorries on every single other thing that she has ever said, wrote & done; but I found myself in the odd position of cheering her on in her sadly doomed attempt to get the TV licence fee reformed.
@xeny – YT premium worth it – hard to follow a fitness video when interrupted by ads 😉
@TLI – even worse, over 75s are required to have a tv licence.
I see you can still get a Black and White TV license for £53.50, so you could go retro and probably buy a B&W set with the over £100 saved and you’re quids in for year 2, 3 etc. You have to ring them up to buy one though, so questions will no doubt be asked. If this catches on I’m sure prices of old B&W sets will be on the up so now is the time to act!
The TV licence is an antiquated concept and is due for reform, the fact you need it it to watch any live TV, no matter whether you’re watching BBC in the traditional form or if you’re watching a live stream of Outer Mongolian TV through your internet connection. It makes no sense to me.
Add on top the rather aggressive approach they take to collecting the fee, it all makes it quite unpleasant to try and avoid. There must be a better way.
If people don’t want to pay the TV license, can we extend that to other things? Like the NHS. That costs £181bn or £11k/annum for my family of 4. I’d prefer to pay for private. Or state education that costs £6k. I privately educate anyway. Or the state pension. What about I give up my state pension and you give me back the NI I paid over 25 years working. Looks to be over £500k at this point. I won’t even ask for an income tax rebate or charge for lost interest. I’m nice like that. Let’s be able to pick and choose whatever we want to pay for. The likes of GB News will love that idea so I’m sure that will work out just so well for the majority in the UK. They are the voice of the people, right?
FFS. BBC News cost like 3p/day for my family of 4. Or 0.75p each. Oh the horror. BBC News at least tries to present the facts. It may well get it wrong but it does try. The likes of GB News and Fox News aren’t even trying. They just play to the baying crowd. Conspiracy theories at every turn. Honestly, the world is being run by a shadowy group of elites (the Rothschilds, Soros or aliens that look like lizards, you choose). Please. The only shadowy group I perceive is the people that fund GB News and Fox News.
So I’m happy to pay 0.75p/day for the BBC News. Even if I don’t often use it. Simply to have it as a counterweight. It’s hated by all the nut jobs on left and right, which is a very good indicator of value and quality.
But @ZX (#28) surely you’d accept that there is a difference in kind between, on the one hand, the core public goods (e.g. NHS, education, state pensions, police, courts & defence) which are, by near universal consensus, suitable for at least some degree of financing through general taxation and, on the other hand, what amounts to a vanity project of having a national broadcaster not subject to commercial realities (in much the same way, perhaps, that many countries used to have state owned, controlled and subsidised airlines). Telly just isn’t in the same type of category as public health, schools etc (or for that matter, I would respectfully suggest, the former public utilities of water & energy).
TV licensing is always good for a rant. Oddly enough I moved in the other direction, Covid lockdown was a nudge. But there is also something retro about using my not network connected Humax satellite box so that spivs don’t watch what I am watching, to sell me more of it, which is a pestilence that every internet based mechanism has.
And as for the love-in on here for Youtube, WTAF are you guys smoking? If I were God for a day I would nuke each and every single social media platform, starting on YT. I’d pay ten times the TV license to destroy Youtube so I might be able to grow old in peace rather than each being entitled to our own goddamned truth at variance with everyone else’s, all watched over by the the ad-sucking vampire. Youtube is the most egregious social media platform because it pretends not to be one, finessing a bilious filter bubble for conspiracy theorists and old gits whinging about wokeism. It’s the yellow press writ large. It’s always the negative that gets fed back to you, because loss aversion means YT get more engagement bang for their buck that way. There was something great about broadcast in that everybody saw the same thing, now we are picked off and bile fed to suit our specific predilections. That Joni Mitchell song was right about not knowing the value of what you have till it’s gone. AI unicast streams feeding you back your own prejudices and bile to make you watch more of it and become an even better hater while feeding them more ad revenue is not an advance in the human condition. If you’re not paying for it you are the product.
I am safe from Youtube because they now tell me that adblocking is against their Ts and Cs and refuse to play, and quite frankly they can eff right off, I don’t need their bile. Youtube has sent two long standing friends so far down the conspiracy rabbit hole that one of these benighted souls actually said to someone who needs chemo for cancer that he got the big C because of having the CV19 vaccine. If ever there was a time to keep their YouTube brainwashing shit to themselves and STFU that was one of them. On two counts, one is being a decent human being and the second is even if this particular wingnuttery were the case, it’s hardly actionable.
