A round up of interesting or cool stuff I’ve read.
Image by Daniel Reche from Pixabay
Back to Square One
It’s not a complete lockdown, as in early Spring, but, following a brief respite where we were encouraged to go out and do our bit for the economy, the government has changed their mind and decided that, no, they didn’t want us to socialise that much!
I’m no expert, I’m just another voice on the internet. But surely it would’ve been more effective to choose a plan and then stick with it?
Either go full Sweden and not suffer such an economic hit. Or go full New Zealand, isolate the borders, set up a track and trace that works, and eliminate the virus from our island altogether.
As it stands, this middle road seems to be the worst of both worlds. Using the Financial Times coronavirus chart to compare the UK and Sweden, we have far more cases per million than Sweden do, and that’s with the lockdown throughout spring and summer.
Again, I’m no health expert. I do think it made sense to lockdown in spring, whilst we didn’t know enough about the virus. But the stop-start decisions to encourage socialising and then being surprised when the number of cases started to rise again seems foolish and short-sighted.
The BTS fans investing in their favourite K-pop band
I have to admit to initially being pretty confused when I read this BBC headline. ‘Invest?’ Like you invest in a stock? How can a band act like a stock on the FTSE100? How does that even work?
On further reading, I realised that it’s not the band itself, but the group’s agency that is going public. Although, apparently almost 90% of their revenue comes from BTS, so there’s arguably not much difference!
Whilst I can understand the hype and fear of missing out that BTS fans and investors alike might be feeling, wouldn’t it be better to at least wait a few days for the price to drop?
And what’s going to happen when the group has their One Direction moment, and one or more of the members decide to go it alone?
Sounds like someone needs to teach the agency the benefits of diversification!
Other interesting links that caught my eye this week:
“The majority of changes could already be accomplished in some form today. There had been no need to wait until I had crossed an arbitrary self-imposed finishing line. Delaying was the stuff of procrastination and excuse, rather than legitimate reason.” Millionaire by Indeedably.
Why All the Days Are Running Together, and How to Cope via Lifehacker.
The Value Stock Geek writes about the Variable Portfolio. I really liked reading their take on how to get the urge to tinker with your portfolio out of your system, without disrupting future returns. In truth, it’s no different to what Benjamin Graham wrote in The Intelligent Investor over 50 years ago; whilst most of your funds should probably be in low-cost index trackers, set aside a small percentage (that you can afford to lose) that you allow yourself to tinker with, buying individual stocks as you see fit.
How ‘Animal Crossing’ Is Preparing Players to Trade Stocks via Bloomberg.
Fire and Wide on the benefits of slow travelling.
Reset, by David Sawyer, is a mere £0.99 on Amazon. As ever, if you’re an avid reader of FI blogs, you probably won’t find much new… But it does make for a good summary of the basics, and is definitely worth picking up for that price.
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Thanks for reading, hope you’re all having a good week!