Derivatives can be used as return-enhancing tools or for risk management. They can be used for the purposes of efficient portfolio management (to reduce unnecessary costs) or they can be used in structured products that help the portfolio meet its intended outcomes. Structured products can themselves be risk management devices or return enhancing tools.On the … Continue reading How are derivatives used in practice by investment managers?
Author: tothepound
To act early or to act with complete information?
A trade-off that policymakers are constantly having to weigh is whether to act early – even when they don’t have all the information thy need, or wait for more complete information, but then act with a delayed response. This has always been true of policymaking, but it takes on a renewed meaning in the context … Continue reading To act early or to act with complete information?
How should investors think about non-fungible tokens (NFTs)?
Imagine you owned an original oil painting and decided to hang it on your living room wall. Would you be happy with strangers entering your home and consuming its beauty?What about putting your original artwork in a gallery? By doing that, you’d be allowing other people to view it. What about buying a print – … Continue reading How should investors think about non-fungible tokens (NFTs)?
How to interpret… US new home sales
New home sales only make up a minority of total residential property sales, but data on new home sales carries extra weight because of the positive economy activity associated with it. An existing home sale means that someone is selling and someone is buying, while a new home sale means that someone (or a family) … Continue reading How to interpret… US new home sales
What do we think about universal basic income?
In poor countries where there is a lot of absolute poverty, universal basic income (UBI) might be the best way to get the economy off the ground and raise living standards. It might help to solve the chicken-and-egg problem, whereby the economy struggles to grow because people don’t spend, but people can’t spend because they … Continue reading What do we think about universal basic income?
Manage your investments like you do your health
What’s your strategy for maintaining decent health? While many people interested in matters of health and fitness will do a baseline amount of homework to ensure they understand at least the basics of the latest science, it would seem a bit over the top to study for a series of medical degrees just for the … Continue reading Manage your investments like you do your health
How to interpret… US housing starts
Think of this as ‘number of new houses being built’. Put like that, you can see that this is more about the confidence of housebuilders than it is about the decisions of homebuyers. Of course, housebuilders will tend to have more confidence if they expect more demand for housing, but that is an indirect reflection … Continue reading How to interpret… US housing starts
British universities’ role in the slave trade
Some months back, we attended a fascinating webinar where Professor Sir Hilary Beckles talked about the role that British universities played in the slave trade. We took notes, and below we paste them unabridged. If you’re as interested in the subject as we are, we recommend reading more of Beckles’ work, and we’d be happy … Continue reading British universities’ role in the slave trade
What you invest in is of secondary importance; first, you just need to invest
This might be hard to accept, and it’ll turn some readers off, but hear us out. In general, on the whole, it matters less what you actually invest in, and more that you invest at all. Personal investors, like us and like you, sometimes put a lot of effort into thinking about which assets to … Continue reading What you invest in is of secondary importance; first, you just need to invest
How your financial adviser will categorise you
If you ever hire a financial advisor (FA) in the U.K., one of the first things they’ll need to do is categorise you. Categorising you will allow them to make sure they communicate with you in the most appropriate way, offer you the right services and products, and meet their legal and regulatory obligations to … Continue reading How your financial adviser will categorise you
To the pound 