Sure, there is/was much wrong with the TV licence regime. Just be careful what you wish for. There’s much to be said for the analogue world we have lost compared to the unicast media nightmare we sleepwalked into. Funny old game when HMG is recommending candles, battery-powered radios and torches in order to prepare for power cuts or digital communications going down. Bless. How the hell does Ollie think the signal gets to the transmitter sites, it’s unlikely to be private wires nowadays. Capitalism drives out resilience because resilience implies redundancy and inefficiency. Would Gen Z even know how to use an analogue radio? There is no resilience. It’s stick your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye time. Protect And Survive for the millennial generation.
So yeah. What ZXSpectrum48k said
Does the license fee fund the vast web presence that the bbc has or is it ring fenced for telly?
@BillD (#26):
This post from five years ago may be of some interest: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46125741
Please do read to the end as the final sentence is IMO the most interesting.
Personally, on this one I am with ZX (#28) – and that is in spite of firmly believing that the Beeb is becoming increasingly woke!
Re the licence fee- what @ZX said. I would separate the issue of people without a telly being hounded for payment from the BBC and TV licence system in general. My family experienced the former for years when I was a teenager, and it isn’t/wasn’t acceptable.
The BBC is just about the one British institution that is still respected around the globe and frankly if a single person living in a country with an oppressive government is still relying on the BBC World Service for access to true and reliable information then I’m happy to continue paying it.
Certainly the BBC’s tendency to accept blame and apologise for errors can be seen as outmoded and quaint. There have even been a number of high ranking management figures who have resigned after errors- clearly absurd and counter to our current societal norms!
I would also love to whether there is any research on how much extra a family spend as a result of exposure to adverts? I suspect it would offset the licence a bit!
There is no compulsion to buy a TV license. We don’t have one for our holiday home. If you get letters, just bin them. Alternatively, if you care about waste, just register online that you don’t need one. The letters then stop coming, for a while.
AIUI, the rules say that you don’t need a license provide you don’t watch live TV and you don’t use the iPlayer. I am perfectly happy to stick with those rules.
On our boat we might occasionally use BBC iPlayer, but that is OK as we are covered by our home license.
I think it’s just that the brokers want us in MMFs with them because we seem to be just about at the point where conventional easy access (including cash isas now) is just about matching the 5.1% or so you get in MMFs after fees.
@ZX – cheers – the frothing at the mouth of people upset not all of us accept being preached at with their worldview makes it worthwhile. Yes we are all low information and tricked by the Russians – all four hundred thousand households a year … one hell of a conspiracy!
@Al Cam #19 & @Hariseldon #2: Yes, as the Edward F. McQuarrie paper illustrates well, nothing works forever all of the time. If it did, then there’d be no risk premium and no returns above the risk free rate.
Equities have outperformed over one to two centuries, but underperformed bonds for stretches as long as 40 years.
However, attaching some credence to the capital market line also means accepting that equities offer better odds of a higher total return, all things being equal, which – of course – they never are.
Funnily enough, there’s more historical evidence for factor returns than equity returns, as shares and stock markets only go back a little over 300 years.
In this regard, the December 2021 (vol. 133) edition of the Journal of Banking and Finance (republished for free on SSRN) produced the longest term study AFAIK of price momentum and mean reversion (covering the period 1265-2017): “Long-run reversal in commodity returns: Insights from seven centuries of evidence” (by Adam Zaremba, Robert J. Bianchi, and Mateusz Mikutowski).
It found that: “A quintile spread portfolio of going long (short) the commodities with the highest (lowest) return during the past 3 years produces a mean annual return of -13.07% with….[a] t-statistic of -18.81. The effect is confirmed with a range of additional tests, including an evaluation with a factor model, tests of alpha equality and monotonic relationship, as well as cross-sectional regressions. The phenomenon is robust to sub period and subsample analysis. The long-run reversal phenomenon drives the prices of both agricultural and non-agricultural commodities and is present in every 100-year subsample from the 13th century to the current period”. I’d say that was a pretty robust conclusion, free from data snooping and overfitting.
BTW – yes, now I’ve found the comment exchange, ERN really didn’t like the McQuarrie paper at all. Be interesting to know how and why ERN’s 1871 onwards returns data was different. Looks like it’s more than start and end date choices. Obviously, ERN has not looked at 1793-1870 for the US (at least as far as I can tell).
Without going all MSE newsletter on you I have to say massive thanks for the heads up on the HL pension transfer offer – certainly covers the subscription fee 😉 I’d been meaning to do this for a while as decided the Standard Life workplace pension was pushing its luck at 0.5% uncapped when the majority are passive funds. Admittedly that’s a combined platform/fund fee but as the pot grows that’s still easily beaten with fixed/capped platform fees and the usual suspects ETFs added together.
