The Narrative of Growth I suspect I am not alone in being trained as a value investor in the 1980’s. That was an era when straws were made of plastic, burgers were made of meat and bonds paid an income. No longer. Today in an era when bonds don’t pay income the trophies go to […]
Category: Weekly Commentary
Weekly Commentary: 05/08/19
In need of boredom Equity investors need to be an optimistic bunch – since equity markets outperform over the long run. Academics Dimson Marsh and Staunton titled their study of 20th century market returns “Triumph of the Optimists”. But sometimes it’s hard. Like last Wednesday when Intu reported a decline in NAV/share to 252p and […]
Weekly Commentary: 29/07/19
Testing times I find this one of the most uncomfortable investing era’s I can recall. The outperformance of growth stocks continues while markets grind higher over a sultry summer. I have always had a secret hankering after the ugly duckling that turns into a swan and so have a natural bias to value. Which has […]
Weekly Commentary: 22/07/19
The Greening of Fund Management It is still useful to contemplate the state of the world over a good lunch as I did last week enjoying a long and slow sunny afternoon with a fund manager friend. We reflected that undoubtedly the investors buying into Beyond Meat, the $10.7bn plant burger company would be the […]
Weekly Commentary: 15/07/19
Where are the Customers’ Yachts? The book “Where are the Customers’ Yachts?” by Fred Schwed was written 75 years ago but as we watch the continuing headlines over Woodford it seems as relevant today as then. It has some very useful investing lessons for us. Three of my favourite lines in the book are as […]
Weekly Commentary: 08/07/19
The Bubble has burst Sometimes we spend so long waiting for something to happen we don’t realise it has started. But I think it has already started. No one rings a bell at market changing points. There are the 1987 and 1929 crashes that are obvious but the top of the technology bubble in 200 […]
Weekly Commentary: 01/07/19
Disruption in the Courts Early for lunch on the 24th floor of Tower 42 in the City I gazed over the tower blocks of the city. When I started work the City buildings stopped at Liverpool Street Station. The area to the north of the station building was rough land inhabited by a flock of […]
Weekly Commentary: 24/06/19
Structural Change in the City It always amazes me how debt can lead to innovation. Humans find ingenious solutions. The Bank of England was founded in 1694 because the 9-year war against France was expensive. Usefully that enabled us to continue to increase the debt which brought about the South Sea Bubble and subsequent crash […]
Weekly commentary: 17/06/19
It’s “avoid the warnings” time Last week saw a few profit warnings. Somero, Ted Baker, Quiz, Pendragon warnings were based on revenue disappointments but I suspect cost pressures are building too at the moment. The trend of increasing warnings appears to be a growth trend with Q1 showing the highest number of warnings in this […]
Weekly Commentary: 10/06/19
Companies with Culture The noise around Woodford’s humiliation last week was deafening. And it was a bad week for Hargreaves Lansdown (-14%). I don’t recall such a lot of noise around a fund manager since the demise of New Star in 2008 having paid a special dividend to shareholders and gearing up into a bear […]
Weekly Commentary: 03/06/19
The “End of Global Trade” Week Last week the talk moved from politics to trade wars. Consensus seems to be that the trade war between the US and China is set to continue for a while. With the UK political situation causing uncertainty which slows management decision making processes there is reason to worry that […]
Weekly commentary: 28/05/19
Time to own value? Unicorns The Unicorns stable door has been left wide open. Beyond Meat, a US loss making protein meat brand, listed in New York in early May rising 163% on its first day of trading valuing it at 27X last year’s revenues. This followed the loss-making Pinterest rising 28% on its first […]
