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I broadly agree, though if I had to choose one Euro country, I would tend to choose Switzerland - it may be a cycle again for Mittelstand Industrials, and many good managers.

I take your point - I suppose it depends whether you think that everyone is into Gold/Silver, Oil Yield & Property yet. I'd argue that it's only a loud minority of internet geeks/investors who are doing that so far, & in that sense perhaps we're more in the 70s with this stuff to become more popular, before we get to the early-80s bottom. I don't know - I really want to be more optimistic - but it feels like we've had so many years of liquidity injections, with terrible capital misallocation, and there's more to unwind.

We are getting to the stage, when I would recommend people re-read some of the posts on here from February and March 2009, just to remind themselves on what it's like near a really epic bottom. Obviously each bottom is caused by something different, but things rhyme. One of my takeaways was how some stuff was UNBELIEVABLY cheap, and so people kept buying, and then... it would go down again. While the cracks are starting to show (especially in the UK), it doesn't feel that there is that level of madness yet. Of course, I hope there won't be (partly for the general state of things, partly because I'm fully invested). Good luck to all!

So I mainly research & select funds, but I want to expand the old circle of competence in this environment & have the option of buying Puts etc. for protection. I passed CFA Level 1 ages ago & can't remember much about the Options stuff there. Should I just re-read my notes? Or is there a good book/website for learning stuff that explains it simply for busy people, so I don't buy outrageously overpriced Puts etc. Many thanks for your help.

Which sounds great, except she forgot to add, 'IF they can afford it'....

He has a bunch of small-cap investments in the UK & Japan. 13Fs can be misleading.

Things are quite different in Europe also. Vonovia, which is generally considered one of the high quality, blue chip German Residential companies (also in Sweden) has collapsed, and seems pretty cheap just on replacement value. Overall I am not keen on Europe, but this seems kind of a no-brainer.

I have great respect for you, SD, & seem to recall that you were teaching a Crypto course - so know what you're talking about. I suppose longer term of course there's a chance that V/MA will be disrupted. But my feeling is that it will happen very gradually, allowing a window to adjust as necessary. But I can't see it happening it in the short to medium-term, so happy to hold for now.

I'm no expert, but my understanding is that the infrastructure that V/MA have built over the years is almost impossible to replicate - would certainly take vast, vast time & money. This is why everyone else piggybacks on them. If you dig around, it's not heard to learn all about this. But personally I hope that people keep believing they can be disrupted, so I can buy more shares at a vaguely reasonable valuation (given they are by no means cheap). I started last year when everyone thought they were toast because of Square/Blockchain.

DMLP, plus some BRK & a bit of UAN.

Thank you. I feel like this was an uncontroversial opinion at the time, but it feels like it's been completely forgotten in terms of extrapolating valuation. When I'm looking at certain stuff, I'm trying to almost ignore the past 2 years, as it feels much more 'different' - I feel like the longer-term patterns up to March 2020 give a better sense for considering the future.

Saw this on VXX in a second, so may be more updates, but worth being aware of: https://www.ft.com/content/386df3ee-4b9d-45c5-9ae1-d5dffb2a822e As a pretty 'basic' investor, I would love to have an ETF that I could use for protection, as I still don't really feel confident enough with Options. But I've looked at them on-and-off for years, and never found one that does what it's supposed to. They're all a bit black-box, so you're never sure WHY they're not working. It's a bit different, but in the UK I've been using BHMG for general protection. It's a liquid, closed-end feeder to a classic Macro fund, has very good downside protection & tends to go up consistently if lumpily. Slow & steady. Has done exactly what I hoped it would this year (& the latest factsheet shows that almost all its gains this year come from Rates).

Yep, also on the Hermes 'waiting-list', so to speak. The only one not mentioned here is Moncler, which I don't know much about, but a few investors I respect have added recently. And maybe, Prada (HK listing) alongside Burberry may be a good one for China come-back, though more concentrated brand risk..

Off the top of my head, you might want to look at Experian, which is like the Equifax of the UK. Can't remember the valuation, but like most things UK, it is basically pretty much as good as Equifax but significantly cheaper. And Rightmove is pretty great, is the significant leader in the online real estate oligopoly.

Yes, these O&G/Commodity guys are pretty pleased with themselves right now - they're the new SaaS Tech bros, god help us....

I think an extra argument for Nestle right now is receiving dividends/gains in Swiss Francs, which should be a very attractive currency in an inflationary environment (well historically, in any environment). Nestle have a long history of managing the currency, so can still make money even when all other currencies are against them, and then you receive the benefit. The guy in charge seems alright e.g. aware of the bigger trends towards 'wellness' (versus the old-school e.g. Kraft). And as per Russo, they have a decent 'capacity to suffer' when planning beneficial long-term opportunities.

Cheers for the link & insight. Very interesting. This is pretty much the story in London, UK for the whole of my life re: supply/demand imbalance . Instinctively I felt like I shouldn't buy because it's so expensive, but I had my folks who knew the drill & said, 'That's what you think - get on the housing ladder as fast as you can' and they were right.

This sounds super cool. I just wonder if it's possible to make this work on LibreOffice Calc - I don't think Excel Addins work on it. Here's hoping there's a simple solution! Thanks!

Nice. I was a bit surprised at how much it went down today. But hey ho.

Very interesting, thanks. I am just about to look at PFIX (interest rate hedge ETF) which on first look appears to do a similar thing to this (for people like me who aren't confident enough to deal with options).

UK brokers..... Haven't experience with BRK, but share your frustration - they are pretty hopeless, including with tax packs (most I've found don't know about Excess Reporting Income on Offshore Funds). And they tend to charge for ridiculous things like attending AGMs in the UK - I've always just turned up & been lucky, though this means you can't vote by show of hands, so need to do a proxy beforehand.

Generally I think you should never bet against London or New York etc. in the long-term. And you know a lot of the good points already. There are some decent UK-listed REITS as well in all the usual sectors, and some with reasonable valuations. Like in the US, some of the small-caps are being bought out by Private Equity as the listed ones are sometimes cheaper than the privately-held. Potential problems - there is occasional talk about introducing a Land/House tax (as, like everyone, the UK has borrowed a lot) which might dent your profits, though as long as it's at a reasonable rate it may just be absorbed.

Sorry to continue off-topic, but you don't notice Russian money in London unless you only hang out in Knightsbridge/Mayfair/Belgravia & go to certain places. London, for all its faults, is still one of a handful of blue-chip cities globally, & has the key benefits of: 1: Good rule of law (relatively at least) 2: Good private education 3: English-speaking 4: Located at a point where it is (again, relatively) well-placed time-zone-wise for being in touch with both the US, Middle East & Asia. 5: Many world-class restaurants, theatres, art galleries etc. It's often infuriating, but I'd never count London RE out.

Always appreciate your thoughts on Energy, SD. Good luck with the London RE - as you no doubt know, it has suddenly gone crazy again, at least partly it seems because of the particularly low supply on the market right now. Friends have been struggling to find stuff, and then ferocious bidding wars with anything that appears. Perhaps a Russian exodus will help!

Lots of decent points here. I know everyone has their own views on this, but if a situation like that happened, for me it wouldn't feel right to be contributing to their financial destruction. In contrast to the current situation, it would feel better to buy dirt-cheap Taiwanese stock after or during the event.