Reading the small print I suspect transferring every 12-18 months could become a pleasant little sideline for a while at least. Anyone have feedback on doing similar?
I compared costs and at my current pot size it otherwise would have been Fidelity purely on cost (Would have to swallow limited ETF choices in some sectors although still £1k cashback currently) or II for more choice and £50/ year extra (Although capped and a Scrooge like £200 cashback).
@TLI (#37):
re: “start and end date choices” indeed.
I agree it would be interesting to know how & why.
FWIW, I suspect it may be more to do with the detailed composition of their respective data samples, ie what is excluded from one being at least as important as what is included in each. McQ comments re the 2nd BUS being a notable example; albeit from an earlier period!
@Blimp. The frothing seems to come from the likes of GB News and Fox News.
@TLI. ERN is often very good but he does have a obvious sample bias toward the US. He takes data from 1871 because that’s when it becomes granular enough to meet his requirements. The US had a great period of extended growth after the damage the civil war did. If you look at the winner of the past 150 years, it’s not surprising that it’s companies are winners. It’s all rather tautological. Include the years into the civil war and it’s doesn’t look so good.
It’s a problem with all long-term asset return history. You often don’t have time series on markets when they did badly or went bust. Scott Cedurberg has tried to correct for this sample bias effect and the US SWR went from 4% to 2.25%. Ouch. I think the answer is to look at more countries than just the US (or UK). It also reinforces the reason why you need to be as diversified as possible.
@ZX (#40):
Thanks for the Cederberg pointer.
Interesting paper from earlier this year available at SSRN.
And a big thanks from me too @ZX #40.
It seems very unlikely to me that over the next 100 to 200 years equity returns with dividends reinvested, but after inflation, will be anything like ~5 or ~7% p.a. (being the figures, respectively, for global equity total real returns from 1900, and for the US equities since 1802, based upon Jeremy Siegel’s data).
Apart from the perhaps billion to one shot of an true ASI technological ‘singularity’ leading to sustained massively increased levels of growth, far in excess of anything seen anywhere before; and the very much greater, but still, IMO, very remote chance of the current levels of asset returns and growth being sustained into the distant future; surely the most likely scenario, by far, is for global equity returns to slowly (over multiple decades) approach stagnation, as real productivity growth eventually returns to its pre-1700 very long term level of circa 0.04%-0.1% p.a. If that’s going to be a low demand world (with a shrinking population) then it’ll likely also be low (or even negative) rate world too, with a likelihood of quite large multiples being given to income generating assets. Even so, the likely very long term future geometric real rate of return on shares will probably look appalling compared with what we’ve become used to since the 1950s.
“@BblimpI don’t have a tv licence – BBC news is embarrassing and the report insinuating there was an air strike that destroyed a hospital and killed 500 was the straw that broke the camels back… ”
Gaza Hospital
In previous conflicts, casualty figures coming out of Gaza have proven to be reasonably accurate. In this case, what eventually transpired was that the hospital had reported hundreds of casualties. This went to Al Jazeera, who due to, as I recall, an error in dialect/translation, mistranslated ‘casualties’ as ‘deaths’. This then got picked up by other mainstream media, and broadcast as such. ie BBC, CNN etc.
The missile strike. I never followed this through to the end. It looked to me, though, that the ‘reports’ blaming a Hamas/Islamic Jihad missile misfire seemed to be emanating from Israeli or US sources, who would say that anyway.
I’m very much in favour of the BBC, as a public broadcasting service. Youtube is just a lazy avenue for finding outlets that feed off one’s prejudices, play them back to you, and reinforce them.
Good gracious yes, the Anarkulova, Cederburg, O’Doherty, & Sias SSRN paper is sobering indeed for FIRE expectations. With 38 countries covering 2,500 years of data between them, & 1 mn Monte Carlo simulations, it’s hard to argue with the evidence base. A 0.8% SWR @1% failure rate & a 2.26% one @5% chance of ruin. Shockingly different to standard advice.
The tv licence is one of the few subscriptions I pay for. I probably don’t get my full value for money but I listen to the radio every day, various podcasts, love the athletics, tennis, world cup, euros, occasionally catch the news, watch stuff on iPlayer etc.
I guess I’m old school as I don’t know how people can watch Youtube long enough to be bothered by ads!
@Trufflehunt – but a hospital wasn’t destroyed? Or even damaged ? A car park next to a hospital was damaged.
Is it your view the BBC is there to uncritically repeat Al Jazeera or Hamas without checking if the building is still standing ? I think we may just have a fundamental disagreement about the purpose of a news agency.
Just out of interest would you be happy with the bbc picking up and running with a story from an Israeli media source in the same way ? If not, may we know why ?
