What caught my eye this week.
Bosses continue to ask their staff to get back into the office more. And workers continue to reply by email from their laptops: “Yeah, maybe not…”
You don’t need to look hard for evidence. My local gym – located in a business park – is dead on a Friday, for example. Or check out the slump in rail season ticket sales in the UK:
Source: Mail Online
The Mail Online reports (my bold):
There were 60.3m passenger journeys made using season tickets in the latest quarter of January to March 2024. This was a 3 per cent increase on the 58.7m journeys made in the same quarter last year.
But season tickets made up 15 per cent of total ticket sales in the latest quarter, which was less than the 16 per cent in the previous year and down 24 percentage points from 39 per cent four years ago.
I’m sure the cost-of-living crisis won’t have helped, either, when five out of the most popular season tickets into London now cost over £5,000.
The dearest is £7,150 a year!
Paying that kind of money to sit on a train for as much as an hour or more – only to work less efficiently in an office when you get there?
No thanks. I can easily see why people are choosing to re-wire their work lifestyles instead.
So can plenty of others – it has been a bountiful week for coverage of the ongoing hybrid work reconfiguration:
-
- Invested in the WFH argument? Home in on the evidence – FT
- The benefits of hybrid working [Research] – Nature
- Inside Dell, workers rebel against return-to-office order – Semafor
- How to be happier at work – A Wealth of Common Sense
- Bosses are having the hardest time adjusting to hybrid work – CBNC
- Cultures of destruction are destroying workplaces – Psychology Today
Best wishes to a fellow finance blogger
I was saddened to learn this week that US personal finance writer Jonathan Clements has received a very unfortunate medical diagnosis.
A well-known financial columnist in the US, Jonathan has more recently put his heart and soul into his own personal finance website, Humble Dollar.
I’ve never met Jonathan. But I’ve read his articles and most of those of his contributors for many years. I link to Humble Dollar almost every week, and have especially enjoyed watching Jonathan deftly triangulate his site to find its own unique voice and niche.
I’ve also learned from reading how Jonathan’s thoughts have evolved with respect to his own post-work life and retirement. Which of course only makes his sudden medical challenges the more poignant.
Both myself and TA homed in on the same section of Jonathan’s article about his cancer diagnosis:
The cliché is true: Something like this makes you truly appreciate life.
Despite those bucket-list items, I find my greatest joy comes from small, inexpensive daily pleasures: that first cup of coffee, exercise, friends and family, a good meal, writing and editing, smiles from strangers, the sunshine on my face. If we can keep life’s less admirable emotions at bay, the world is a wonderful place.
We send Jonathan our very best wishes for his treatment and journey.
And everybody please enjoy this sunny weekend.
From Monevator
Blind Date for Investors – Monevator
FIRE pioneers are finding the path for everyone – Monevator
From the archive-ator: The cautionary tale – 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.
Inflation falls to lowest level in almost three years – BBC
Natwest to takeover most of Sainsbury’s Bank – Which
Queues for first council housing in Somerset for 30 years – BBC
Hargreaves Lansdown ‘willing to recommend’ £5.4bn CVC-led takeover – CityAM
Revolut seeks $40+bn valuation in employee share sale – FT via Yahoo Finance
Bank of New York rebranding cuts ties to a fading Wall Street era [Search result] – FT
Octopus Energy to repay £3bn Bulb cash to taxman – This Is Money
Barcelona to ban apartment rentals to tourists to cut housing costs – Guardian
Private equity firms have amassed $1tn in ‘carry’ fees as taxation debate mounts [Search result] – FT
Investment in UK is lowest in G7 for third year in a row, new data shows – IPPR
The election section mini-special
Pressure on Labour and Tories as tax gap hits £40bn – Guardian
Brexit and the election: ‘Guitar exports used to take 48 hours – now it’s three weeks’ – BBC
The manifestos and your finances – Guardian
Reform and the Green Party’s more radical tax ideas – This Is Money
Electing betting claims put focus on who knew what and when – BBC
Products and services
The best buy-to-let mortgages for landlords – This Is Money
St James’s Place under scrutiny: what do its customers say? [Search result] – FT
Sign-up to Trading 212 via our affiliate link to claim your free share and cashback. T&Cs apply – Trading 212
