Its Not Harry

Comment and opinion for retail investors in the UK

Opinion

(not so) Deep Dive – July 2026

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Readers have, I can safely assume, just lived through some very hot weather and I am writing this sat directly in the air conditioner ouput in my flat. I have today seen the fairly dire meteriological predictions that result from computer modelling of El Nino. Also on this very day, I also saw independent media content explaining that the US administration is shutting down it most authorative climate monitoring services, on the authority of that narcissistic dim-witted leader who is too busy looking to plunder more wealth for himself and his family to care about his fellow humans, never mind the planet and all future generations.

Bad news – shut down the newsroom!

I am not proposing that we accept without question that global warming is a man-made event without question, merely observing instead that it would very probably be useful to have the best possible data available to scientists who might work out some solutions to what is obviously more of a problem than just discomfort.

I have kicked off with this observation because I intend to explore the question of how the world now deals with inconvenient truths, focusing on aspects that are relevant to investment markets. Maybe we are approaching the ‘last times’ of a very long investment market cycle, where only an ‘Armaggedon’ will clean up the many sins of the markets and allow a fresh start?

It occurs to me that eschatology may not be what some readers are looking for from this web site. Although I firmly believe, as you will know, that markets and ultimately the valuation of our investments are the distillation of human behaviours, not the pseudo science of economics, so feel justified in taking a tangential look at what seem to be absurdities in current marjet patterns, I can offer an alternative for those not interested who still want to do some useful reading to brush up their portfolio maintenance skills.

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A Riddle

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Q: What do you get if take a pee and see, then put in an n and a k?

A: if you start with SPACE, you get SNAKE.

The IPO of Space X is one of the most blatant corruptions of the regulations and institutions supposedly there to protect the public, a set of maneuvres akin to the trickery of the snake oil salesman. That is not my sole opinion, but one of many independent professional commentators and publishers.

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Caution – potential ‘Black Swan’

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Possibly only visible to a skilled ornithologist with the best of binoculars, there is not so far offshore a black swan detected.

To cut to the chase, as they say (although I personally deplore the hunting of birds), the potential significant, even catastrophic risk for investors is changes in the Japanese bond market.

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Snippets – a foggy Autumn

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All quiet on the Notharry front?

My readers may have noticed less blog posts recently. This had been deliberate on my part, for several reasons:

  • I had a few conversations with subscribers in which they confessed to not having time to read a few of my recent scribblings, sometimes I suspect for quite a few weeks. That means one of two things: I am posting too often or what I post is not useful or interesting. Now I am fairly sure that aside from the odd rant or attempt at dry humour, what I write IS useful to retail investors, so with that possibly conceited analysis, I have decided to reduce my frequency of posting to an average one longer read at the start of each month and one or two topical pieces in between.

  • Secondly, there are not many fundamental topics that I have not covered already in several ways: maybe a permanent long technical article, some reminder posts with cross references and now even maybe a video. I am therefore reluctant to write or record a piece that is just an unwanted repetition. On the other hand, as you know, I am very willing to write a piece on a subject that a particular subscriber wants explained or for me to comment on. Just tell me what you need!

  • Finally, current market conditions are so weird, so febrile and so full of risk (which last point I have made repeatedly already), that it is difficult to offer any intelligent guidance on portfolio servicing or reshaping over and above the usual basic essentials of being diversified, managing cash flows and taking the long view.

Nonetheless, I have collected quite a few thoughts on what are relevant factors that you might benefit from thinking about, or trends that need keeping an eye on, enough to make up one of my occasional ‘mish-mash’ lists of unconnected (or are they?) subjects that now follows.

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Deep Dive – October 2025

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When a cult rules millions

For most of my working life, I have been able to tell those who asked me that politics made not much immediate difference to investment markets.  Of course, where politicians make significant changes to macro-economic conditions (say Reagan and Thatcher in the ‘80s under the influence of the monetarists and market liberalists), there will be impacts over the medium to long term. 

However, as a rule markets have always taken the view that in the democratic ‘free’ world, politicians come and go and policies oscillate from a bit leftish to a bit rightish with the odd major annoying upset, like Brexit.

It is also widely understood that the most important capitalist economy, the USA, is really under the control of two main groups – a loose collective of shadowy billionaire oligarchs and the lobbying firms employed by the mega corporations.  This was explained to me when I was a teenager attending college to study business and as a Brit, I struggled to believe it, but now there is some evidence (especially during the Boris Johnson period) that the same sort of democratic corrosion is occurring in the UK.

Are politics really relevant for investors?

The people with the real power in the USA welcomed Trump’s re-election and the US equity market performed accordingly early this year.  Here was a man who was not very bright, had only made money with the help of Russian property developers or by blatantly disreputable behaviour, when left to his own devices went bankrupt over and over again, had an ego that forever needed massaging, and was utterly free of the ethics that most people think define Christian societies. 

In essence, they thought that they knew, as the KGB had discovered much earlier, that this was a man whom you could easily manipulate with a little forethought.

That was however their mistake. 

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It would be hilarious, except..

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I see that hot on the heels of the OpenAI/Oracle/Nvidia deal that I wrote about yesterday, Nvidia has demonstrated that it already knows that there is no money to pay Oracle to build data centres with its GPUs, so it taking a stake in OpenAI, reported at ‘up to’ $100B.

An approach along the lines of – ‘you’re ordering our stuff through a third party. but we know you won’t be able to pay for it, so here’s enough dosh to get the process rolling. Some of your fancifully valued stock in return would be nice!’

The problem with that is Nvidia will presumably build equipment worth the money, but the shares it is getting in return (‘a major stake’) are based on a valuation of OpenAI at this rather fairy tale moment in the market concept of accurate pricing. This deal is probably made of necessity (if the whole mega project is to move forward) but looks like a potential disaster for Nvidia to me.

An aside and something not explained in the press release is that OpenAI is not currently a public company as I understand it, so I am not sure of the corporate governance implications.

Nvidia’s much smaller but likely more accurately valued investment in Intel looks a lot more prudent. At least they are diversifying while splashing the cash.

However, I will be nervous about funds that have Nvidia well up in their top 10 holdings from this point onwards. The puff of fresh air into the bubble at this stage might be close to bursting it. In fact, this whole deal is in my opinion best described as ‘bonkers’. But what would I know?