When I go on holiday I forget totally about my equity investments and never look to see how my shares are doing.
This is important for me because when I am working I am totally immersed in the share markets; I need a complete break from time to time. I am able to do this because I have faith in the shares I hold and I invest for the long term.
Day to day movements are not a big factor in my thinking. If you find it harder to forget your portfolio when on holiday you may need to rethink your approach. This won’t apply if you are a day trader when obviously short-term trends in share prices are critical. But then again, if you are a day trader, you will have lost far too much money to be able to afford to go on holiday so my strictures on taking a proper break won’t apply.
Follow the ups and downs of the UK stock market at EveryinvestorCure your addiction and learn to investWhat you day traders need to do is to cure your addiction to a disastrous gambling habit and learn how to invest so you can start making money for a change. If, alternatively, you are that rare beast, a day trader who actually makes money then I salute your genius.
In my experience most ‘successful’ day traders are in denial about their activities. If they kept proper records they would find that selective memory about their successful trades has fooled them into thinking they are making money when they are, at best, breaking even and more probably making actual losses.
Follow the ups and downs of the UK stock market at EveryinvestorShare trading is for mugs; learn to invest and make moneyAs you can see I have a jaundiced view of the potential for making profits from short-term trading.
I speak from experience since, when I was younger, I used to trade like mad, even needing to sedate myself with powerful tranquillisers to cope with the frequent times when markets moved adversely.
Now I like to sleep at nights and have absolutely zero interest in share trading. As a result my investments now make a material contribution to my standard of living as opposed to being a sometimes-costly hobby.
Follow the ups and downs of the UK stock market at EveryinvestorSurprising luxury in San PauloOne of my holiday destinations was San Paulo, the Brazilian mega-city with over 20 million inhabitants, where one of my daughters is spending a year learning Portuguese.
I was nervous when she went given the city’s reputation as a crime-infested industrial wasteland. Maybe it is dangerous but my preconceptions were dramatically over-turned when I actually went there.
The central city area where my daughter shares a flat with three fellow students is full of expensive cars, luxury shops and restaurants and trendy bars. Flats, which can be huge by London standards, change hands for £1.5m or more and top executives commute to work by helicopter to avoid endless traffic jams. The central area, with its endless skyscrapers, is like a cross between Bladerunner and Bond Street.
Follow the ups and downs of the UK stock market at EveryinvestorNo more bundles of disgustingly soiled bank notesAnother surprise was how expensive it was. I took my daughter, other family members and friends to dinner and was amazed to end up with a bill approaching £250. In the Brazil I remembered from 20 years earlier restaurant food was virtually free to visitors with hard currency. But, in those days, you changed your money on the black market for huge bundles of disgustingly soiled local currency and only the most nave used the banks.
This change helped explain another phenomenon, when I arrived at my next destination, Punta del Este, a famously elitist and usually expensive, beach resort in Uruguay. In the early days when I started going there few Brazilians could afford the prices. Now it is the Argentineans who are struggling and the place is awash with Brazilians and increasingly also Europeans.
Follow the ups and downs of the UK stock market at EveryinvestorPunta del Este’s soaring property pricesThese visitors are driving a spectacular property boom. On average I was told that prices for flats and houses have roughly trebled since the start of the decade and are up as much as six-fold on the low levels touched at the depths of the currency crises that affected Argentina and Uruguay in 2002.
Land prices have risen even more. Prices for five-hectare farms (12.5 acres) in beachfront locations have rocketed in valued with per-hectare prices up 10 or 20-fold. American investors, in particular, are pouring billions of dollars into Punta del Este and nearby resorts so my guess is this boom has a long way still to run.
Six new tower blocks are under construction in Punta del Este. Newspaper reports suggests that virtually all the apartments have been sold, in some cases before a brick has been laid.
Follow the ups and downs of the UK stock market at EveryinvestorThe US housing market is the odd man outStories like these put central London’s much-reported property boom into perspective. We are not alone. There are hot spots all over the place where property prices are soaring including parts of the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, and Bariloche, where Argentineans and others go to ski.
If anything the aberration in global property markets is not London’s boom but the US slowdown. Hence my suspicion that US property markets are just as likely to recover in 2007 and 2008 as the rest of the world is to slow down.
Another striking feature of these overseas property markets is the impact of globalisation. We have become accustomed to the idea that in central London half the buyers are international. The corresponding figure in Punta del Este is 100 per cent. The local Uruguayan population has been so completely priced out of Punta del Este that it might as well be another country; the locals come to work, not to buy.
Follow the ups and downs of the UK stock market at EveryinvestorBuy Cornish property now before the Russians arriveMy guess is that this is going to become an ever-increasing phenomenon in many globally desirable locations. Cornish people who want to live locally should buy sooner rather than later.
The Russians are coming and, who knows, maybe, a decade from now the beaches at popular resorts like Rock will be alive with Chinese, Indian and Brazilian faces as well as the usual throng from Eton and Harrow. I doubt there will be many Cornish-born owners unless they bought many years ago.
