Good reads from around the Web.
The last time [1] I featured Under The Money Tree as my sporadic blog post of the week, it was because I was taken with the neat way he’d tabulated just how much money was needed as capital to generate an income to pay various household bills.
Now he’s done it again, except this time [2] his table shows the loot you’d require to generate an income to match [3] various earnings brackets assuming a yield of 4.5%, and also how many ISAs you’d need to fill:
[4]
He Who Dwells Beneath The Canopy of Currency notes:
Upon first glance it might seem quite daunting that you have to save the equivalent of 31 NISA allowances in order to produce a tax free income equal to the take home pay of the average UK salary (£1,748 per month).
It’s no lie that filling ISAs for 31 years to achieve the average UK wage doesn’t sound like a fast track way to financial independence.
Fear not, various things will speed it up. Check out the full post [2] for five of them.
In making the intangible tangible, this table is such a cool idea. Okay, it’s essentially the same idea as last time, but then personal finance is a bit like Teletubbies or In The Night Garden – repetition is effective and reassuring, and there’s not much that’s new to be said anyway.
The same can be said of investing, as I’m sure ever-repetitive Monevator exemplifies (“Yes, okay, index funds, we get it” shout the crowds) but I’ve still gathered three dozen exciting fresh articles for you to peruse below.
Enjoy!
p.s. Thanks to the kind readers who noticed that the ECB did embark on QE this week and European markets did rise in response – as QE had actually NOT been fully priced in, and who then wrote [5] in to congratulate me on speculating as much last week. Alas I don’t intend making a habit of the Mystic Meg bit here, especially not on the back of a week’s coin toss coming good. Now if I had a fund to sell via lavish advertisements in the Sunday papers, that’d be a different kettle of fish…
From the blogs
Making good use of the things that we find…
Passive investing
- Doing nothing is a decision – A Wealth of Common Sense [6]
- Triumph of the classic 60/40 split – The Reformed Broker [7]
- What lost decade? – The Irrelevant Investor [8]
- Also, note the ‘asset allocation’ entries here – Bason Asset Management [9]
- Smart beta / factor investing / premiums / meh – The Capital Spectator [10]
Active investing
- The Bill Gross Investment Alarm Clock theory – A.W.O.C.S. [11]
- My dividend income portfolio review – UK Value Investor [12]
- Three wise men on quality income investing – Total Return Investor [13]
- Preparing for the next bear market – Clear Eyes Investing [14]
- Supply and demand matters – Investing Caffeine [15]
- Mindfulness, meditation, and investing – Abnormal Returns [16]
Other articles
- The joys of mortgage freedom – Mr Money Mustache [17]
- Discussing the escape plan with your significant other – T.E.A. [18]
- More joys: On jacking in the office job – Dividend Mantra [19]
- What doesn’t seem like work to you? – Paul Graham [20]
- Apple’s App Store is now bigger than Hollywood – Asymco [21]
Product of the week: ThisIsMoney has calculated [22] that pensioner bonds [23] could be sold out by the end of January, if OAPs keep gobbling them up like Mr Creosote [24] at an All You Can Eat buffet (and why wouldn’t they?) No wonder there have been problems [25].
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 [26]
Passive investing
- Carl Richards: Think exposure as well as risk – NY Times [27]
- Why we can’t learn much from the ‘Yale model’ – Morningstar [28]
- Kroijer: 3 mistakes people make [Video, bit old] – Morningstar [29]
Active investing
- Manager ‘truly sorry’ for blowing up his hedge fund – CNBC [30]
- Housel: Are US stocks dirt cheap or ludicrously expensive? – Motley Fool US [31]
- Roth: Why most FX traders lose money – AARP [32] [via Mike [33]]
- Time to buy the 10 most hated US stocks? – MarketWatch [34]
- Woodford’s successor is buying his bête noire, BP – Telegraph [35]
- Oil issues provide test for retail bonds [Search result] – FT [36]
Other stuff worth reading
- The most burgled postcodes in Britain – Guardian [37]
- Rent increases wax and wane with development – ThisIsMoney [38]
- Bernstein: How to tell if your retirement pot is big enough – WSJ [39]
- Retiring in a low return environment [US, money nerdy, deep] – A.P. [40]
Book stores the week: The ‘Netflix for books’ model is attracting a lot of publisher interest, says Wired [41]. Probably because they don’t want to see Amazon own the market with Kindle Unlimited – in the UK it already offers 700,000 books for £7.99 a month [42]. I’ve also been playing with Readly, which does the same for magazines at £9.99 a month [43]. If only someone would let me have all the tropical fish [44] I want for a tenner a fortnight…
Like these links? Subscribe [45] to get them every week!
- Note some FT 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”. [↩ [49]]