What caught my eye this week.
Finally my co-blogger The Accumulator has won the acclaim he so richly deserves.
No, not a plaudit for achieving the most active puns in a passive post.
Not the Leo Tolstoy Award for Services to Word Counts Beyond The Call of Anything Reasonable But Rather Really Excessive Haven’t You Even Heard of Twitter 2021 Edition.
Not even a retrospective of his black and white cartoons at the V&A.
But rather, a notification from The Motley Fool’s All-Star Money to tell us The Accumulator had won their article of the week spot with his Fighting The FIRE Demons post.
And the prize?
This artist’s impression of The Accumulator in bobblehead form:
Now, given how The Accumulator has cultivated an air of anonymous mystery around these parts, you might wonder why we’re so ready to share this homunculus with you all?
And the answer is you’re more likely to see The Accumulator doubling down on a triple-levered ETF than rocking a tie.
Meanwhile that wodge of cash would be out of his hands and invested into a long-term tracker fund before you could say, “I’ve worked out the terminal value of my round compounded in VRWL for 25 years and on reflection I’m sure I can hear my bus pulling up outside.”
And while TA is just as devilishly handsome as Bobblehead TA, our man is also older, more careworn, and about as likely to grin as Boris Johnson announcing a third wave.
In short, anonymity is preserved!
Nevertheless, it’s a wonderful treat from the All-Star Money team – thank you guys – and the least TA deserves after a decade of peerless posts for Monevator.
Just so long as he doesn’t expect a pay rise.
Have a great weekend everyone!
From Monevator
Can dogs and financial independence go together? – Monevator
How to manage multiple portfolios – Monevator
Beating inflation versus hedging inflation – Monevator
From the archive-ator: Are you lost in Neverland? – Monevator
News
Note: Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view you can click to read the piece without being a paid subscriber. Try privacy/incognito mode to avoid cookies. Consider subscribing if you read them a lot!1
UK economy grew faster in April as shops reopened – BBC
Ministers aim to spur domestic tourism with cut-price UK rail pass – Guardian
House prices hit another record high with the average home up a mammoth £22,000 in just a year – ThisIsMoney
Smashed prices: Australians enjoy avocados that cost a mere $1 – Guardian
UK air taxi firm Vertical Aerospace to float in New York – Guardian
There are no bad assets… just bad prices [With PDF download] – GMO
Products and services
There were 80 new 5% deposit mortgages launched last month – ThisIsMoney
Offer: Open a SIPP at Interactive Investor and you pay no SIPP admin fee for six months, saving you £60 – Interactive Investor
What to do if you were scammed by a Marcus clone site – Which
Index providers: the whales behind the scenes of ETFs [Research] – SSRN
Sign-up to Freetrade via my link and we can both get a free share worth between £3 and £200 – Freetrade
Fintech 3.0: an overview [Nerdy!] – John Street Capital
Homes for sale fit for a Queen’s birthday, in pictures – Guardian
Comment and opinion
Fear – Enso Finance
Build the addition – About Your Benjamins
The top nine (bad) arguments against Bitcoin – The Simple Path to Wealth
A guide to moving from cash to investments – Compound Advisers
What to expect from the stock market – Humble Dollar
The million pound pension problem [Search result] – FT
Index funds have too much voting power – Morningstar
Are rich people better investors? – Klement on Investing
Beware of anti-money hiccups when joining a new platform [Plus a rant] – Simple Living in Somerset
Complementing a core strategy with managed futures [Geeky!] – Wisdom Tree
Inflation for nerds mini-special
Why wage inflation can’t be transitory – The Reformed Broker
Booth and Fama on rising inflation – The Evidence-based Investor
Economists discuss: is inflation really dead? [Video] – via YouTube
Naughty corner: Active antics
Is there a better way to invest in meme stocks? – Of Dollars and Data
Inflation versus speculation – Feld Thoughts
The 10 biggest mistakes made by fund investors – Behavioural Investment
A deep dive into Fundsmith’s emerging markets trust – IT Investor
UK Value Investor updates on his model million pound portfolio – UK Value Investor
The dean of valuation looks at SPACs – Musings on Markets
A profile of the bullish US value investor John Rogers – Institutional Investor
Why one firm’s portfolio managers code in Python – Institutional Investor
Covid corner
Unvaccinated are most at risk from Delta variant – BBC
Did any of the anti-Covid mandates really make a difference? – Vox
Rapid Covid tests used in mass UK programme get scathing US report – Guardian
Kindle book bargains
Liars Poker by Michael Lewis – £0.99 on Kindle
Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street by John Brooks – £0.99 on Kindle
Legacy by James Kerr – £0.99 on Kindle
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill – £0.99 on Kindle
Environmental factors
The decade of new veganism – GQ
Off our beat
Gareth Southgate: Dear England – The Players’ Tribune
In space, nobody can hear Jeff Bezos. So can Richard Branson go, too? – Guardian
The 20-5-3 rule on how much time to spend outside – Men’s Health
Microsoft Excel is now an e-sport. Yes, really – MSN
“You don’t have enough work because you’re walking too much – and other weird things I don’t miss about office life” – Elizabeth Tai
Feeling sorry for people who won’t buy an Apple Watch – Anthony Lawrence
And finally…
“One of the reasons that millionaires are economically successful is that they think differently.”