You perfectly encapsulate why I don’t have a tv licence.
@trufflehunt Probably not the place for a fuller discussion but I can assure you 100% of the “objective” Open Source Intelligence investigations came to the same conclusions: it was a rocket fired from within Gaza and it’s almost impossible there were that many casualties considering the damage pattern and location.
Regards your last comment, although I absolutely agree it’s unhelpful to curate your own private echo chamber, there are a significant number of examples where the BBC fall foul of the exact types of bias you can find on YouTube, Fox, AJ etc. Often it’s a soft, almost subconscious form but regardless, most justifications for a legally enforced licence (Not subscription) fee just sound like old fashioned paternalism to me.
I was also thinking of that McQuarrie paper, which was an interesting read (thanks @TLI for the original tip). From my reading of the paper the bonds are mostly or entirely corporate, whereas ERN is comparing to US Treasuries. That could perhaps explain bonds in McQuarrie better tracking equities than ERN shows. Given that most of us hold government bonds for diversification not corporate bonds, its not clear to me how much this paper applies to our portfolios.
I must say one of the benefits of retirement and having all the time in the world -is to read the news outlets from Beritbart,Fox News ,Daily Mail,Telegraph Times BBC,Guardian and Independent ie right to left
It’s so obvious what each outfit chooses to publish shows their inherent biases
I can’t say I find much wrong with this setup -grown ups need to learn to interpret information outlets and what they produce
I find for instance that the two finance papers I read are politically left wing -FT and Bloomberg-who would have thought it!
Re Y-Tube-I love long form discussions available here without the pathetic gotcha methods used by many BBC ,Channel 4 reporters
So refreshing to listen to grown ups having a grown up discussion without heckling,interruptions and personal abuse
We really are spoiled for information but care is always needed with the fourth estate
The alternative in which most societies live ie in ignorance where only one information source is available-the Government in power of course ie Russia,China etc would be unbearable to me
xxd09
@TLI (#45), Eadweard (#49):
The key message of the Cederburg et al paper is not new; see e.g. the 2010 Pfau paper (also available at SSRN) called: An International Perspective on Safe Withdrawal Rates from Retirement Savings: The Demise of the 4 Percent Rule?
FWIW, the so-called SWR is unknown and unknowable in advance.
The sadness for me came when, in its unjustified insecurity, the BBC appeared to decide to prioritise the number of viewers above quality of content. It started behaving more commercially, succombing to sensationalism and turning tricks. Bizarre as it was being funded by, at the time, essentially, tax. If only it had stood its ground. My FIL (you see that I am well suited here as I do not define acronyms, pompously ignoring any empathy with the reader), who used to be in charge of BBC 2 educational content for a while, occasionally relates to me how all that fell further and further down the ladder. A little example of the changing attitude was when he was in a meeting where the controller decided they had to increase the number of teenagers listening to Radio 4. For me, the rot really stood out when in 1985 the BBC started showing a long running play three times a week at primetime and then repeated all of it again on a Sunday. The whole thing appeared to be some form of saturation brainwashing or power play with the obvious aim to influence how viewers across the UK live their lives and interact with each other. It was very successful and redefined entertainment as it cleverly exploited base social tendancies into addiction, and must have been cheap to make. News reporting soon turned into Brass Eye, a parody of such just a few years earlier, and we were soon adrift.
Now the best factual content is to be found on platforms such as YT, amongst everything else, but one has to find good content creators and not be tempted by the click bait. It is hard without the under appreciated scheduler of old, and it takes time and self discipline. I am so old now that I grew up with the attitude of getting computers to do what I want them to and usually still can, so adverts have never been a problem for me.
@Always Late #52: that made me laugh. Thank you 🙂 I’m tempted to recall here Hunter S Thompson’s quote about the TV business (sometimes also attributed to journalism or the film industry), the one about it being a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway, etc. But I’ll go instead with a slightly more polite one of his: “Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism”.
>read the news outlets from Beritbart,Fox News ,Daily Mail,Telegraph Times BBC,Guardian and Independent
Well you are a glutton for punishment @xxdo9.
I must admit to being bemused by people who think they will find less bias on YT. That whole platform is engineered to feed you stuff that confirms your biases.
@Ducknold – who said they’d find less bias on YT ?
If that is a defence of the bbc, seems a weak one – ‘YT is also biased’. The key difference (the one being discussed) is that people who consume media on YouTube don’t expect everyone else to pay for it.
