Weekend reading: 29 quick rules about money

What caught my eye this week.

A few weeks ago we discussed whether investing blogs were running out of things to say.

Perhaps this reached ace writer Morgan Housel via Chinese whispers as a death cry of “FINISH HIM!”

Because as if to rub salt into the wounds, Housel has now condensed a whole blogosphere of personal finance wisdom into one short post.

My favourite sequence of his Short Money Rules:

3. Good investing is 50% psychology, 48% history, 2% finance.

4. Great investing is 40% skill, 20% luck, 40% inability to tell which is which.

5. Bad investing is 40% overconfidence, 40% fees, 20% denial that keeps it all going.

It’s all good stuff, so do check out Morgan’s complete article.

(With luck he’s dropped the mic, walked off the stage, and left the rest of us to keep on waffling these points into 1,000 word epics… )

Have a great weekend everyone!

From Monevator

Updated! Low cost index trackers that will save you money – Monevator

From the archive-ator: A mortgage is just money rented from a bank – Monevator

News

Note: Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view you can click to read the piece without being a paid subscriber. Try privacy/incognito mode to avoid cookies. Consider subscribing if you read them a lot!¹

Research reveals who made the most from UK property [Search result] – FT

Property repossessions at lowest level since the 1980s… – BBC

…but property professionals still gloomiest in a decade – ThisIsMoney

Amazon to launch first checkout-free stores in London – Retail Gazette

The fashion models struggling with a life of debt – BBC

JP Morgan is rolling out the first US bank-backed cryptocurrency – CNBC

£25m car scrappage scheme for ‘low-income families’ in London ahead of 2021 air quality clean-up – ThisIsMoney

(Click to enlarge)

BOE: Business investment diverged sharply after the EU Referendum – Sky’s Ed Conway via Twitter

Products and services

Should you have to pay exit fees if your investing site shuts down? – ThisIsMoney

New site launched to help workers claim uncollected pay – Guardian

Could you make £150 a month selling unwanted clothes on fee-free Vinted? – ThisIsMoney

How to improve your credit score [Search result] – FT

Ratesetter will give you a free £100 [and me a cash bonus] if you invest £1,000 for a year – Ratesetter

Hargreaves’ own-brand funds under-perform [Search result] – FT

“Our MDF furniture brought toxic fumes into our home” – Guardian

Mews houses for sale [Gallery] – Guardian

Comment and opinion

When aiming for a target, consider the accuracy of the weapon – Portfolio Charts

What are the different measures of inflation, and are we being conned? – Guardian

Diversify when the upside is limited – The Market Cyclist

Budgeting with Cardi B – A Wealth of Common Sense

Do you like what’s in the tin of your global index fund? – DIY Investor UK

They Live [On big picture asset allocation biases] – Epsilon Theory

More evidence ‘tactical investing’ is code for ‘do worse’ – Capital Spectator

How to wreck a pension plan in three easy steps – A Wealth of Common Sense

Fund managers are still overweight cash and underweight shares… – Fat Pitch

…but other data suggests private investors have already piled back in – Dan Lyon

FTSE 100 dividend-based valuation and forecast for 2019 – UK Value Investor

Sovereign bond returns since Waterloo [research, via Abnormal Returns] – CEPR

Brexit

Britain is losing £40bn a year to Brexit, says BOE rate-setter – ThisIsMoney

Porsche is asking customers to commit to 10% price hikes if no-deal Brexit – ThisIsMoney

Dutch Brexit humour from outside the nuthouse – Simple Living in Somerset

Cambridge academic bares all in a bid to reverse Brexit – via Twitter

Kindle book bargains

Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb – £1.99 on Kindle

ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever by Jason Fried – £1.99 on Kindle

Unscripted: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship by MJ DeMarco – £0.99 on Kindle

Off our beat

This man devised a formula for finding love, and followed it – BBC

Fun rant about our supposedly inevitable jobless AI future – Scott Locklin

The cognitive aristocracy – Of Dollars and Data

Water bottle signalling [Clearly I’m ancient, news to me!] – The Atlantic

“I stole £30,000 from my mum to make millions” – BBC

Would a $249 gravity blanket help you sleep better? – 1483

And finally…

“Superior investors are people who have a better sense for what tickets are in the bowl, and thus for whether it’s worth participating in the lottery. In other words, while superior investors — like everyone else — don’t know exactly what the future holds, they do have an above-average understanding of future tendencies.”
– Howard Marks, Mastering the Market Cycle

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from Monevator https://monevator.com/weekend-reading-29-quick-rules-about-money/