Our investing strategy has been scuppered. It’s been holed beneath the waterline.
A favoured stock we were watching has been scuttled in the harbour before it ever took to the high seas…
A little over a month ago we were delighted to find that the “little guy” might finally get a drizzle of the freshly printed cash the central banks are showering upon the high and mighty. He might actually get some relief from the perpetual keelhauling he receives at the bank, as the barnacles of inflation tear the skin from his back and the relentless decline of interest rates pull him ever more tightly across them.
The Italian yacht maker, Ferretti, was going public. As the have-yachts stand to become ever wealthier with the central banks continuing to increase the value of their investment portfolios, in Let wealth disparity fill your sails (3 October) we argued the have-nots should invest in those that build yachts, as demand for them would continue unabated.
But at the last moment, Ferretti lost its sea legs. It feared the IPO would catch scurvy, like all those tech companies that set sail in the stockmarket this year. For the time being, the company remains private.
Another yacht maker, San Lorenzo, plans to IPO before the end of this year – perhaps the dream of buying a yacht from a yacht maker with shares in the company is not lost…
But in the meantime we must return to hardtack and find some other tactic to duck the cat o’ nine tails of the monetary authorities.
The Bank of England kept rates at 0.75% yesterday, sparing us the lash. But it was a divided decision, with calls within the Monetary Policy Committee to not be so lenient.
And over the channel in Europe, Christine Lagarde has already received her second ASBO for not detailing her plans to rake depositors with grapeshot…
That was probably too many nautical references, sorry.
We wrote a while back about the appeal of living on a narrowboat to avoid London’s sky-high property prices and “unplug” our lives a little. My brother’s acquired one for just these reasons, and I must say it’s looking like an ever more appealing option.
It’s no yacht, or “ship of the line” for that matter, but it does the job and more. 14 grand ain’t a bad price for a house anywhere in the UK, let alone London.
He acquired it in Wigan, and he and his wife have been spending their weekends making their way down the canal network at four miles an hour. It’s an experience powered by diesel – hardly the most politically correct way to get around.
But you don’t think so much about energy sources when you get views like this:
Somewhere near Crewe
That’s all from me for today. I’m just finishing up a report I’m working on with Charlie Morris on how to value and trade bitcoin.
Charlie’s expertise in bitcoin is such that he bought a massive motorboat with winnings he made from trading it – and that was well before the bubble of late 2017! With any luck, those that get this report will be similarly endowed.
Wishing you a good weekend,
Boaz Shoshan
Editor, Capital & Conflict
Category: Market updates