Good reads from around the Web.
Take the stereotype of a Leave voter at face value, and they’ve already struck a blow against the wealthy and pretentious urban South.
According to an article in The Telegraph [1], the price of coffee is rising due to the declining pound.
Stephen Hurst, founder of Mercanta, a speciality coffee importer based in Kingston upon Thames, estimates a rise of 60-70p on a kilo of beans, taking the price to around £4.95.
Richard Champion, deputy chief investment officer at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management, said: “We don’t expect sterling to recover anytime in the near future so we’d expect this to wash through into higher prices.
“It’s another clear example of what we’re going to see happening in the coming months as higher import costs filter through.”
Ye, the infamous latte factor [2] is about to become that little bit more taxing.
Oh I know, there’s now a Starbucks in Hartlepool. I appreciate, too, that maybe you voted Leave even though you live in a nice house in the Home Counties.
I wrote about [3] some such voters, remember.
Indeed back in the earliest Days After Brexit Day, there were a lot of clashes here and elsewhere due to Leave voters feeling misunderstood.
So while I think generalizations can be helpful when studying broad trends such as how a country voted, it’s true they can be superficial and perhaps misleading.
Getting personal
To that end, there’s a developing view that aside from ethnicity (the elephant in the room, maybe) a big predictor of how somebody chose to vote is how socially conservative they are.
According to [4] a London School of Economics blog:
Britain’s choice to vote Leave, we are told, is a protest by those left behind by modernisation and globalisation. London versus the regions, poor versus rich.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Brexit voters, like Trump supporters, are motivated by identity, not economics. Age, education, national identity and ethnicity are more important than income or occupation.
But to get to the nub of the Leave-Remain divide, we need to go even deeper, to the level of attitudes and personality.
These personality factors include attitudes to immigration and – most strikingly – whether a particular voter thinks we should bring back the death penalty.
- In polling before the referendum, 71% of those who said they were in favour of bringing back the death penalty said they would vote to leave the EU.
- This falls to 20 percent among those most opposed to capital punishment.
Now, you might argue we’ve just swapped one stereotype for another here. It certainly won’t tell you every nuance behind a Leave vote – or necessarily describe YOU.
Some 29% of people who want to string ’em up would prefer to remain part of the EU, remember. And 20% of Remainers quite fancy a hanging.
Yet as we struggle to reconcile a new relationship with Europe in the light of this vote, it’s going to be vital to tease out the real motivations behind the decision to Leave.
No side is going to get everything it wants from any negotiation. We’ll need to get the best political and economic bangs for our buck from the compromises.
Identifying this conservative Leave instinct – which I tactfully personified as 50-something Barry Blimp in my piece [3], and which the LSE researchers more kindly refer to as the ‘Settler’ personality type – could be valuable.
It may also point to why the debate has been so ill-tempered, especially as the researcher adds:
By contrast, people oriented toward success and display (‘Prospectors’), or who prioritise expressive individualism and cultural equality (‘Pioneers’) voted Remain.
If pitting these kinds of people against death penalty supporting Leavers doesn’t sound like the classic ingredients of a family punch up, then you clearly haven’t been to my house at Christmas.
Incidentally, don’t get caught up on “success” there, Barry. We know you did very well for yourself in your career and you have a big house to prove it.
The question is how to reconcile Barry’s stance – maybe your stance – with the more disenfranchised and widespread Leave contingent, given the economic interests seem so very different.
Often, in fact, contradictory.
Brexit quarantine facility
- Brexit accelerates 100 years of currency debasement – Bloomberg [5]
- El-Arian: Pound could see dollar parity unless swift action – ThisIsMoney [6]
- Weighing the cost of the lighter pound [Search result] – FT [7]
- Bull market charges on regardless of poor revolt [Search result] – FT [8]
- The finance industry Brexit fallout is about to get worse – Telegraph [9]
- An overview of the various potential trade deal templates – ThisIsMoney [10]
- Is retailer Next a Brexit buy? – Money Observer [11]
- Great Portland Estates warns of a property slowdown –ThisIsMoney [12]
- A US investor’s perspective on Brexit – Investing Caffeine [13]
- Brexit prompts biggest fall in consumer sentiment in five years – Reuters [14]
- EU citizens working in NHS reconsider their future – Guardian [15]
- 42% increase in race hate incidents around Brexit, say police – Guardian [16]
- Racists burn down Polish family’s shed, tell them to go home – BBC [17]
From the blogs
Making good use of the things that we find…
Passive investing
- Vanguard LifeStrategy: 5 year performance – DIY Investor (UK) [18]
- Sorry, active managers. Indexing is set to get even better – T.E.B.I. [19]
- Big caps are back [PDF] – Rob Davies @ Valu-Trac [20]
- Best. Crisis. Ever. – The Reformed Broker [21]
Active investing
- Why I’ve sold Reckitt Benckiser – UK Value Investor [22]
- Learn from rather than copy Warren Buffett – The Value Perspective [23]
Other articles
- Apply your own mask before helping others – The Escape Artist [24]
- Bond yields: The anti-risk bubble? – A Wealth of Common Sense [25]
- Two commas: RIT hits £1 million – Retirement Investing Today [26]
- Facebook is becoming a dangerously divisive force – Peter Nixey [27]
Product of the week: Coventry Building Society [28] has unveiled the cheapest ever 10-year mortgage, with a fixed rate of just 2.39%, reports The Guardian [29]. You’ll need a 50% deposit to get your hands on it.
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 [30]
Passive investing
- The active versus passive debate is outdated – Morningstar [31]
- FTSE 100 outperformance puts on the pressure [Search result] – FT [32]
- Swedroe: Digging into the profitability premium [Nerdy] – ETF.com [33]
Active investing
- Property funds in ‘vicious circle of redemptions’ [Search result] – FT [34]
- Commercial property trusts are on big discounts – Telegraph [35]
- Is peer-to-peer property lending worth the risk? – ThisIsMoney [36]
A word from a broker
- Property fund suspensions: Why and what next? – TD Direct [37]
- Investing in gold: ETCs or shares? – Hargreaves Lansdown [38]
Other stuff worth reading
- The 40-somethings joining Generation Rent – Telegraph [39]
- Buy-to-let may soon require a 60% deposit in some areas – Telegraph [40]
- Merryn: Send company pension schemes on holiday [Search result] – FT [41]
- Beware of restrictive covenants when you buy a home – Guardian [42]
- Contracts risk pay cut after tax clampdown [Search result] – FT [43]
- Some US cities have literally medieval murder rates – Washington Post [44]
Book of the week: Post-Brexit shuffling has taken the largest position in my ‘don’t do this at home!’ portfolio to the 10% limit. (Hopefully I’ll soon face the difficult issue of it breaching that self-imposed maximum under its own steam!) Warren Buffett thinks you should [45] use trackers, but if you’re going to go active, he’s a focused investing man at heart. I keep meaning to read the recent book Concentrated Investing [46] to brush up on the subject, but if like me you’ve read all of Buffett’s letters (twice) then you probably won’t find much new to get into.
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- 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”. [↩ [51]]