There is little substitute for doing your own homework.

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

Regular readers of this blog would notice that I like to highlight the idiocy of financial journalism and they continue to make it easier for more of us to not take them seriously.

A dominating observation in 2013 has been how journalists used Twitter and Facebook posts as sources for their information and quotes.

Mainstream journalists have become even lazier when researching a news story that they even don’t bother to call people in order to seek a quote, instead finding a satisfactory version using social media.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the information that I see on social media as I think it’s a terrific aggregator of opinions too. In fairness, I can’t pick on journalists solely because social media’s contributors mainly come from the broader population.

But I wonder…..

Where are these people getting their facts?
Is what they write, actually correct?
If it’s an opinion, what is the basis behind their views?
What are their motivations or biases?

Here lies the opportunity.

Fewer investors are actually doing any or requisite amounts of “work” when researching and analysing investment opportunities.

A couple ways that I try to succeed when investing my money is to search where others aren’t looking and out work the others.

Although we have been taught by elders and peers that you shouldn’t simply believe everything that you read, yet it seems that we continue to believe the typed word without exercising much individual curiousity or intellectual honesty.

Filed under Finance & Investment

Let Me Buy A Car Online

December 14, 2013 Leave a comment

I want to buy a particular car but the nearest dealership is in Perth, Western Australia. That’s 300 km’s away from where I live.

I know the car, model, colour, interior options, wheels and engine configuration that I want.

I did a lot of things online. I searched for it online, compared it to other cars and I even “built” my preferred vehicle on the manufacturers website.
BUT, I couldn’t buy it online.

Nope, I need to go into a dealership and buy it from them, which in turn means that I pay for their selling margin, sales persons commission, their overheads, dealer delivery costs and my time and fuel to get there and back.

The dealer adds little value, other than allowing me to test drive it. I don’t need you to “listen” to me. I have already researched it, answered my own questions and made a decision, all online.

I could probably organise finance online and have it delivered to me too? (With free floor mats thrown in)

Just like the financial services industry, unless you add value, give advice and perhaps make me some money (unlikely from a car dealers perspective), price is questioned in the absence of value.

You see, I no longer need to go to a record shop and ask the person behind the counter, what is the new hot album. Spotify and others already tell me this.

Tesla currently let’s me one of their cars online. All I have to do is click, “Buy Now”. I only wish they would deliver to Australia.

What other industries could be affected, that may allow me to Buy Now, without dealing with a sales rep?
Real Estate selling and rental agents?

Filed under Finance & Investment

The sludge is deep out there

December 8, 2013 Leave a comment

Every now and then, I enjoy having a “double-take” at financial news articles and seeing what’s behind the story, while I “try to hear what’s not being said”, or perhaps, not being written.

Many financial news articles are designed to mislead and frighten and some of them are just worryingly funny.

Some of the stuff I have seen in only the past couple days include:

“Australian Dollar falls for the sixth straight week, its longest since 1985”. Holy cow!, makes it sounds like the Aussie has fallen below 55 cents. Another journalist writes, “and it looks set to extend its decline into the seventh week”. How does she know this?

“CEO celebrates their stock price rising 40% on day of IPO”. So either your bankers did a bad job valuing your business, you did a bad job representing your pre-IPO shareholders or you have incentives tied to the performance of the stock’s public price.

Qantas CEO cries foul over uneven playing field compared to Virgin’s ability to raise capital. Seriously! I wonder what Ansett or anyone else who has tried to compete against QF think.

As CEO of Woolworths nears his retirement, the ownership of their “poker-machine business does weigh on his conscience.” OK, Grant. You’ll get by, I’m sure.

If clients only knew of the lack of investing experience and competence possessed by “Chief Investment Officer’s” that are hired at certain brokerage and investment houses

Fund Managers tell the public that they should be investing overseas (outside of Australia) because it’s apparently not practical and too difficult to be a direct share investor in international equities. No, it’s not. I’ve been doing it directly for myself and clients for over 20 years. Amazingly, these comments from a fund manager happens to coincide whenever they launch their first international (product) fund.

For those who only wish to hear what they want to hear, this post is not a gripe nor soured with grapes. It’s meant to alert people to the bullshit they are fed in the financial press.

Filed under Finance & Investment