@BBlimp “don’t expect everyone else to pay for it”: we may disagree on other things but, on this one, I think that you’ve hit the nail on the head. Like or loath it, for better or worse, YT and its various peers have permanently changed the media landscape. Whether the world is now diminished or enriched by it, there’s no going back. State broadcasters like the Beeb wish, above all, to be preserved in aspic, protected by their political patrons from the new realities and competitive pressures. In the long run though they’re going to be doomed unless they adapt. It’s change and survive time. Freedom is just another word for having nothing to lose, and so long as the Beeb’s shackled to a licence fee model then it will never be able to achieve independence from politicians and will just be a punch bag for both right and left, each of whom see it as biased and a legitimate target precisely because of the licence fee.
@TLI @BBlimp @others — There are more ways to be enslaved than just to politicians. The reason we have the current hellscape of a shrieking yet ever-shrinking is because – absent much in the way of a willingly paying consumer base – the online sites and social media we all consume has had to fund itself through – and ultimately be transformed by — advertising.
That wouldn’t be so bad maybe (it exists/existed in traditional media, after all) except that tech-enabled online advertising is an entirely different ballgame to old print advertising. It’s driven by ruthless metrics, not by brand and editorial voice and audience. It’s why some people complain of seeing adverts for, say, sex toys on Monevator, a site about finance. Together with search it’s why very few sites are able to have a home page that people navigate through to read content anymore. It’s why by far the best surviving commercial media companies are mostly funded by subscription nowadays. Avoiding a few blinking banners is the least of it. A race to the bottom for attention and eyeballs is the thin end of the wedge — the rise of weird extreme views that even this thread has a dash of is closer to the worst. Without online media driven by advertising, I doubt an ex-president who at the least inspired an insurrection would be favourite to win the White House next year. (Of course that’s not the only reason!)
The BBC is far from perfect. But by operating at a remove from commercial pressures, it can at least aspire to be motivated purely by public interest. Of course if everyone is paying for it then everyone is entitled to feel the reporting should be unbiased and objective. And as someone has already said in this thread, given that all the usual suspects on the left and right hate it these days, it’s clearly getting something right.
Even as @BBlimp has his problems with it, for example, I fought running battles with my metropolitan liberal friends on social media who considered it little more than a Brexit-propaganda mouthpiece from 2016 to 2020.
I warned them that running down the BBC from every partisan angle would finally render it truly vulnerable to attack from the right-wingers who’ve always hated the idea of it on principle. Perhaps we’re there now. 🙁
Those of you who bemoan the BBC licence fee seem to forget that you’re paying for the advertising of all products and services in their asking prices. I’d love to ask for a discount on everything advertised by arguing that I don’t watch their product being advertised.
I read or watched something along the lines of it is best to rotate investable wealth from cash or moneymarket funds to longer (or at least intermediate) duration bonds approx 2 months after interest rates have stopped going up. But we’ve likely already missed the peak of 5% gilt yields on everything from 15-30 yrs.
I wimped out on buying the 30 yr and plumped for a 15 yr gilt in my SIPP, locking in at an average of 4.6%.
My new work pension options are more limited so there I rotated from a cashy 0-5 yr bond fund to a 50/50 split between gilt and IG corp bond tracker funds. I will likely stick to this for new contributions now until I retire unless we get a 50% crash in equities. Enough equities in my SIPP.
I don’t actually want them to pivot on rates next year. Yields can just stay flat, or even oscillate wildly, while I buy more bonds each month.
Any other active asset allocators out there who have rotated into bonds or switched bond type?
@TI “BBC… can at least aspire to be motivated purely by public interest.”
‘Public interest’; what a deceitfully subjective oxymoronic term. The public have always taken an interest in gladiator fighting, public hangings, burning buildings, car crashes, shame, blame, shock and horror, yet how much is of public interest, of public good? Once upon a time we aspired to do what we thought we should do. Many looked to better themselves with learning, understanding and creativity, while others even inspired.
@Always Late — I don’t disagree with your summary of the public’s interest (which I think is a different thing to public interest) but again, if you think the BBC is bad you should see the other guys.
Of course you can watch incredible and deep stuff on YouTube. Like yourself I do every day. But this is a fraction of YouTube content, and YouTube itself is a fraction of the viewing / attention time accorded to the likes of TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
‘Quality’ BBC programming that doesn’t pander to the lowest-denominator may be a lower percentage than in the past, but I’m confident it’s well above the average of rival free networks and these platforms, though possibly not Netflix and certain publications such as the FT and the New York Times.
Let’s also remember that the BBC’s push towards trashier TV was, as you allude, itself driven by previous right-wing driven charges of elitism and tribal appeal.
As for the champions of GB News, I presume you also spend an equal amount of time watching Al Jazeera and you lament the demise of Russia Today.
