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Month: January 2022
Back to the 1970s – are we in a new era of high inflation?
Controlling inflation without killing the economy is a tricky balancing act
Inflation in Europe, US and UK is currently at multi-decade highs and looks set to rise more, at least in the short term. Most expectations are that prices will peak in the spring before falling back, possibly sharply and to within target, partly reflecting base effects but also as temporary factors recede.
Should you follow the activists into Unilever?
The consumer goods giant faces a major turnaround, but may be being judged too harshly
Readers of Investability will know that we’ve never been the biggest fans of Unilever, and it seems several long-term investors are losing patience, too, including Nick Train of Lindsell Train and Terry Smith of Fundsmith.
Ready for take-off?
Why it could be time to jump on board a recovery in the travel and leisure sector
Apologies for my absence over the last week or so, which I’ve spend recovering from what I thought was a mild dose of the Omicron variant. Having suffered little during the first week with what seemed like not much more than a stinky cold, I’ve spent the second – since testing negative – feeling utterly awful. Shortness of breath, fatigue and a foggy head, thankfully now improving, has meant it’s taken all the concentration I can muster to get a few words down on paper.
Perhaps, then, the World Health Organisation is right that we should avoid the temptation to think that the pandemic is over or that Omicron is a mild disease – as I had done in week one of sniffly self-isolation. Cases are still rising in Europe and some developing world countries, like India. And my own brush with the bug leads me to think there is indeed something very un-cold-and-flu-like about it.
Investability weekly 15/01/22: A funny old market
Games Workshop: buy the dip?
Slowing growth has put pressure on the fantasy gaming company’s shares – but is the blip temporary?
Something strange happened on Tuesday afternoon. At about 1.30pm, shares in Warhammer owner Games Workshop – which had released somewhat lacklustre half-year figures to the market earlier that morning to an initially muted reaction, suddenly nosedived from 97p, where they had hovered for several hours, to a low of 85p.
Portfolio commentary: Rough and jumble
A disappointing performance from our Jumble Sale portfolio highlights the dangers of focusing on cheapness
There was one other Investability portfolio which I omitted to mention last week, the Jumble Sale portfolio, so here’s a quick update. It’s not really a portfolio anyway, in the same sense that the Atlantic and UK Quality Shares portfolios are – we set it up as an experiment to see if the there was any merit in the tactic of buying deeply unloved shares, without the same quality rigour that we apply elsewhere.
Invest-ability weekly 07/01/22: uncharted territory
A gentle end to 2021 has given way to a grisly start to 2022, and even good news is getting short shrift
For a while at the end of last year it looked like Santa would not arrive with his seasonal stash of investor bounty.
Free to read: the Invest-ability portfolios year-end review
How a focus on quality helped our portfolios beat the best managers in 2022
Having looked at private investors’ year-end reviews earlier this week, it’s time for me to review the two model … Read more
The Atlantic Portfolio sails along
Five companies delivered half of the performance of the US-UK portfolio - is it time to dump the laggards...or even the winners?
US indices had a great 2021, which meant that even the very best active managers found it hard to beat the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100. Encouragingly, the Atlantic portfolio came closest to doing so of the benchmarks we use, delivering a total return - ex costs- of 24.6% in the year, more than 2 percentage points better than Fundsmith Equity.