What caught my eye this week.
With hundreds of investing blogs having published thousands of articles over the past decade, there’s a lot of repetition around.
(Indeed I’m getting déjà vu. Didn’t I say much the same the other week?)
Anyway, you have to admire a post that finds a new spin – such as combining astrophysics and economic upheaval, as Klement on Investing [1] did this week.
Especially when it brings – ahem – gems such as this:
The chaos of the universe is needed to create new structures. And islands of order like a star and its planetary system eventually disintegrate into chaos out of which new structures are created.
A wonderful symbol for this order out of chaos is the fact that on Neptune, the atmosphere is so volatile and chaotic and the pressure is high enough, that scientists suspect it sometimes rains diamonds on it.
Wow. I wonder if Elon Musk is short Tiffany, the upmarket jewelry store?
Let there be… light entertainment in the interlude
Klement’s argument is that the confusion and misery of Covid-19 will similarly produce much of value in time.
But it seems a stretch to compare diamond showers on faraway worlds with people working in their pants and not shaving for a week, or with Starbucks staff serving coffee from behind a 2″-thick plexiglass screen.1 [2]
When it comes to our investing beat, the disruption is mostly just more oddness, which is at least on-brand with the times we’re living in.
CNBC veteran Jim Cramer, for example, is using his airtime to lambast the antics of the lockdown day-trading generations’ Pied Piper – the Internet entrepreneur Dave Portnoy [3].
There’s probably 50 years separating the demographics of their target audiences, but I’m sure they’re united in enjoying the spat.
Who knows what happens next. We seem to have run into an air pocket – in the markets, in the global Covid-19 narrative, and in the economy – where everything is neither getting better or worse, at least for a moment.
Normality returning? Or maybe we should hold on to our hats (and our diversifying safer assets…)
From Monevator
Opened your first trading account during lockdown? Here’s how to make money in shares – Monevator [4]
From the archive-ator: How slow growth affects your investment goals – Monevator [5]
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!2 [6]
UK economy shrinks by a record 20.4% in April due to lockdown – BBC [7]
Britain will see the ‘worst’ economic contraction among developed nations, says OECD – Sky News [8]
US Fed sees zero rates to 2022; recommits to bond buying – Bloomberg via MSN Money [9]
Bankrupt Hertz seeks permission to raise $1 billion in ‘preposterous’ new stock sale – Forbes [10]
UK dividends down £12bn so far, a 16% drop compared to 2019 – ThisIsMoney [11]
Unilever to ditch Anglo-Dutch dual structure in favour of a single base in London – ThisIsMoney [12]
[13][Click to enlarge the mania]
Products and services
Hardy any mortgages available now for buyers in England with a 10% or smaller deposit – Guardian [16]
Rare Kew Gardens 50p keeps growing in value; worth 2,733% more than a decade ago – ThisIsMoney [17]
Home insurance premiums jump in cost; one in ten households consider cancelling – Which? [18]
Sign-up to Freetrade via my link and we can both get a free share worth £3 to £200 – Freetrade [19]
Homes with a garden are the new must-have for buyers – ThisIsMoney [20]
US fund fees have been cut in half over the past 20 years – The Evidence-based Investor [21]
Properties for sale with a lake or moat [Gallery] – Guardian [22]
Comment and opinion
The ETF industry’s Tower of Babel – ETF.com [23]
Backtests versus real-life in the markets – A Wealth of Common Sense [24]
My bad – Humble Dollar [25]
Will you be bothered to pay £50 a month for the gym when they reopen? – Guardian [26]
The stock market almost always seems disconnected from the economy – Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance [27]
US fund managers failed to beat the market in the chaos of early 2020 – Institutional Investors [28]
Wade Pfau: The annuity puzzle – Forbes [29]
Bonds and the invisible thief of inflation – Factor Research [30]
Larry Swedroe: [US] public pensions 98% certain to underperform benchmarks over ten years [Passive maths; also I don’t think you can be ‘98% certain’ but then I’m just a humble aggregator… 😉 ] – The Evidence-Based Investor [31]
Naughty corner: Active antics
The stock market as entertainment in the Covid-19 era – Net Interest [32]
Investment in oil supply has collapsed. It may not roar back – The Economist [33]
TINA + MMT = MAMU – Ed Yardeni [34]
How to measure dividend growth and the factors that support it – UK Value Investor [35]
A walk on the wild side – Simple Living in Somerset [36]
Active investing ability declines markedly in those aged over-70 – Market Watch [37]
Investment grade corporate bonds right now: the worst risk/reward in history? – Charlie Bilello [38]
Covid-19, politics, and Brexit
[39]
London still the worst-hit UK region for excess deaths from Covid-19 – John Burn-Murdoch via Twitter [40]
Deaths involving Covid-19 by local area and socioeconomic deprivation: March to May – ONS [41]
New daily infections fall by half in a week, implies data from the symptom tracking app – Symptom Study [42]
Coronavirus came to the UK at least 1,300 times, mostly from Europe; just 0.1% from China – BBC [43]
Why it will be hard to introduce local lockdowns in the UK – Wired [44]
Coronavirus bubbles: The great housemate sex dilemma – BBC [45]
Growing calls for 2-metre social distancing rule to be halved to support the economy – BBC [46]
America is giving up on the pandemic – The Atlantic [47]
Could a vaccine be developed for Covid-19 in record time? [Experts discuss] – New York Times [48]
There’s a lot of confusion around about asymptomatic coronavirus cases – Stat News [49]
How the pandemic might reshape the world’s cities – The Atlantic [50]
Boris Johnson’s team is broken by the virus and losing faith – Bloomberg [51]
Kindle book bargains
The Anti-Procrastination Mindset by Harry Heijligers – £0.99 on Kindle [52]
The Perils of Perception: Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything by Bobby Duffy – £1.99 on Kindle [53]
How To Day Trade For A Living by Andrew Aziz [Wealth warning [54]!] – £0.99 on Kindle [55]
The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Maths Genius and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History by David Enrich – £1.99 on Kindle [56]
Off our beat
The Museum of Office Life, and other stories from the future [Funny, video] – YouTube [57]
Underworked but exhausted? That’s not burnout, that’s ‘boreout’ – Guardian [58]
$1 billion to save the ocean [YouTube] – The Economist [59]
How to feel better when you don’t know what’s wrong – Raptitude [60]
The depth of privilege – Of Dollars and Data [61]
And finally…
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
– Charles Dickens, A Tale Of Two Cities [62]
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- Who is making all these screens? There’s a Covid-19 winner for sure. [↩ [68]]
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