Good reads from around the Web.
A quiet week on the blogs. Maybe too quiet, as they say on the front line.
Where has everyone gone?
Is it Black Friday fatigue, Christmas party exhaustion, or the miserable British weather (yesterday felt like the first time we’d seen the sun in a fortnight) that has kept bloggers away from their laptops?
One UK personal finance blog – UnderTheMoneyTree – seems to have expired entirely! At the time of writing there’s nothing but the web host’s holding page in situ asking if you’re the site owner and some Google adverts to peruse.
STOP PRESS! Under The Money Tree is online again, posting about [1] traders who are knackered with losing money.
I’m relieved, and will have to put away my “I blame the kids [2]” gag for next time.
But his revival doesn’t excuse the rest of them for resting. (And, um, it’s too late for me to rethink my editorial spin for this weekend. Sorry.)
Short cut
At least Hollywood still has its work ethic. The second trailer for The Big Short [3]
That said, I preferred the first trailer [4]. It made me feel smarter.
According to Rotten Tomatoes [5] the film looks to be a winner either way, with an 87% aggregated review score so far.
And if it’s rubbish?
Well, there’s always Star Wars.
From the blogs
Making good use of the things that we find…
Passive investing
- Can stock market forecasters forecast? – The Irrelevant Investor [6]
Active investing
- Buying trusts on a premium is risky: Case study – The Value Perspective [7]
- US firms aren’t as richly valued as you think – Calafia Beach Pundit [8]
- Bargain hunting for doombuster discounts – Investing Caffeine [9]
- Selling JD Sports after five years of great returns – UK Value Investor [10]
- Ben Carlson talks to Michael Covel [Podcast] – Trend Following [11]
- Like clockwork they’re bashing Buffett again – The Felder Report [12]
Other articles
- Why hedge funds have run out of road – The Reformed Broker [13]
- Stop carping: Capitalism needs more Mark Zuckerbergs – Prag Cap [14]
- Benefits of portfolio rebalancing – Chicago Financial Planner [15] [via Mike [16]]
- Consumer for a day – Retirement Investing Today [17]
- Sleep on it! – Richard Beddard [18]
Product of the week: Want to get into buy-to-let before April’s Stamp Duty hike? ThisIsMoney [19] flags up some eye-catching deals from Virgin Money [20] offering £750 cashback. But while Virgin’s buy-to-let rates [21] – including a two-year fix at 1.99% and a five-year fix at 3.15% – are competitive, there are big fees that will devour the cashback perk.
Mainstream media money
Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view these enable you to click through to read the piece without being a paid subscriber of that site.1 [22]
Passive investing
- Vanguard’s gain is Wall Street’s pain – Bloomberg [23]
- Ignore liquidity at your peril – ETF.com [24]
- Could robo advisers disrupt index funds? [US but interesting] – Futures [25]
Active investing
- How John Lee turned £150,000 into a £4.5m ISA2 [26] [Search result] – FT [27]
- In defense of closet index funds – Morningstar [28] [And this riposte [29]]
- Top 10 buys and sells of the ultimate stockpickers – Morningstar [30]
- [It’s so selfish of these mediocre hedge funds to give up on us] – Bloomberg [31]
- Apple is getting more bang for its R&D buck – Bloomberg [32]
- Gold keeps falling: Why do these funds still own so much? – Telegraph [33]
A word from a broker
- From Uber to AirBnB, disruption is now mainstream – TD Direct [34]
Other stuff worth reading
- As I’ve lamented for years, everyone hates IHT [except me [35]] – Guardian [36]
- The king of all strategies – Motley Fool (US) [37]
- You’ll need £164,000 p.a. to buy 2-bed in Clapham by 2024 – Telegraph [38]
- Government’s State Pension calculator “worse than useless” – Telegraph [39]
- Strippers told to bare all by HMRC – Guardian [40]
- Private equity paper tigers – Fortune [41]
- Felix Salmon: Is Al Gore’s ethical fund firm really all that? – Fusion [42]
Book of the week: Everybody I meet who is deeply interested in investing seems to be reading Superforecasting [43]
Like these links? Subscribe [44] to get them every week!
- Note some articles can only be accessed through the search results if you’re using PC/desktop view (from mobile/tablet view they bring up the firewall/subscription page). To circumvent, switch your mobile browser to use the desktop view. On Chrome for Android: press the menu button followed by “Request Desktop Site”. [↩ [48]]
- But lagged his benchmarks, I suspect… and I’m a fan! [↩ [49]]