I had thought Monevator’s Brexit-philic commenters were several cuts above the common crowd but this particular celebration gives me serious pause.
GB News? YouTube? Unbiased? Really?
The thing about unbiased news is that sometimes you don’t like it. Free speech is like that too, you have to accept some people talk what you consider nonsense. (see up thread).
@xxd09
“read the news outlets from Beritbart,Fox News ,Daily Mail,Telegraph Times BBC,Guardian and Independent ie right to left”
I do this sometimes to a lesser extent, read about the same story on the Guardian, Beeb, Telegraph and Daily Mail. It’s interesting to note what different aspect(s) each one focuses on.
I may have relayed this story before, but about thirty five years ago I used to commute to work (travelling down on a Monday morning and back on Thursday/Friday evening/afternoon). Each journey was at least two hours. I did this for about a year and took the opportunity to run a little experiment. I used to buy two newspapers on each journey and compare and contrast how they ran the same story. IIRC, the results were pretty much as you would expect. I do not recall the papers that I bought for the return leg (but they would have included the Guardian & the Telegraph, subject to availability) but I always tried to buy the Times & the Sun on the way down. What struck me about these latter two was that whilst they always had the same slant (no surprise there) the Sun had an amazing ability to compact stories into far less words that were much easier to assimilate!
Not sure that this adds much to the Beeb discussion, other than media bias is nothing new.
@TI – take a look at the comments above – this is after your post 2016 brexiteer purge. Most people come here week on week to see your roundup of bbc and guardian articles along with a monthly groan about what a paradise the Eu is. What do you think the below the line is like on stories about the bbc in the mail, the telegraph, the express…
The bbc chose remain over impartiality in 2016, and now the streamers are decimating its business it has half the support it would have had if it’d remained neutral. And some of us are bound to see that as just desserts
But @BBlimp isn’t the whole point that if you wanted to set up a ‘Brexit Sparta’ blog of your own then the democracy (of sorts, flawed as it may be) of the Web actually allows that. Likewise, the same applies for me if I wanted to set up what you might choose to characterise as a Remaniac mouthpiece (more Rejoiner actually).
The problem, as I see it, with state broadcasting per se is that it claims, to some degree or another (be it legal, economic, moral or practical) a privileged (even in some countries a monopoly) status that, arguably, no platform should have, and which, for the most part, state run or state sponsored broadcasters have failed to adequately demonstrate that they deserve. In the latter regard, few people surely would contend now that the Beeb still properly fulfills the first two limbs of its founding Reithian values to inform and educate (even as it has over fulfilled on the third, to entertain).
No-one can, or will, stop either you or I were either or both of us to set up such contrasting websites. Some may see that situation as being dystopian. For me, however, even with all it’s very many real drawbacks, not least the power and intrusion of advertising online, the proliferation of POVs and of information sources is a form of progress in itself, much like the effects of Gutenberg’s printing press.
@TLI – the vitriol above is reserved for the brexiteers – the ‘basket of deplorables’, the oi polloi. They don’t mind the bbc being biased… as long as it’s biased in their direction. Just like they’d have no issues with people watching your YT site 24 hours a day in a loop… they’d just mind when it was opinions they don’t agree with pop up
Unfortunately for them, the bbc is going the way of our membership of the Eu, sorry too contentious, Hillary Clinton’s election campaign.
@BBlimp — It was far easier to be sympathetic for Leave voters in 2016 than it is to have time for those who still support the benighted project today.
Back then they could be excused on not being able to understand the arguments, or perhaps gullibility. But now the proof is in the pudding. The only reason to think Brexit was a good idea now was that if we hadn’t done it, we might not know for sure that there was nothing to commend it.
It has achieved absolutely nothing except to take us out of the EU. Estimates vary as to the hit to GDP, but certainly nobody credible thinks it’s higher as a result. The best estimates indicate about a £100bn hit to run-rate GDP at this point, or about £40bn in UK tax receipts. Easily enough to raise all personal allowances with inflation and still have plenty left over to knock a little of income tax.
But no, we have crown stamps on pint glasses instead. Cheers for that mate.
Even on it’s own terms — leaving aside the fantastic notions that there were ever *net* economic benefits to be had, or improvements to be made to the NHS or whatnot — it’s utterly failed. Immigration has never run higher. And politics in this country was dragged to the edge of the abyss by Brexit’s chief cheerleader, who hilariously didn’t believe in it himself anyway. You can’t make it up.
Nobody says the EU is a paradise. That’s your straw man, and unlike yourself (I’m increasingly forced to conclude) I don’t fall for facile baby arguments.
The question was whether we were better, on balance, in or out. Manifestly we were better in. That’s no longer a theory. It’s a fact.
