I feel that over the last 2 or 3 years, it has been tempting to assess future investment market direction mono-thematically. First markets moved on the almost daily take on what the Fed was going to do next; then it was the latest announcements about money pouring into AI development and now of course it is the latest hints/evidence as to how a Trump administration will work and the impact on global trade, the US economy and for that matter security in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the South China Sea.
Education
Y(our) A(attention) P(lease) – reasons to be pessimistic: 1-2-3
The likely economic implications of Trump’s second presidency are getting a thorough airing everywhere, so I thought readers might like my snapshot of the prospecs at this early stage. Bear in mind that power does not actually change hands until late January.
There are 3 worrying possibilities:
YAP – Snippets
President Trump
I summarise below (next heading) the main points from a useful Morningstar webinar on the impact of the US election for European investors, presented ahead of the result but assuming a Trump win (it was from their Irish based European markets specialist).
I have been interested to see what the main UK and US media economics and finance commentators are already saying, relative to the factors I listed in the third, most speculative strategy review example I gave in my November Deep Dive.
YAP – (video worth watching) – a true guru of markets
I came across the video referenced below this week. It tells an interesting story very concisely and it’s one that all investors would learn from.
You may think that I studied the career of Peter Lynch earlier in my life if you have become accustomed to my investment philosophy, which has valuation, being in the market for the long term and making personal decisions about how much you can commit to riskier assets at its core, but in truth all that is in the linked video was completely new to me!
I suspect that all experienced investors come to the same unavoidable conclusion that buying at the right price is the most important skill that an investor needs, and that there are long periods when the price can be right (both when it is moving up and moving down), but they rarely extend into the time when the mass media discovers the ‘opportunity’
Here is the link:
Deep Dive – November 2024
(a continuation of the October 2024 Deep Dive)
Stage 3 – What data do you want to focus on?
Is it difficult?
Writing this section has been a challenge for me and for some it may only be of limited use. Perhaps each person will go about strategy review work in their own way, but I hope I can give you a few tools to use.
As I thought about what to suggest to help investors acquire and apply information that is freely available these days, a saying of my late mother came to mind. A rather blunt lady, she was inclined to express frustration at we children not doing things right, usually by pronouncing the phrase ‘oh, use your common sense!’. I think maybe that was a well used expression of the 1960s.
I am not going to leave my advice at just that, but I don’t think one requires qualifications in economics, accountancy or investment portfolio theory to use relevant data to make good decisions.
I have all those qualifications (of course, acquired ages ago!) and perhaps they occasionally give me an extra insight, but I think my personal methodology in moving to a new or updated viewpoint on investment markets (which readers have likely observed over the years) is based on my life experience working in the business sector (as have nearly all my readers) and a keen interest on what is going on in the world, which is so very often a cyclical pattern.
What goes around comes around is a very useful cliché to keep in mind! For that reason, being old (or having plenty of experience) is a bonus!
YAP – snippets
To offer some practical support with the ideas outlined in the Deep Dive article series I started at the beginning of this month, I have decided to pass on to subscribers some condensed notes of the material I see in my own reading. Some of my news feeds are only available to those who can pre-register as financial services professionals, supplying some supporting data about their occupation, so I may get earlier or more specifically focused data that could have an impact on strategic investment themes.
I would also claim that I can more quickly add some qualitative interpretation and keep out most of the ‘noise’, a skill I wrote that everyone ought to try and develop.
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