Its Not Harry

Comment and opinion for retail investors in the UK

Monthly commentary

YAP – late post, sorry!

by Leave a Comment

With Donald Trump and his Republican loyalists continuing to swing a wrecking ball at the US economy, of course with implications for the rest of the world, the UK struggling with inflation and a public debt crisis, France being France when it comes to worker behaviour and very little good news elsewhere in Europe, unless you make military equipment, It is astonishing that global equity markets are riding high. The Far East maybe has no new problems but the medium term implications of Trump tariffs and some major repositioning of supply chain policy by really big industrial nations are not yet fully understood

Of course, the markets are not the economy and vice versa and it looks like bond markets are expecting interest rate cuts in the USA, plus Gold is valued very highly, suggesting that at least some market participants are exiting equities, or more generally, people with money are very nervous. Indeed, I read that there is evidence of retail investor selling at noticeably higher than usual levels. I have personally made my own microscopic contribution to that trend.

I’ve been here there and everywhere this week!

This market context is very hazardous with a systemic correction being very likely, as I have written before. It just needs a trigger that creates an instantaneous inflexion point and Trump and his team of economic half-wits seem to be trying hard to find that trigger.

Against this background, I planned to write useful checklist, cross-referencing selected guidance I have written previously, so that readers can make sure they are as prepared as possible for any eventually. I had even written some notes with the basic content.

However, on October 1st, I moved to new flat and ahead of that relocated my ‘office’ (really just the place my PC, printer and supporting tools live). The move has taken up all my time and also resulted in my, temporarily (I hope), misplacing a few things, including my October Deep Dive notes!

I must therefore apologise and ask you to wait a few days until I get properly organised again and can write and publish the full piece. Please email me if you have any burning questions!

September 2025 – Back to school!

by Leave a Comment

Introduction – Pick and Mix Revision

This month, I don’t have anything interesting to write about in the style of the Deep Dive longer articles that I usually start the month with, so I am allowing you a choice as to how much time you spend on your investment portfolio management education.  I thought it would be useful to offer what might be taken as a revision list or a prompt to put in place some processes that make sure you are continually and effectively on top of your portfolio. 

Because I have written and published on this web site a great deal of material and some very specific guidance on the various essential aspects of portfolio maintenance, much of what I would like you to review will be referenced by links to articles of various lengths.

You can decide exactly how much you want/need to take in as your personal refresher course and then reference the relevant articles, spreading the readings over a few sessions if you prefer.

Not everything that I currently think is important is already on record, so the second part of this month’s briefing does add some new suggestions.

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

Deep Dive – August 2025

by Leave a Comment

Introduction – European Focus

This month’s longer post is dedicated to the outlook for European (including the UK) markets for the rest of the year, based partly on the Morningstar webinar presented a couple of weeks back, from which I have extracted and in some cases further interpreted or extrapolated, my own selection of important pointers and data.

Note that the presentation was delivered just before Trump’s threat of 30% tariffs on the EU if a trade deal had not been struck by the end of July.  As I wrote this piece, an outline deal had been announced, with a general tariff set at 15% but various significant issues still outstanding.

The main webinar presenter , Michael Field, Chief Equity Strategist at Morningstar Europe, did (in mid July) make the point that a ‘blow up’ in trade relations with the USA was a distinct possibility!   I think the outline deal that we know about as I write this piece is being taken, or at least presented, differently in the various major European states, but perhaps the provisional outcome is not so much a ‘blow up’ as a potential set of hurdles that will impact trade in ways yet to be fully understood, possibly only temporarily.

The Main Points

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

YAP – Trump and Europe (with 30% tariffs)

by Leave a Comment

Given my obvious relative enthusiasm for investing in Europe relative to the USA, readers may be wondering if I would now take a different view after Trump’s most recent announcement of a 30% tariff on what I think is meant to be the EU trading block.

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

YAP – homely advice, AI rapper style

by Leave a Comment

With Nvidia becoming the world’s largest company on the back of enthusiasm for AI, I continue to test out the capabilities of the free AIs that are on offer to the public as apps for mobile devices (ie are usually cloud based). I have ChatGPT and Deepseek on my phone, for example. I also plan to see if CoPilot, which is inertia sold now with the Office 365 recent upgrade and reprice, will do some of my spreadsheet work.

It is clear to me, as I have already written, that people will soon find that AI ‘assistants’ (or ‘agents’ for more complex work – a new class of software tool in their own right), are easier to use and give more comprehensive and revisable results in a natural language format when compared to the old processes of ‘googling’.

It is also known that the main reason Apple’s share price is well down lately is that Apple have a lot of work to do in this area, being well behind even the previously lumbering Microsoft.

My latest test, inspired by thinking how much simple good sense, even simplified behavioral science, was in the now classic Kenny Rogers song ‘The Gambler’ that came up in a play list delivered to me by Google Music, was to ask my AI ‘helpers’ to write a song that would represent sound advice to UK retail investors. In other words, create the Not Harry anthem!

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

YAP – the great American giveaway

by Leave a Comment

I recently saw a notable video posted by an American specialist in international relations whose analysis I have noted as insightful and accurate over recent years (he is an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh). In essence he made the point that Russia’s next, possibly already under way, ‘invasion’ will not be of the Baltic States, Finland, Georgia or Moldova but will come (has started?) in the form of hybrid warfare attacks on countries in NATO and the EU. Russia is in fact an extremely capable enemy when it comes to cyber warfare (one of the key elements of hybrid warfare), likely much better equipped relatively than it is with tanks and fighter jets these days.

One of the reasons for this is not widely known, I suspect, and I only became fully aware of it recently. This is the theft of an entire library of the most advanced hacking tools in the world from the US National Security Agency’s special projects department, a few years back. In fact, no deliberate theft actually happened. It was I believe more a case of access being left open by misbehaving employees and the automatic operation of anti-hacking tools that had roots in Russia stumbling on an open door.

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