Good reads from around the Web.
A late start for me today, after a too-late night at the sort of London wine bar that I fantasized about and at the same time derided when I left the provinces 20+ years ago, and where a friend actually said “Fashion is dead” with a straight face as if it were the 1980s.
The shame. Get thee to a Wetherspoons!
Enjoy the intermittently sunny bank holiday.
From the blogs
Making good use of the things that we find…
Passive investing
- Will the FTSE 100 ever go above 7,000? [Video] – YouTube/TMF
Active investing
- Apple’s long and twisted share price journey – Musing on Markets
- Is AstraZeneca better value than GSK? – UK Value Investor
- The snag with the UK equity income fund reshuffle – Value Perspective
- Stick to your knitting as an investor – Clear Eyes Investing
- You can’t kiss all the pretty girls/boys – Investing Caffeine
Other articles
- Investing the mortgage [US data but excellent read] – Retirement Cafe
- Only you can get out of your debts – Mister Squirrel
- Beating the stock market with DIY insulation – Mr Money Mustache
- What can we do about inequality in the UK? – Simple Living in Suffolk
Product of the week: Britain’s second-oldest bank, Raphaels, is paying 2.05% on a 15-month duration fixed-rate bond, reports The Telegraph.
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
Passive investing
- The illogic of active trading – New York Times
- It’s hard to know who’ll outperform – Swedroe/ETF.com
- “Scale and skill”: Why it’s so hard to beat the market – Wharton
- If only “passive investing” was passive – Forbes
Active investing
- French and Fama abandon ‘value’, embrace profitability – Morningstar
- Neil Woodford spurns precedent, says his best is to come – Telegraph
- How CEOs are rigging their high pay – Bloomberg
- It’s harvest time for private equity – Fortune [Via Abnormal Returns]
Other stuff worth reading
- Selftrade is rowing back on its intrusive questions – ThisIsMoney
- Labour to take on private landlords [Search result] – FT
- Comparing Dubai, Australia, and the US for ex-pats – Telegraph
- London penthouse sold for £140m – Guardian
- Who’s your daddy? It matters in America – Housel/Fool.com
- Seven ways to cut an hour off your workday – Fast Company
- A primer on the Thomas Picketty inequality book – Economist [But is Thomas Picketty’s maths correct? – George Cooper]
Book of the week: Several of my brainy friends are currently obsessed with Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Like these links? Subscribe to get them every week!
- Reader Ken notes that: “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”.” [↩]
“What can we do about inequality in the UK?” Eat the poor – there’s plenty of fat on ’em.
May I take it that Thomas Piketty is distributing all his royalties to the poor?
You’ve mentioned a couple of times that you have a post prepared on unitization and calculating return. Would really love to read!
1. An important story you missed: Invesco Perpetual fined £18.6 million for failings in fund management. Here is the report in the Guardian, for example: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/apr/28/invesco-perpetual-fine-small-investors-fca. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) press release: http://www.fca.org.uk/news/invesco-perpetual-fined-186-million-for-failings-in-fund-management.
2. As you can see, the funds affected include those managed by Neil Woodford, the “star manager”.
3. That Telegraph article on Woodford you list is nothing more than advert for him and his new company. It’s not critical in any way. He hasn’t always outperformed. Also, we can only speculate why the Telegraph didn’t ask him about this week’s fine from the FCA…
@Alex – re: Woodford, no idea about the fines but the ‘comeback’ rollout today across several sites reminded me of Bolton, hence my including and ‘spurns precedent’. 🙂
Besides, some readers probably can’t wait for his fund to open. Like it or not the fund crowd love/d him… One mans advert is another’s public service announcement. 🙂
P.S. Nobody “always” outperforms not even Buffett. We have got enough centuries to be sure Woodford was skillful not lucky but I can see why some give him the benefit of the doubt. If you want mainstream active, and many do, there are far worse records out there. 🙂
1. I hope you realise I wasn’t being critical of you in any way in my comment about the “ad”; I was being critical of the Telegraph journalism, that’s all. It’s a puff piece. I wonder whether Woodford granted access subject to no questions about the fine from the FCA.
2. Thanks for the links, as ever.
@Alex — You’re welcome!
@dearime- I think advocating a living wage is better than sneering at low-income folks for not being skinny photoshopped models. Picketty also never said that 100% of all profits should be taxed. We don’t need to choose between zero or 100% taxation.
Lots of great posts. Thanks for sharing this with us!
hello monevator fans
can anyone help me understand how I find out the yield or dividened payment for vanguards developed world ex uk tracker fund. ive recently bought the accumulation version and been reading on the fund info that the div is 1.73 does that mean 1.73% of the money I have invested.? I bought 44.4439 units for £8500 . that would mean £147 for the year? seems low!.
its also is mentioning an 8% performance figure does this mean the capital will increase by 8 % ? please help
@Dawn
Do you not think it might be sensible to grasp the basics of an investment before chucking ££ thousands into it? The latest factsheet for WDVWE (here: https://www.vanguard.co.uk/uk/portal/investments/mutualfunds) gives a current yield of 2.3% (historic 1.72). So yes, you will be getting under £200 in dividends – which, since you’ve chosen the accumulation version, will be added to your investment rather than paid to you. Total return (capital plus dividend, minus expenses) for one year is 8.33%. Over the last three years the total return (again, capital plus dividend minus expenses) has been an average of 8.66 per year. So if the next few years are like the last three, the amount you’ve investment will probably grow by between 8% and 9% per year. There’s nothing particularly bad or unusual about either the dividend or the total return figures. Whether it’s a good investment depends on your aims. If your aim is to receive a higher dividend or to take a gamble on getting a higher return then you’ve probably made the wrong choice.
@Tyro
thankyou for your clear explanation. i appreciate you getting back.
Im content ive made the right investment as part of my portfolio.
id be delighted with a 8 or 9 % return.
im learning as i go along and tracker funds seem to be the safest way .
would i be right in thinking if i decide in 10 years to draw an income from this fund then i would change to the distribution fund and withdraw 4% from the capital per year ?
That Forbes article wasn’t the best, the chappy who wrote in really should read Smarter Investing :p
*wrote *it*, I have stupid fingers this morning.
Hi Dawn – over the next ten years you could read some of these – and it might help steer your decision-making process, http://monevator.com/category/book-reviews/
@ The Rhino
thankyou
i have Tim Hales SmarterInvesting but theres no explanation of how to understand fund fact sheets.
perhaps monevator would do an article on it!
@rhino Thanks for fielding!
@Dawn — Will put a factsheet article on the list! 🙂 (I thought we had done one but I can’t find it). I saw your email but really we’re both snowed under and get so many emails now we can’t walk through stuff like this on a personal basis (doubly so where it might be construed as straying into advice). Keep reading and go slowly.
One thing — remember there’s no “return you will get” from equity funds. The stock market could halve, and your fund could halve in value. That won’t show up on a factsheet! Of course over time you’d hope the opposite will happen, too.
@the invester
thankyou
I fully understand you cannot respond to every e mail and you cannot give ‘advice’ Tyro helped me out anyway and told me off too!
im well aware my money can half overnight, , ive had 5k in shares for years and in 2008 it dropped to 2k i did nothing and it went back to 5k again. but I feel after reading everything I can since January I HAVE to take a risk with my cash. I cannot bear low interest rates and inflation eating away at all my savings any longer…its just too painful. you site is first rate, such a help , i must admit ive got quite into it all now! its become a bit of a hobby. know your appreciated!