Alan Kohler interviews…us.
We’ve spoken with Alan a few times over the years. We always enjoy the experience. He’s a straight shooter, and not afraid to jump right in and ask the hard questions.
In this session, we covered why our LIC Fund has had such a great time of it, our performance fee structure, the tools we use to reduce volatility in the Affluence Investment Fund and why we’re excited about our small companies fund, even though it underperformed the index for the first four years of it’s life.
Here’s the podcast and the interview transcript.
Quotes of the month.
“We will not raise interest rates pre-emptively because we fear the possible onset of inflation. We will wait for evidence of actual inflation or other imbalances.“
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, leader of the most influential central bank in the world. What could possibly go wrong?
And a short selling specialist explains the three ways that bubbles can be painful for investment managers.
“This is a bubble. Bubbles make market participants look stupid.
i. If you participate in the bubble you will – like other participants – implode on the way down. You will look stupid in a crowd after the bubble. Being stupid in a crowd has limited career risk, but it is still stupid.
ii. If you do not participate in a bubble you will underperform on the way up, your returns will be lousy, and your clients will leave you. As a money manager your perfectly good business will disappear, and you will look stupid. Moreover, you will look uniquely stupid and thus be the subject of derision.
iii. If you fight the bubble, your shorts will roll you over, you will lose frightening amounts of money and you will look stupid because you are stupid.”
John Hempton, Bronte Capital.
Which brings to mind another quote from the world’s most recognisable ten year old.
“You’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t”
Bart Simpson.
Amazing fact.
Moderna’s mRNA vaccine, which has a reported 90+ percent efficacy rate, had been designed by January 13, 2020. This was just two days after the genetic sequence had been made public. It took all of one weekend, before China had even acknowledged that the disease could be transmitted from human to human. It was done more than a week before the first confirmed case in the United States. By the time the first American death was announced a month later, the vaccine had already been manufactured and shipped for the beginning of its Phase I clinical trial.
From the NY Time magazine article, “We Had the Vaccine the Whole Time.”
This month in (financial) history.
July 1773: Jonathan’s Coffee House, where brokers have met for decades to smoke, drink, and trade stocks and bonds, gets a new and more grandiose name, the London Stock Exchange.
21 July 1873: Jesse James and his notorious gang of outlaws staged the world’s first robbery of a moving train.
And finally…
Given Brisbane’s brand new status as host of the 2032 Olympics, here’s how Olympic sports are decided. It’s less complicated than you might think.