Its Not Harry

Comment and opinion for retail investors in the UK

Members Only

Deep Dive – November 2024

by Leave a Comment

(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!

You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please . Not a Member? Join Us

YAP – snippets

by Leave a Comment

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?

by Leave a Comment

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.

You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please . Not a Member? Join Us

YAP – UK Sustainability Rules for funds – a stuttering arrival

by Leave a Comment

A reminder of the history

Those readers interested in ESG investing will know that the EU has for some years now had rules for classifying funds in terms of their likely qualification as having sustainable investment objectives.

Following their introduction there was rush of funds that perhaps thought having the ‘right’ label would increase sales, but following some push back against greenwashing the number in the Article 8 and Article 9 funds has reduced and new rules (from ESMA, so EU applicable, but given that many funds in the UK are also marketed in Europe, they will impact UK funds) are about to be implemented and they are likely to thin that number down significantly, according to Morningstar.

All this is timely progress in having credible signposting and sustainability auditing for investors, not easily shuffled around by marketing departments intent on green washing and bypassed by fund managers wanting to sneak in non-qualifying assets that they think will boost performance rankings.

You will also recall that the UK, inevitably in the post-Brexit period, decided to have its own rules and undertook the sort of slow process devising the rules that viewers of ‘Yes, Minister’ will have heard expounded by Sir Humphrey many times when asked by Jim Hacker to implement a new policy. Having said that, I personally thought that the UK proposals were better thought out and less likely to be skipped over by the afore-mentioned rogues.

There are always new regulations to learn in the world of finance

The UK rules, which extend well beyond creating labels for ESG approved funds are generally now known as SDR (Sustainability Disclosure Requirements). There is now evidence that complying with these rules is not such a pushover.

You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please . Not a Member? Join Us

YAP – Proof of the pudding?

by Leave a Comment

Recent volatility in global stock markets has, as ever, attracted media attention, because it mainly involves sell-offs. I thought it would be useful to see how different types of assets, such as we may actually own, have performed since the first hint of nervousness at the start of August.

To do that I am going to use short term data, obviously. I need to remind readers that short term data is NEVER a useful indication of relative OR absolute future performance. It can also be down right misleading. The data I am using is over one month ending about now, so it starts AFTER the August sell off. Relative to that starting point performance it will look much better that if I had, for example, been able to use 6 week data.

My objective is only to observe the direction of returns from various funds during this period of nervousness, leading to exaggerated volatilty. So one month data is ideal, specifically for this objective.

Does diversification actually work is the sort of sell-off we have seen lately?

You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please . Not a Member? Join Us