The only thing that can be said about Brexit is that we Brexited, and we are now proudly in fully charge of (damaging) our country again, at least technically speaking. (Given we live in the real world and have to accept international relations, trade deals, and facts such as long established economic truths, ‘technically’ could perhaps be better terms ‘ironically’).
I was often told, not least by yourself, that the view that Brexit was a little Englander project was an unfair slur.
But to continue to stan for it when that is quite literally all it’s achieved tells the story in full.
As for the BBC, as I said but you have ignored, many of my lefty friends think it’s a bastion of Brexit-y right-wing propaganda.
Doesn’t that tell you something? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a sit down somewhere quiet to reassess your views? 🙂
It’s never too late to learn.
@Genghis — More on your very astute point on Consumer Duty and customer cash:
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1035878/hargreaves-and-aj-bell-slump-after-fca-customer-cash-warning-1035878.html
@TI -it might be helpful for you to exit your echo chamber. Of course, it may not, that’s really a choice for you. You’re currently living in platos cave.
I’m just glad I’m not paying for any of it, and look forward to the further diminishment of the BBC.
I do worry about the EU -it seems to be swinging right politically
Germany effectively runs the EU now that we are gone-leadership has not been one of their strengths
Historically that has had serious consequences-recently-for all of us-on two occasions!
Europeans also tend to descend into violence rather more easily than the Anglosphere
Times are getting tougher
A bit worrying
xxd09
@BBlimp — I read (credible) sources widely. As I said above, I *argued* with some of my friends who think the BBC is super pro-Brexit-y. They think I’m right-wing, like you think I’m left wing. While it would be foolish of me not to concede I was somewhat radicalised by the inane own goal of Brexit, on most things I remain an independent floating voter.
You, on the other hand, are definitional tribal, and your particular tribe has done real damage to the UK in recent years. We’ll see if the extremes of the other tribe can top you when what’s left of the Tory party is wiped out in the election next year.
@xxdo9 — I’m surprised you are worried about the EU swinging to the right, given your support for GB News, your sympathy towards Brexit voters, and the fact that our once sensibly pragmatic Tories have become a Poundshop Republican party over the past seven years.
I do agree the EU has taken a step towards the right, but if it’s a worrying step (as a bloc) then we must be just the left of Attila the Hun.
p.s. Sorry, but this is just an incredibly incorrect comment:
America has notoriously been at war for the vast majority of its nearly 250 years of existence, and very visibly so in the past couple of decades. Some of those I personally would have supported (obviously WW2 and also the cold war versus the Soviet Union) but that doesn’t change the facts of the matter.
As for the UK, perhaps you’re unfamiliar with Britain’s record of Empire, amongst much other belligerence? From memory there are fewer than a couple of dozen countries in the world that the UK has *not* invaded.
If you are basing your geopolitical views on the state of the world 300 years ago, then it may have been more true but I would say that was more down to the presence of our channel-sized moat then any innate cultural traits! 🙂
@xxd09: > “Europeans also tend to descend into violence rather more easily than the Anglosphere” < That's a dubious generalisation. On off wars between England and Scotland from 1272 to 1603, the Peasants Revolt of 1381, the suppression of the Lollards, the Wars of the Roses, Jack Cade's rebellion, the suppression of the Pilgrimage of Grace during the English Reformation, the English Civil War (7% population died in just 7 years 1642-9), the Jacobite revolts of 1689, 1715 & 1745; the United Irishmen's revolt of 1798 (not to mention the Easter Uprising, the Irish war of independence and the Irish Civil War, collectively spanning 1916-23).
And stateside, the American Civil War (620,000 dead), and America's wars with Britain (1812), Mexico (1846) and Spain (1898). We won't even go into the 20th century there.
I just don't think that the record bears out your statement, especially as the Kingdom of Great Britain and (from 1801) the UK has been at the heart of every truly global conflict from the first one (the 7 years war with the French empire from 1754-63), through to 'Europe's civil war' of 1914-45, bracketed at each end by the ‘Great War for Civilisation' (now called the First World War) and the Second World War.
This is not to mention the UK's roles in conflicts over Suez (1956), in Aden (1967), in Kenya (1952-58), in Malaya (1948-60) and Korea (1950-53). Frankly, this list could be made a lot longer.
@SemiPassive, me too on going long on bonds. A few weeks ago I observed that long gilts are now yielding 0.5% higher than short, and latest inflation data was strongly down, so I judge that interest rates are pretty unlikely to rise any further, and I moved my UK bond allocation from short to long duration (17yr) gilts fund. I’ll probably do the same for my allocation to US Treasuries shortly.
