by The Investor
on May 27, 2009
A couple of months ago I wrote a post entitled ‘Who isn’t buying this market right now?’
Shares were in freefall. The UK FTSE 100 had just hit 3,500 – a low not seen for a decade.
But as I wrote:
If you’re not trickling money into the markets at these levels then I think you might as well forget stock market investing altogether.
Since then the FTSE 100 has gone up over 20%, with some markets and shares doing much better. We could well be in a new bull market.
My March post wasn’t a claim I could time the market bottom, and this isn’t a boast that I did so. Besides, share prices could easily go back down from here.
My point was that you had to stand aside from the extreme negative press and plunge in if you were a long-term investor. You had to look at the depressed valuations, and remember that the best time to buy is when everyone else is in despair.
Today I read an article from Alan Steel, a fund manager, that backed up this view with a compelling list of historical parallels.
[continue reading…]
{ }
by The Investor
on May 24, 2009
The MPs' expense scandal is a symptom of a bodged and dated political system
A couple of readers have asked me what I think about the MPs’ expenses scandal that’s turned the British Isles into a Banana Republic.
My first thought is Banana Republic politics is rather fitting for the UK today, given our dire national finances, unelected leader and last week’s threat to our debt’s AAA status.
Beyond that, the expenses row is not a matter of personal finance, or even business and economics.
It’s politics of the most venal kind.
[continue reading…]
{ }
by The Investor
on May 23, 2009
Some interesting financial and investing posts I ran across this week, plus a few decent articles from the newspapers.
[continue reading…]
{ }
by The Investor
on May 19, 2009
When deciding how often to rebalance your portfolio, you’ll need to consider several factors, including:
- The kinds of assets you hold
- The cost of trading such assets
- Tax issues
- The free time you have available
- Your personal judgement
- How often you can be bothered to do it
I’m serious about that last point, incidentally.
[continue reading…]
{ }