Is it cheaper to rent or own a home? – Which
Santander’s bank switch offer: get £175 + £15 – Be Clever With Your Cash
Get £100 worth of free trades when you open an II SIPP account before 30 June. Capital at risk. T&Cs apply. New customers only – Interactive Investor
10 ways wedding guests can save money – Which
Credit card debt hits UK mortgage affordability [Search result] – FT
Open an account with InvestEngine via our link and get up to £50 when you invest at least £100. T&Cs apply. Capital at risk – InvestEngine
Skinny homes for sale, in pictures – Guardian
Comment and opinion
Quiet compounding – Morgan Housel
Go big early – Humble Dollar
How to get started with FatFIRE – Fire v London
The stock market will crash! – Darius Foroux
“I ask men if they have a pension plan before I seriously date them” – Business Insider
Roger Federer versus the stock market – A Wealth of Common Sense
‘Will I ever retire?’: millennials wonder what’s on the other side of middle age – Guardian
Why stocks are the greatest asset class – Of Dollars and Data
Six myths about working in retirement – Which
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality – Life After The Daily Grind
Just asking questions – Money With Katie
Don’t beat up your opponents too badly while smiling – Financial Samurai
Geriatric millionaires: why Boomers keep getting wealthier – Guardian
How the English clergy popularised discounted cashflow analysis – MIT [h/t Abnormal Returns]
Naughty corner: Active antics
Lessons from the Warren Buffett way – Flyover Stocks
Why front-page news can mislead investors – Morningstar
Six charts that explain why US stocks are going up… – Tker
…and why you should consider small caps on valuation grounds – CFA Institute
Hedge fund talent schools are looking for the perfect trader – Bloomberg via Yahoo
Why corporate bonds are so hot right now [Search result] – FT
Betting with a weak hand – Behavioural Investment
Millionaire exodus mini-special
Record 9,500 millionaires expected to leave the U.K. this year – Fortune
Wealthy foreigners step up plans to leave UK as taxes increase [Search result] – FT
Kindle book bargains
A Man for All Markets by Edward O. Thorpe – £0.99 on Kindle
Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth – £0.99 on Kindle
Taxtopia by The Rebel Accountant – £0.99 on Kindle
The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau – £0.99 on Kindle
Environmental factors
A wild place in Cheshire that should not be bulldozed – Guardian
‘You’ll never find an insurer saying, “I don’t believe in climate change”’ [Search result] – FT
Iberian lynx no longer endangered after numbers improve in Spain and Portugal – Guardian
Global renewable energy capacity through time [Infographic] – Visual Capitalist
The climate is the economy – Slate
Robot overlord roundup
AI took their jobs. Now they get paid to make it sound more human – BBC
The Goldilocks zone – Not Boring
Apple is smart to go second on AI – Professor Galloway
Better than Google – Seth Godin
AI cameras used at London stations to detect passengers’ emotions – Standard
Off our beat
The rise in DINKs, SINKs, DINKWADs, KIPPERs and more… – Forbes
…although more young people are becoming NEETs, too – Yahoo Finance
The world is running out of soldiers – Vox
Some scientists think extreme heat is why people keep disappearing in Greece – CNN
Japan’s abandoned houses wipe $25bn off nearby property – Nikkei Asia
The scammy ads fuelling app gaming – Sherwood
What Frank Lloyd Wright tells us about late bloomers [Search result] – FT
Is moving like an animal the secret to good health? – Guardian
And finally…
“It was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise
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Also sending Jonathan Clements best wishes and hoping his treatment works out.
The Season Ticket figures may understate the scale of the shift. I know many who have to do 2 or 3 days per week in the office but where that’s calculated as an average over each calendar month, not each and every week. They can’t be alone in this.
That means that they can get a Weekly Ticket, which is still a Season Ticket, and do blocks of 5 consecutive working days in the office during the month to make up the required days, and then still get 5 days’ travel for about the price of 3 peak time return tickets.
Doing this (with 8 bank holidays and, say, 30 days’ annual leave p.a.) and it’s then possible (depending on if they have to do either 2 or 3 days per week on average as office attendance over the month) for them to save about 34% to 56% as compared to what it would cost with an Annual Season Ticket (which gives 52 weeks’ travel for the price of 40 Weekly Season Tickets).