– Thomas J. Stanley, The Millionaire Next Door
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Congratulations. Great teeth.
Feb 2nd!?
Suggested kindle book bargain here. Currently £1.49. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jacob-Goldstein/e/B08FHDQJ2S/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
Avocados are pretty cheap here too at the moment. Picked up a 2 pack for 90p in Lidl yesterday. This, combined with their £2.99 wine of the week I think conclusively proves that inflation is a myth. Who knew.
Surprised to see JL Collins appears to have drunk at least some of the Crypto kool-aid. Some of his counterarguments to criticisms levelled don’t hold water for me.
e.g. “Bitcoin is the second most used currency in the world for money laundering and criminal activity. Second only to…the US Dollar! People said the same thing about the internet. Should we outlaw the internet because criminals use it? How about cars? ”
Firstly, comparing the use of Bitcoin to the US dollar is a nonsense argument that disregards the gigantically larger size/circulation of the World’s reserve currency. Of course there will be more fraud using dollars, simply because there is exponentially more of it about. What are the percentages though?
Likewise, comparing bitcoin to the internet as a whole as a vehicle for fraud is a specious argument. The internet is so self-evidently overwhelmingly a positive thing that it’s positives don’t need expanding upon. Yes of course we pay a small price for this gift by enabling bad things like the dark web etc.
Meanwhile, thus far, aside from rather questionable proposed advances in usage by the Salvadorean Government, what good has crypto done for the World? It’s made a few people very rich through speculation, it’s enabled a new generation of day-trading/gambling, and despite assertions to the contrary it has been hugely environmentally damaging in it’s most widespread form (Bitcoin). Meanwhile, it’s clear that a huge volume of crypto is being used for criminal purposes, including re-energising ransomware on an industrial scale, as has been widely reported in the news this week. Is that a price worth paying? Should we put up with that for all of the benefits that crypto has thus far brought? Not by a long chalk in my view.
I do wish I could amend my comments on here 🙂 For posterity, I’d rather not have labelled his argument as nonsense and just focus on my own.
Whilst I’m hogging the soapbox I’d also recommend reading Calvin’s comments underneath that article.
Eternal post by TA. As enjoyable to read it now as back then.
Artist’s impression? I’ve always pictured TA as being a bearded man.
Anyhow, cogratulations, TA! Well deserved.
Started to read the JL Collins article “The top nine (bad) arguments against Bitcoin” because I thought a lot of the debate is finger-pointing and shouting and this might be interesting. Didn’t get past number 1 – energy consumption.
First of all, the data provided is fundamentally inaccurate as any examination of what is going on will reveal. Secondly, the underpinning argument is – I have bought the electricity, it is my right to use it any way I want without reference to anybody else. Classic screw everybody else, I am a rabid free-marketeer and no one has the right to stop me doing whatever I want with what is mine regardless of the consequence.
Bitcoin is designed to be energy profligate, and that consumption is designed to grow. That is a stupid way to develop a financial product. There have been cases of fossil fuel power stations being decommissioned, being purchased and brought back into service by bitcoin miners (they are cheap because no one wants them for grid services) https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-miners-are-giving-new-life-to-old-fossil-fuel-power-plants-11621594803.
I can believe that blockchain ledgers will find some powerful uses, but bitcoin is just dumb unless your purpose is wasting energy.
Congratulations The Accumulator. Very well deserved recognition.
Also, many thanks TI for a great website.
I know the JL Collins piece on Bitcoin is rather controversial but any chance of a guest article from the great man on this site?
@old_eyes. Exactly.
Re: blockchain. I’m open to it growing in purpose/utility, but I feel we’re too forgiving of it in it’s current instantiations for fear of being labelled as luddites or looking silly in hindsight. After 13 years of it being in the limelight, an aeon in tech. terms, where are we? Why is that promise always falling further back, always just around the corner about to be realised? I’ve seen it compared to a very problematic version of excel, and that’s about all it’s achieved thus far..
@TA – Congratulations for this well deserved award from The Motley Fool. You have the time now with FI to pursue a bright and creative path in life. It’s really inspiring.
OK the wodge of cash is fantastic, but what’s in the other pocket TA?!
Congratulations on the award @TA and the team, well deserved.
I nearly got to the end of the JL Collins article, and I am still skeptical about bitcoin but for the sake of counter argument, and the ever present knowledge that I am often wrong and need to learn, I persisted.
Even if all his arguments hold water, which I doubt they do and I agree with some of the comments above, I still cannot get passed the volatility thing. Buying and selling goods in bitcoin is impossible when your advertised price won’t pay for replacement stock in a rise, or make your goods too expensive to buy in a fall. This alone makes it not a viable currency, which, was its original purpose.
If it is only a “store of value” and it is used extensively by criminal organisations, the tail risk must be a wipe out if it is criminalised by any or all of the major governments around the world.
I have and will leave this in the hands of speculators.
JimJim
@TI:
Nice link to Compound Advisers.
Thanks
Thanks all! The award designer has been very kind to me!
You could “Dr.” the wodge of cash and turn it into a bar of chocolate. Congrats @TA
Congratulations TA – love the bobblehead with the wedge of cash in hand!
@Simon – thank you, great Kindle link. Heard him a lot on the Planet Money podcast and this seems a bargain for £1.49