The cold war between Russia and the USA was premised on a critical acronym known as a MAD, which stood for “Mutual Assured Destruction” in reference to the nuclear arsenal of each country and that any hot war between them
Trade wars lead to MAED
Storytelling can be misleading
In the bestselling book Homo Sapiens Yuval Harari theorized that the success of humankind can be directly ascribed to our ability to tells stories, which we could all believe in and collectively work towards, thus achieving as a common goal.
Capitulation
“Sell in May and go away!” This adage would have worked well for you this year. The Cambridge English Dictionary defines the meaning of Capitulation as either of the following 1. “to accept defeat, or to give up or give
Selling equities and investing in cash now is rash, wait patiently
The doldrums are noted for calm periods around the equator when the winds disappear trapping sail-powered boats for days or even weeks. There are many stories told of sailors going completely crazy while desperately hoping for the wind whilst
Investment yarns result in high prices and lousy returns
According the author of the award-winning book Homo Sapiens the success of humankind over other species came from the ability to work together and the secret to this togetherness came from the ability to tell stories, which we could all
Investing; Simple but never Easy
The illustration below explains how to calculate the expected return from a share or the overall market, which is represented by the straight upward sloping line in the chart and is simply the current dividend yield + expected real (above
Make room for ambiguity too
As investors we hate ambiguity, we want certainty, which is why we dislike the idea of randomness. We want our advisors / managers to know exactly what is going on. Financial experts must speak confidently and explain what is driving
My crystal ball predicts far better returns for the next five years
As it turns out my crystal ball really works. Unfortunately, I only realise that now after going through all my articles written in 2013 when I correctly predicted the lousy returns of the last 5 years. Of course, nobody wanted
The share prices aren’t irrational, the investors are
When the stock market behaves like a yoyo it’s good to remind yourself of what a share price really is and that is a daily offer from someone to buy and / or sell you a business. If you are
Study shows SA globally misconstrued
The World Economic Forum published research, which shows SA to have the highest misperception score in the world in respect of people’s incorrect perception of what is going on versus reality. Like any statistic there is a risk of