If I had to find one word to describe 2019, it would be inexplicable.
There have been so many jaw-dropping things that have happened last year that a 400-word article hardly seem to do it justice. So, here are some of the best (or should that be worst) inexplicable events of the year.
We all know that some politicians like to mislead voters. But Donald Trump has taken telling untruths to a whole new level. One of his press secretaries once called them “alternative facts” ….
…. According to CNN the US President has made 15,413 false or misleading claims since taking office. What is inexplicable isn’t so much the lies that have been told but that many American people think that it is alright to do so. Those Americans include politicians who not only fail to condemn lying but even condone it. That is worrying.
Sticking with fiction, just because a donkey is wearing a plastic cone on its head doesn’t make it a unicorn. When we invest, we should expect to get a return on our money.
But investing these days – for some investors at least – appears to be about blithely pumping money into loss-making businesses that claim that they are pursuing market opportunity. From ride-hailing operators to co-working space providers, investors have pumped billions into these cash-burning start-ups in the hope of finding the next unicorn….
…. If looking for the next unicorn is folly, then buying negative-yielding bonds is going beyond madness. Why would any investor willingly buy bonds knowing that they are guaranteed to lose some of their investment if they hold those bonds to maturity…?
…. That is unless they don’t intend to hold the bonds to maturity at all but hope to offload them to someone more even more foolish later.
So, keep your wits about you in 2020….
…. The sillier the market gets, the greater the opportunities for those who stay within their circle of competence. And for me, it is working out the yield on assets over the lifetime of those assets.
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Disclosure: David Kuo does not own shares in any companies mentioned.
