What caught my eye this week.
Three years ago this weekend I began to write on Monevator [1] about the new coronavirus, which by late February had gotten the attention of the markets:
Things were definitely feeling freaky by the fourth day of 3-4% declines.
When the US market bounced higher into the close on Friday – perhaps on the expectation that central banks will make some sort of statement about interest rate cuts this weekend – you could almost feel the relief, even though all the main indices still ended the day in the red.
UK government bonds, for the record, are up.
Unstoppable
Just in case you’ve been living in a bunker – which is where we’ll all be in a few weeks, according to some – the cause is the novel coronavirus.
COVID-19, as we groupies have started to call it.
Together with a few geeky friends I’d monitored Covid’s spread via then-obscure health sites and academic services since Christmas. I already had my mother self-isolating. And during a rare meeting with The Accumulator on the first Sunday of February, I’d shocked him by revealing I’d sold a huge portion of my portfolio and was even holding gold.
That all sounds very smart and prescient. But the fuller story is far more muddled.
For starters I’d bought back a lot of my equities just two to three weeks later!
The market wasn’t crashing, you see, and it’s usually right. I started thinking that maybe @TA was correct that this virus could prove to be just another localized SARS-type outbreak.
Notes from Underground
Unlike many people, I’ve a written record here on the blog – especially in the comments – of my thoughts over the weeks and months that followed.
This reminds me what I believed as our understanding of the virus evolved. As opposed to what I wish I did!
It’s a good check on hindsight bias and selective memory.
Some things I was ahead on, such as the long-term disruption caused by repeated lockdowns. I’d argue the way things played out also vindicated an early belief that we should overwhelmingly concentrate on protecting the oldest people. I was right too to get optimistic about shares again as soon as late March, when the fiscal spigots opened. And I correctly favoured technology firms.
But other stuff I got very wrong.
In retrospect I couldn’t get my head around the virus being a dial-shifting issue for years. I kept looking for signs of a speedy resolution – maybe as soon as the end of 2020. My efforts at being an amateur epidemiologist did afford me moments of insight.
But overall I would have done better just to listen to the pros. Although many of them were, like me, too optimistic about the ability of vaccination to halt transmission.
The Plague
Anyway all these debates played out in the comments on this website – and that itself was interesting too.
In the early days we had a free and open debate. Regular commentators took varied views, but I’d say there was mostly an understanding that there were open questions and we were all feeling our way in the face of something personally unprecedented.
But after just a few months some sort of crystalizing took place. Positions hardened. Politics entered the picture in a big way. And like most things in our benighted political times, what began as a health issue became a binary them-and-us stand-off.
At the least I shuffled across one side of that line too.
Being and Nothingness
My aim in recalling all this is definitely not to do any sort of finally reckoning as to who was right about what – let alone who ‘won’ the pandemic.
Too many are doing that now, especially in the US.
The worst of them are almost willfully dismissing or forgetting just how uncertain and afraid we collectively were in those early months of 2020, as we watched hospitals overflowing with the dying from the enforced confines of our own homes.
And it’s rather that which I want to recall.
Trivially, the time has come to remove my ‘Covid Corner’ as a regular section in the Weekend Reading links.
The virus is endemic. And though some would say the pandemic isn’t over, 60 seconds on any High Street shows that nearly everyone who can do so has moved on.
But it’s more what that crisis confronted us with that I want to put a pin in today – before we trundle into the next furore.
Because it’s rare to see your world turned upside down in a matter of weeks as happened in March 2020.
Even if you’ve come to see the lockdowns as a sort of pleasant holiday from reality, say, the fact is that for a period the authorities compelled you and most people you know to stay at home, while at the same time going out could conceivably get you killed.
Normally a country needs to go to war for such existential disruption. Sadly Ukrainians have had a double-dose of it in the past year, but if we’re lucky many of the older among us may never face such a period again.
I think it’s worth some intentional archiving.
Waiting for Godot
For myself, I want to store away the feeling of uncertainty. The spectrum of fear. The collapse into tribalism. The strangeness of shopping and swerving among the other masked figures. The oscillating emotions towards those who broke the rules. The groping for answers.
The specter that seemed to stalk us.
The debates about this or that policy will continue for a while. But in time they will become accepted truisms, depending on how you lean. Like the Thatcher government’s response to the Miners’ Strikes or US involvement in Vietnam.
The nuance will be forgotten. Yet even now scientists can’t convincingly decide [2] if masks made a meaningful difference to transmission, for example.
It’s nuance all the way down.
I’ll end with some great lines [3] from Yeats. I’ve always liked the sound of them. But the past seven or eight years have also shown me the truth of them:
Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.
Never waste a good crisis, say the politicians. They mean the chance to bury bad news or to take tough decisions.
But I’d hope a crisis might also teach us to be a little wiser too.
Have a great weekend – and let’s enjoy our freedom to do so.