Sentiments as per TI and DH regarding Jonathan Clements.
Ugh, I had no idea about Jonathan from the Humble Dollar. I should read his site more often. 61 is too early to get such cancer.
I hope he gets much much longer to live than 12 months. Same to you and everyone.
God bless
Sam
Thanks @TI for the link to Tker/Sam Ro this week. Exhibit 20 from BofA’s Ben Bowler on NDX earnings & price v SPX since 1998, and Fig. 7 on FCF/Sales since 1995, give valuable counterpoints to all too prevalent ‘its gonna crash’ narratives on YT + social media.
There’s sound, prudent risk management cases to be made for gently pruning cap weight US exposure (as eloquently set out by you in ‘What to do if you’re queasy about the US stock market [Members]’), but it doesn’t rest on markets being pulled back downwards towards some magical CAPE figure, or indeed any other single metric.
Seems oddly quiet this week – so i’ll ask an irrelevant question:
I’m about to move a work DC pension (about £240k) into ii (as I have my isa with them). I recall some juicy cash incentives a while back, perhaps £750. At the moment it’s £100 free trades – I’m thinking of waiting to see what the offer is in July – does anyone know if the incentives are for truly new II customers, or just the ones opening a new SIPP?
Thanks
We were new to ii before 2022-23 when Mrs DH and I each did a HL to ii transfer for SIPPs (in 2022 for me and 2023 for her).
Just after the 1 year mark with ii I moved my SIPP back to HL.
All moves were incentive driven.
ii were fine for customer service and website, and for both Mrs DH and I the transfers back and forth went smoothly and swiftly.
In 2024 ii were offering £1,500 to move ISA in fron elsewhere, but only for new customers.
I asked ii if I qualified for the offer as, although at that point I had my SIPP with them, I didn’t have my ISA with ii (that was still then, and is now, with HL).
ii said ‘no’ I still wouldn’t qualify.
So I then moved my SIPP back to HL and got an incentive from them instead.
Although I moved a larger SIPP than Mrs DH to ii I only got £300 in 2022, whereas Mrs DH got £750 in 2023, because ii upped the offer considerably between 2022 and 2023.
There’s a year long claw back IIRC with ii.
I just waited until that period ended before doing the move back to HL.
HL then randomly had a different offer of £100 worth of credit in May to June 2024 towards the cost of trades undertaken.
This enabled me to switch out of OEIC trackers (Vanguard Global All Cap in the main) and into more or less equivalent ETF trackers; thereby
a). avoiding the uncapped HL % fee for open ended funds, as ETF HL platform fees are currently capped at £200 p.a. in a SIPP (and £45 p.a. for their ISA);
b). somewhat reducing average fund cost (OCF); and,
c). very slightly reducing my US exposure, from 64% to about 56% (on a fully look through basis).
Addendum – the HL incentive this year to move the SIPP (back in my case) from ii was £1,500, the same as what ii were offering ‘new customers’ to move the ISA.
Thanks DL – not trivial sums, almost a holiday. I’ve emailed them to check eligibility and hopefully I’ll move 2, and get a free holiday.
Ps my current provider (ex employer L&G) is closing my default fund and moving me to another in-house fund at my expense – so time to move. It’s a good nudge as I need to get my ducks in a row for later this TY as I’m turning 55 and want to get full use of the tax year 0%/20% bands.
It strikes me that moving pensions around for cashback offers after retirement, but before pension age, is effectively a way to withdraw tax free from your pension before pension age. It could make sense even if fees are a little higher at the destination platform. A way to bridge the gap before money can be taken from the pension.
That’s how I look at it anyway.
Thanks for the articles and the tip on platform incentives in the comments.
If CVC’s bid for HL goes through it might be a pertinent topic, I’ll certainly be having a close look at platform allocations. HL was always out of line with the market on transaction fees but while it was debt free and publicly listed it had it’s attractions as a custodian, I can’t see any reason to keep assets in a leveraged buyout with high fees though…
Watching CVC’s behaviour like a hawk. When the HL switch incentive year-long claw back period ends, if there’s any signs of financial stress as a result of the LBO, then I’ll be gone like Enron, and it’ll be next stop IBkrs.