Its Not Harry

Comment and opinion for retail investors in the UK

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Deep Dive – December 2024

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An asset class with Trump 2 era attractions?

Having had no feedback in response to my two-part dissertation on the importance of keeping an eye on high level asset mixes and how that might be achieved, I conclude that either the topic was too complicated, or more likely, my readers ‘get it’ and will be keeping a weather eye on relevant news and its implications.

A key function of my blog posts is to help you sort the wheat from the chaff and this month I will address a topic that I am sure I will have to keep front and centre for some time: Trump 2. Although the implications of the Trump second term could well be very serious indeed, it has yet to start, so all investors can do is read the early signs and think about what they might do to mitigate the potential new risks, and those are plentiful, as I have already outlined.

My Christmas gift is an easier read this month!

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YAP – reasons to be pessimistic (part 2)

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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.

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Y(our) A(attention) P(lease) – reasons to be pessimistic: 1-2-3

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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.

No grounds for welcoming new US economic policy?

There are 3 worrying possibilities:

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YAP – (video worth watching) – a true guru of markets

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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:

YAP – snippets

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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.

[Read more…] about YAP – snippets

YAP – markets back on track?

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The market trend that I have previously called ‘benign’ was set back by a sharp but short correction in early August and what looks almost like an echo of that in early September. So far we have not had the same this month. In terms of global market indices, the low points of those dips look to be more or less in line with the trend in market lows for the last couple of years as does the current high valuation.

As we know the upward momentum is not evenly strong across the globe with much of it having come until quite recently from the so-called Mag 7 stocks, although in truth not all of the chosen 7 have done that well.

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