From Monevator
What are money market funds? – Monevator [4]
What is a mortgage but money rented from a bank? – Monevator [5]
From the archive-ator: the coronavirus crash, as told by our community – Monevator [6]
News
Note: Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view click through to read the article. Try privacy/incognito mode to avoid cookies. Consider subscribing to sites you visit a lot.
UK in surprise boost after record tax receipts in January – BBC [7]
Interest rates will rise again, warns Hawkish MPC member – Guardian [8]
Tesco and Aldi limit sales of tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers – BBC [9]
The tenants facing eviction as landlords raise rents or sell up – Guardian [10]
Hedge fund billionaire extracts billions more to retire – New York Times [11] [h/t Abnormal Returns [12]]
Report: why and when do people change their pension saving? – IFS [13]
HMRC shuts down tax refund company – Which [14]
Just 17 of world’s largest 122 firms have exited Russia since invasion – This Is Money [15]
[16]
There are more hedge funds than Burger Kings [Search result] – FT [17]
Products and services
Lender pulls 3.75% mortgage rate less than 48 hours after launch – This Is Money [18]
Practically purrfect pet insurance revealed – Which [19]
Open a SIPP with Interactive Investor and pay no SIPP fee for six months. Terms apply – Interactive Investor [20]
Investec’s 3.75% 90-day notice savings account tops tables – This Is Money [21]
Best places to hold cash in 2023 – Foxy Monkey [22]
Will a water meter save you money? – Be Clever With Your Cash [23]
Coventry BS targets first-time buyers’ with 4% savings account – This Is Money [24]
Open an account with low-cost platform InvestEngine via our link [25] and get £25 when you invest at least £100 (T&Cs apply. Capital at risk) – InvestEngine [25]
Homes with big gardens for kids to explore, in pictures – Guardian [26]
Die With Zero mini-special
Bill Perkins: optimizing for life fulfillment [Great podcast] – Peter Attia [27]
More Die With Zero [28]: the maths behind the mindset – Flamingo Money [29]
Comment and opinion
What does centuries of data tells us about housing affordability in the UK? – Schroders [30]
The Credit Suisse Global Investment Yearbook 2023 – Credit Suisse [31]
What’s the surest route to investing excellence? – Morningstar [32]
Uncertainty, 1923 – Fortunes & Frictions [33]
Rich People’s Problems: I just haven’t got enough money [Search result] – FT [34]
Ray Dalio’s all-weather portfolio – Of Dollars and Data [35]
Short-termism is our default setting – Behavioural Investment [36]
REITs can hedge against inflation, but not during a market crisis – Institutional Investor [37]
Monopoly money and the UK property market – Indeedably [38]
The straight way to wealthy – A Teachable Moment [39]
UK housing market valuation and forecast for 2023 – UK Dividend Stocks [40]
Inequality in the care of ailing parents – Humble Dollar [41]
Interview with Vanguard CEO Tim Buckey [Podcast] – The Big Picture [42]
The tax scandal within the Post Office scandal – Tax Policy Associates [43]
Naughty corner: Active antics
Active managers in ‘extreme denial’ about lagging indices, says Charlie Munger – ETF Stream [44]
Value, growth and intrinsic investing revisited – Intrinsic Investing [45]
Interest rates versus earnings in 2023 – Klement on Investing [46]
By this metric the US stock market isn’t as pricey as you might think – WisdomTree [47]
The hard-knock life of short sellers – Finominal [48]
Plenty still left to extract from the value premium – Alpha Architect [49]
Four-day workweek mini-special
Four-day week: ‘major breakthrough’ as most UK firms in trial extend changes – Guardian [50]
The worker flexibility premium – Axios [51]
Kindle book bargains
The Next Fifty Things that Made the Modern Economy by Tim Harford – £0.99 on Kindle [52]
How to Make the World Add Up by Tim Harford – £0.99 on Kindle [53]
Casino: The Rise and Fall of the Mob in Las Vegas by Nicholas Pileggi – £0.99 on Kindle [54]
The Art of Statistics: Learning from Data by David Spiegelhalter – £1.99 on Kindle [55]
Environmental factors
The struggle for the soul of the B Corp movement [Search result] – FT [56]
Britain’s cheapest heat pumps will go on sale this year – This Is Money [57]
The beautiful flowers that bees can’t use – BBC [58]
TRIG: full-year results – DIY Investor UK [59]
In cods’ shadow, redfish rise – Hakai Magazine [60]
Off our beat
Why Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a more complex leader than most people know – Politico [61]
The Brexit connection to the tomato shortages – Chris Lowndes via Twitter [62]
The BFG isn’t a BFD – Slate [63]
How it all works – Morgan Housel [64]
Mrs Ermine’s seasonal salads – Simple Living in Somerset [65]
And finally…
“You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.”
– Cormac McCarthy, The Road [66]
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