Weekend reading for investors: 2/05/09

by The Investor on May 2, 2009

Every week I read a large number of personal finance and investing articles. Here’s my latest weekly shortcut to the best.

Before we get on to the links, I’d like to mention that Mike from Oblivious Investor has just announced his book is now on sale.

Entitled Oblivious Investing: Building Wealth by Ignoring the Noise (US link only), his book is about “ignoring the sensationalized, short-term financial news and focusing instead on the few things that actually determine long-term investing success.”

Mike’s blog is great – I link to it every week – and even though I do things he’d disapprove (of such as investing in single company stocks, and speculating about bull and bear markets) he’s been kind enough to highlight some of my more Oblivious Investor-friendly messages on Monevator, too.

I haven’t read the book yet, but if it’s anything like his pithy pronouncements on his blog, I’m sure it’ll prove a winner.

Right, on to this week’s links!

Good reads from the financial blogosphere

Behaviour Gap points out the craziness of deciding to get back into the market because shares have risen 25% in the past few weeks. (I covered this too in my strategies for investing in bear markets).

Maul Maunders posted a compelling graph linking UK unemployment and house prices. With unemployment predicted to reach 10% by 2010, house prices will keep falling.

Moolanomy is creating a new financial success plan as a way of helping readers find the good stuff on his site. (I should spend a weekend doing this!)

Here’s a great post on FIRE Finance explaining why complex corporate structures ruin work for many of us. (Scroll down to get to the actual post).

Political Calculations shows at least one of the reasons why earnings will bounce back hard (because companies wrote down their profits so drastically in Q4 2008).

Laid off in the financial crisis and missing the company gym? Taking a different tack this week, Amateur Asset Allocator explains how to build a gym at home for less than the cost of private membership.

The Dividend Guy blog has posted up a scan of a old but good article about Benjamin Graham.

Lost your job? Squawk Fox has a huge series with examples on writing a good resume (or C.V., as we call resumes here in the old world…)

Generally UK-related articles from other websites and papers

The FT points out the the UK government’s politically motivated 50% income tax rate is idiotically clumsy, and punishes the most flexible elements of the economy such as the self-employed.

The FT also says advisers still like Gilts. I still far prefer equities over anything but the short-term, even if the government bond bubble I identified in December has now partially burst. (When Gilt yields rise above 5% again, I’ll take some notice).

Someone who agrees with me is well-regarded fund manager William Littlewood, who has just come back with the Artemis Strategic Assets Fund. This write up in the Independent gives an interesting insight into his views, and points out the fund has a flat charge of 1.5% and no performance fees.

The Times celebrates the increase in ISA contributions from 2010, but warns the Inland Revenue is to crack down harder on offshore income.

CityWire reports the Halifax as saying homes are now more affordable for first-time buyers than for six years. (I need to update the maths on this in London, pronto.)