Hello Everyone,
If a simple bucket cannot empty a trench of mud, it’s probably better to get out of the trench.
As those of you who have read my ‘thoughts’ articles over the last year will be well aware, I have an ongoing love affair with metals (copper, silver, gold, uranium, rare earths, etc.) and also the defensive stocks.
I fancied them for fairly obvious reasons:
• Putin’s war and the increase in European defence spending.
• New energy and re-thinking of the electricity grid and energy storage.
• The expansion of AI data centres.
• The massive requirement for rare earths and silver in new technologies.
Plus, others that do not come to mind at the moment (these days that happens a lot).
As you will all know, many funds in this arena have produced startling results, even after the recent correction. I mention a few:
• The gold funds (Ninety One Global Gold, BlackRock Gold & General, etc.).
• The gold and silver ETFs (WisdomTree Gold, iShares Physical Gold, Invesco Physical Silver, etc.).
• Geiger Counter Investment Trust.
• HAN ETF Sprott Uranium Miners.
• HAN ETF Sprott Copper Miners.
• VanEck UCITS ETF Rare Earths.
• HAN ETF Future of Defence.
Investments like the ones mentioned above have done me proud over the last year, and now I have also invested in the WS Amati Strategic Metals Fund. Where possible, I try to use actively managed funds to get the benefit of their research teams.
The big question that keeps me awake at night (not in the day – well, sometimes in the day as well) is whether I should sell up and realise the profits or let it all run.
Warren Buffett says that if the arguments and research that made you buy in the first place still hold, you should let them run. This is what I intend to do, and I am going to try to ignore Trump’s antics.
The funds that I have mentioned so far form the bulk of my “Speedboat” portfolio. My own “Ocean Liner” consists of the more volatile funds in Saltydog’s “Ocean Liner” portfolio, and some of my investments almost exactly follow the Saltydog “Tugboat” portfolio. A combination of the above seems to be working for me, and I have experienced very pleasing results over the last year.
At the moment, I’m approaching the end of an eight-week holiday in South Africa. I first came here in 1970 as a cadet on a New Zealand Shipping Company boat. The lasting impression of that original visit was of the dock labourers dressed in rags and eating out of tin cans. That I considered to be real poverty.
Today, fifty years later, the old tin cans have gone, but many thousands of tiny, ramshackle, corrugated township shacks lie around the major cities. This is also a life of incredible poverty.
The dramatic political changes since apartheid may have altered the ruling classes and have almost certainly produced improvements. However, somehow the gains have still tended to go to the “haves” but not filtered down to the “have-nots”. Also, the general services of post, water, electricity, sewage, and education are suffering from regular breaks in service, and it is apparently getting worse.
Poverty is a difficult thing to measure. It depends on local and international comparisons and can be distorted by the way politicians present the figures.
Last night, I was at a dinner with the designer, manufacturer, and owner of a large company producing abattoirs and chicken-processing equipment. These lines had conversion rates of more than 6,000 carcasses per hour and were designed to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
He said he was getting more than three orders a year, and they were going to customers in many African countries.
Now this rang bells with me, as I have been curious as to why funds investing in Africa occasionally appear in the Saltydog numbers. Perhaps chicken consumption in Africa could be an economic indicator, much the same way as orange juice and lean hogs used to reflect the health of the American economy.
So now I find myself looking at booming copper prices, expanding chicken lines, struggling public services, and politicians yet again presenting their own versions of the truth. It is not always easy to know which direction the tide is really flowing.
Life is strange, and I find it full of unanswered questions and contradictions. As an example, as you get older your ears get bigger, yet your hearing gets
worse.
Kind regards and best wishes,
If a simple bucket cannot empty a trench of mud, it’s probably better to get out of the trench.
As those of you who have read my ‘thoughts’ articles over the last year will be well aware, I have an ongoing love affair with metals (copper, silver, gold, uranium, rare earths, etc.) and also the defensive stocks.
I fancied them for fairly obvious reasons:
• Putin’s war and the increase in European defence spending.
• New energy and re-thinking of the electricity grid and energy storage.
• The expansion of AI data centres.
• The massive requirement for rare earths and silver in new technologies.
Plus, others that do not come to mind at the moment (these days that happens a lot).
As you will all know, many funds in this arena have produced startling results, even after the recent correction. I mention a few:
• The gold funds (Ninety One Global Gold, BlackRock Gold & General, etc.).
• The gold and silver ETFs (WisdomTree Gold, iShares Physical Gold, Invesco Physical Silver, etc.).
• Geiger Counter Investment Trust.
• HAN ETF Sprott Uranium Miners.
• HAN ETF Sprott Copper Miners.
• VanEck UCITS ETF Rare Earths.
• HAN ETF Future of Defence.
Investments like the ones mentioned above have done me proud over the last year, and now I have also invested in the WS Amati Strategic Metals Fund. Where possible, I try to use actively managed funds to get the benefit of their research teams.
The big question that keeps me awake at night (not in the day – well, sometimes in the day as well) is whether I should sell up and realise the profits or let it all run.
Warren Buffett says that if the arguments and research that made you buy in the first place still hold, you should let them run. This is what I intend to do, and I am going to try to ignore Trump’s antics.
The funds that I have mentioned so far form the bulk of my “Speedboat” portfolio. My own “Ocean Liner” consists of the more volatile funds in Saltydog’s “Ocean Liner” portfolio, and some of my investments almost exactly follow the Saltydog “Tugboat” portfolio. A combination of the above seems to be working for me, and I have experienced very pleasing results over the last year.
At the moment, I’m approaching the end of an eight-week holiday in South Africa. I first came here in 1970 as a cadet on a New Zealand Shipping Company boat. The lasting impression of that original visit was of the dock labourers dressed in rags and eating out of tin cans. That I considered to be real poverty.
Today, fifty years later, the old tin cans have gone, but many thousands of tiny, ramshackle, corrugated township shacks lie around the major cities. This is also a life of incredible poverty.
The dramatic political changes since apartheid may have altered the ruling classes and have almost certainly produced improvements. However, somehow the gains have still tended to go to the “haves” but not filtered down to the “have-nots”. Also, the general services of post, water, electricity, sewage, and education are suffering from regular breaks in service, and it is apparently getting worse.
Poverty is a difficult thing to measure. It depends on local and international comparisons and can be distorted by the way politicians present the figures.
Last night, I was at a dinner with the designer, manufacturer, and owner of a large company producing abattoirs and chicken-processing equipment. These lines had conversion rates of more than 6,000 carcasses per hour and were designed to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
He said he was getting more than three orders a year, and they were going to customers in many African countries.
Now this rang bells with me, as I have been curious as to why funds investing in Africa occasionally appear in the Saltydog numbers. Perhaps chicken consumption in Africa could be an economic indicator, much the same way as orange juice and lean hogs used to reflect the health of the American economy.
So now I find myself looking at booming copper prices, expanding chicken lines, struggling public services, and politicians yet again presenting their own versions of the truth. It is not always easy to know which direction the tide is really flowing.
Life is strange, and I find it full of unanswered questions and contradictions. As an example, as you get older your ears get bigger, yet your hearing gets
worse.
Kind regards and best wishes,
Douglas
Founder
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