Encouraging the pursuit of financial independence in a safe and sustainable way
This is a guest article from our friends at The Mwayi Project, a non-profit organisation that we support. A seat at the tableAfrica is truly the ‘poster-child’ of the world’s problems. Often treated as a single entity, Africa has faced a barrage of headwinds that no other region on the planet has had to endure … Continue reading Guest article: Introducing the opportunity model
Short selling is betting that the price of an asset (e.g., a stock) will go down. It goes like this:I think the stock of company A will go down, therefore I want to short the stock of company A. In order to do so, I approach an investor who owns the stock of company A … Continue reading What is short selling?
Consider the following scenario. Your employer says to you that when you retire, they promise to pay you £X every month until you pass away. That key number – X – will be calculated based on the number of years you worked for them, and your average or final salary during the time that you … Continue reading What is the difference between a defined benefit and defined contribution pension?
Stability breeds instability. Think back to a time of instability – in your life, in politics, in financial markets, in a movie you watched. What made that period of time feel so unstable? Probably because it followed a period of comparable stability. The phenomenon – or, rather, the truism - that instability inevitably follows stability … Continue reading Beware your Minsky moment
A handful of snippets for the sustainable investor. B-Lab, which started the ‘benefit corporation’ or ‘B Corp’ movement, called upon members of the Business Roundtable in the US to become certified B Corps. The Business Roundtable members include many of the CEOs of the largest corporations in the US. Being a benefit corporation allows a … Continue reading Sustainability digest
The easiest articles for us to write are those that can make unequivocal statements that just simply need to be obeyed. So, here’s an instruction from us:Never take stock recommendations from anyone without thoroughly investigating the stock yourself, as you otherwise normally would, even if they are supposedly an investment professional. You’ve probably heard this … Continue reading Why you should never take stock recommendations
There are two categories of investment objectives:1. Objectives that are really constraints (needs)2. Aspirational objectives (wants)Objectives that are constraints (needs)Think of these with whatever mindset works best for you. If you want to view them as obligations or liabilities that you are only aiming to meet because you must, that’s fine. If you would rather … Continue reading Needs vs wants, investment-style
Investment in healthcare and education technology will deliver the next great leap in living standards. The cogs in an economyAccording to a much-used model of how economies work, there are three inputs that keep the cogs turning in an economy:1. Labour – people going to work to produce things or provide services.2. Capital – the … Continue reading Why more – not less – money should be directed to our healthcare and education systems
Increasingly, the major emerging markets China, Brazil, India, and Russia are becoming a heterogeneous group of countries. This is occurring along the dimensions of growth and inflation, political stability, democracy, financial liberalisation, and asset class performance. The rise of China, and particularly the acceleration of its financial liberalisation, has created opportunities for foreign investors, who … Continue reading Opinion: Emerging markets are an increasingly heterogeneous bunch
A handful of snippets for the sustainable investor. Societe Generale – a large French multinational investment bank – have explicitly modelled sustainability criteria into their assessments of the stocks of European insurance companies. It is weighted towards environmental (as opposed to social and governance) factors, and particularly to coal. Axa, whose CEO is a big … Continue reading Sustainability digest
To the pound 