Spoiler Alert – Read this article after watching the movie. It’s reasonable to wonder what a movie about the housing crisis and ensuing financial meltdown could teach regular people in the market about investing. But within The Big Short there are nuggets of wisdom that pertain to value investing. There’s also Margot Robbie in a…
I was going to write this piece in Brussels, but decided against going – and so I write from Hamburg. The incompetence of the Belgian police makes it difficult to feel safe in the city of waffles and Eurocrats, so I will defer visiting for a bit. When I made my decision not to go,…
While the central bank is hurting savers in a bid to turn them into heavy spenders, the government is attempting to do the opposite by creating new savings products to seduce youngsters into saving at an earlier age. Announced in the Budget by George Osborne, the LISA is the most recent addition to the savings…
So, Swen, ever well intentioned, sends me down here to check out the Albanian stock market and I turn up in Skanderbeg Square, white shirt, sober tie, notebook in hand – only find that it was closed down last year. Mind you, there were only about nine stocks quoted, mostly local retail banks. Apparently, it…
As seen in the latest issue of Master Investor Magazine. We really do hate to interrupt your cruise. But there’s a rumour that a keen-eyed crewman on the bridge has spotted an iceberg. No, it’s worse than that, actually. Some of the crew are whispering that we’ve already hit an iceberg. But it’s just a…
The last time I was in Ukraine with the World Bank (February 2012) I had my fifteen seconds of fame when a news anchor swung a mike in front of my gob at a seminar. It was in the snow-laden city of Lviv. I had just descended from a platform where I had addressed the…
Our world seems to be speeding up and getting less coherent. Probably it was always incoherent, but we were once led to believe that it was generally in good order and fit for purpose, to use the words of the urbane ‘home counties’ villain in the BBC’s Sunday night thriller The Night Manager. For example,…
The Chancellor appeared to be in a buoyant mood delivering his budget speech on Wednesday even though he noted that the global economy is weak and financial markets are turbulent. He reported a fast growing UK economy and lots of personal tax cuts. Indeed he emphasised that with 1% of the richest taxpayers contributing 28%…
Less than one week after the ECB signalled it would start purchasing investment-grade corporate bonds, bond issues are already going through the roof, as everyone is trying to front-run the ECB. From risk-free loans (through open market operations) to corporate loans (through investment-grade bond purchases), the ECB has come a long way in expanding its…
Albion Cathedral School, 16 March 2016 Dear Parent, We regret that George’s behaviour has been a cause for concern this term. This sixth former started out with great promise when he was appointed Cricket Club Treasurer. He assured us that he would reduce the overdraft by means of judicious economies, and that he…