@Genghis @TI: HL shares holding over £7 & *only* down 65% from ATH. Based on £3.3 bn cap & last Qrt net income @£83 mn, P/E ~10 maybe cheap for supposedly wide moat (based on stickyness of funds).
I think we should just agree to disagree and appreciate the financial work put in on this blog by the Investor et al.
After we come here for finance not politics or history
It’s the Investor,s blog so he can state his political and historical views as much as he wishes
I think he realises that some posters have a different outlook and I for one appreciate airing of different views -that’s the essence of free speech discussion and adversarial debate from which hopefully truth arises
No one’s being cancelled or trigger warned -much appreciated
Finance only from now on……..
xxd09
With my apologies xxd09 (#78) if I’ve caused any offence with #75. I do aim for civility. 🙂
@xxd don’t be sad TI was gutted during my absence. We (certainly they) benefit from alternate viewpoints. I’m sure nobody really thinks you’re fascist, and if they do, it’s a very low bar.
@TLI (#45):
Ever since I saw your comment I have been trying to find this link:
https://www.aacalc.com/docs/cost_of_safety
The point is that the cost of a 4% failure rate is always much less than the cost 0f 1% failure rate (or 99% success rate) – not of itself surprising, but the relationship down to to c. 4% is approximately linear but below 4% (failure rate) the the linear relationship breaks down.
I first observed this years ago when I built my own MC simulator and whilst messing about ‘discovered’ that if you demand a high enough success rate it will cost much more than floor and upside!
Very interesting @Al Cam #81. It’s a bit like ‘diworsification’, where going from 1 to 5 companies about halves idiosyncratic volatility; but then going up to ~30 firms only gets you to a ~95% reduction (over the baseline market volatility), and having a 1,000 companies to invest in only takes the reduction in the extra volatility over the market as a whole from ~95% to ~99% (as compared to owning shares in just one firm). Also reminds me of the arguments (see Terry Smith) in the 2010s ZIRP years between owning gov. bonds or bond proxies: i.e. was it worth paying up for zero or negative yielding gilts to eliminate the last bit of extra historic asset class risk of shares versus bonds; or could you get most of the way there, but without necessarily sacrificing too much prospective returns, by going for a selection of lower volatility, higher quality shares (e.g. wide moat consumer staples)?
@BBlimp — Nobody is using the word (or even the implication) of fascist on this thread except you. Another strawman.
I’ve regularly had readers email me asking why I don’t delete your posts, given my allergy to famous house troll @Neverland. The difference is (or at least was) that while your pro-Brexit view was both completely contrary to mine and long ago ceased to be backed up by any argument or evidence, it did at least seem earnestly advanced. In contrast, Neverland’s posting pattern, while individually harmless or even constructive from time to time, was remorselessly antagonistic. A reader or myself would respond to point A, and he’d reply with something about an unstated point B. What I call ‘shapeshifting’.
Unfortunately you are now falling into this pattern, at least on this site. If and when I start deleting you, it won’t be because of your Brexit support — as I am sure you will claim — but because your posting will be judged as just antagonistic too.
On this thread you’ve not responded to any of the charges of Brexit being a damaging waste of time with any contrary facts. Don’t get me wrong — I appreciate they don’t exist — but you could at least trot out some lame thing about a car manufacturer’s investment that would have happened anyway, and if anything did so *despite* Brexit not because of it. That usual tat. Perhaps you lack the will to pretend anymore, even if you’re too wedded to your pro-Brexit identity, and so you just chuck around lame ad hominem attacks.
You accuse me of living in an echo chamber, apparently because you think I’d be surprised to learn that other people have similar views to yourself, and that I’d encounter them if I read the comments on the Daily Mail.
Believe me I both encounter such comments and I’m well aware a large (if shrinking) number of people were pro-Brexit.
I know the view exists. That doesn’t make the reasoning – or the Brexit – right. Far from it, which is a further reason for the dismay at the fact that we did it and at the inability of some of its supporters to come to terms with the self-harming futility of their political project.
Having somewhat ‘dissed’ (as younger generations might say) TV in some of my comments above, I was quite pleasantly surprised to switch on ‘the box’ for the first time in a while to find Casablanca showing. There is hope for TV yet.
I do think that high quality educational content on YT is underrated. Amongst the swamp of utter rubbish there’s plenty of good stuff in there too, e.g.:
Closer to Truth, for the philosophy of science;
PBS Space Time, the Mindscape Podcast and Cool Worlds for Cosmology, Physics and Astronomy;
Arvin Ash on complex problems answered simply;
Economics Explained; and
Caspianreport, for geopolitics.
Many others could be listed here. Granted though that consuming YT does require some discernment and sieving, that’s for sure.