The 'B' word

Malthusian

qwert_yuiop wrote: »

The vote of confidence would be in your belief that brexit is going to be a resounding success. A belief that you evidently don’t hold.

This is asset allocation, not Evensong. Beliefs are not relevant. Investing based on your political tribal prejudices is a good way to lose money.

qwert_yuiop

Malthusian wrote: »

This is asset allocation, not Evensong. Beliefs are not relevant. Investing based on your political tribal prejudices is a good way to lose money.

Blimey.
It’s not a political or tribal prejudice. Is brexit a good idea that will lead to a boost in wealth, and if it is shouldn’t you be putting your money into British investments? Of course you should if you think brexit will make the U.K. richer.

I don’t think brexit will make britain richer. Evidently , neither do you.

dunstonh

If we’re 4% of gdp, surely the wonder that is brexit will lead us to new heights of wealth and our proportion of world riches will rocket. To stick to a boring pro rata position is to miss the opportunity of a life time, surely?

And if by some miracle, this declining country bucks the trend of the last 70 years, then we can increase our allocation to UK equity accordingly.

Iain_For

Of course, daddy wrote the book on the subject...

bowlhead99

qwert_yuiop wrote: »

Blimey.
It’s not a political or tribal prejudice. Is brexit a good idea that will lead to a boost in wealth, and if it is shouldn’t you be putting your money into British investments? Of course you should if you think brexit will make the U.K. richer.

I don’t think brexit will make britain richer. Evidently , neither do you.

In the long term Brexit may make Britain richer than it is today or it might not. If we don't Brexit, we may be richer than we are today or we might not. We would hope that in both scenarios we would eventually be better off than today, whether financially or otherwise - because we hope our economy, like other economies, will get better over time with betterment to living conditions and various societal stuff - while our personal positions in the economy, and those of our family and friends, will continue to be ok too.

The whether to do a Brexit or not, is whether it will ultimately be better for the country than it would have been if we had not Brexited. Will there be sufficient long term gain from the short term pain.

Still, "if you think Brexit will make the UK better you should be putting your money into British investments" does not follow, if you're meaning that we should focus on making British investments to the exclusion of other sensible investments. All kinds of other things will make all kinds of other countries better than they are today too.

Deciding to invest in a diversified manner in opportunities around the globe does not mean that there is no confidence in investing in UK assets or that a specific UK political activity is right or wrong. Simply that the world is a big place and there is no need to ignore the 95% of investment opportunities outside the UK just because you believe or don't believe that leaving the EU would be better or worse than staying in it.

If you choose not to ignore the 95% of stuff going on in the world, you will probably invest in it, and you may for perfectly valid reasons do that through an investment vehicle which happens to be offshore, if there's a suitable one available.

If you are a spin merchant, you might say that failing to ignore the 95% of opportunities in the world that aren't 'patriotic' means that a person is not blindly patriotic, and must by extension be a scoundrel. It might of course be the case that the person *is* a scoundrel, regardless of their political views or where they choose to invest, but you should be careful of reading too much into someone's investment habits particularly if you are not well clued up on investments and economics etc.

Rheumatoid

Iain_For wrote: »

Of course, daddy wrote the book on the subject...

His sister also writes about ways to profit from the misfortune of others. what a revolting family.

bd10

Where an account or mutual fund is domiciled is irrelevant when it comes to protecting against GBP depreciation. What is important is in what currency the assets/funds are held. (A fund is typically domiciled in a low tax jurisdiction for our benefit, but that's a different story).
Here's what I have done: I looked through my portfolio of funds and shares and created a full breakdown of all the underlying assets. Then I split them into the country and currency of their primary exchange listing. A few ambiguous cases of dual-listing aside (Unilever for example), so I know precisely what my exposure to GBP is. But exposure to the UK market goes further than just the currency of listing. If an overseas company heavily trades with UK, then that's a problem for that stock too. So, as final step I backtested/stress-tested all funds during the summer 2016 period to see how they performed. They appreciated when GBP tanked, so the hedge effectiveness is confirmed.
Although my own portfolio is well hedged, it is naturally not immune to equities markets. So, of the OP wants to minimise that too, I would look at global bond funds. Go into the breakdown of holdings to make sure they hold as little UK gilts/equities etc as possible. All the ones I have seen are allowed for ISAs and SIPPs.

qwert_yuiop

Rheumatoid wrote: »

His sister also writes about ways to profit from the misfortune of others. what a revolting family.

The dad used to be known as Mystic Mogg because of his rubbish attempts to predict world events.

qwert_yuiop

bowlhead99 wrote: »

In the long term Brexit may make Britain richer than it is today or it might not. If we don't Brexit, we may be richer than we are today or we might not. We would hope that in both scenarios we would eventually be better off than today, whether financially or otherwise - because we hope our economy, like other economies, will get better over time with betterment to living conditions and various societal stuff - while our personal positions in the economy, and those of our family and friends, will continue to be ok too.

The whether to do a Brexit or not, is whether it will ultimately be better for the country than it would have been if we had not Brexited. Will there be sufficient long term gain from the short term pain.

Still, "if you think Brexit will make the UK better you should be putting your money into British investments" does not follow, if you're meaning that we should focus on making British investments to the exclusion of other sensible investments. All kinds of other things will make all kinds of other countries better than they are today too.

Deciding to invest in a diversified manner in opportunities around the globe does not mean that there is no confidence in investing in UK assets or that a specific UK political activity is right or wrong. Simply that the world is a big place and there is no need to ignore the 95% of investment opportunities outside the UK just because you believe or don't believe that leaving the EU would be better or worse than staying in it.

If you choose not to ignore the 95% of stuff going on in the world, you will probably invest in it, and you may for perfectly valid reasons do that through an investment vehicle which happens to be offshore, if there's a suitable one available.

If you are a spin merchant, you might say that failing to ignore the 95% of opportunities in the world that aren't 'patriotic' means that a person is not blindly patriotic, and must by extension be a scoundrel. It might of course be the case that the person *is* a scoundrel, regardless of their political views or where they choose to invest, but you should be careful of reading too much into someone's investment habits particularly if you are not well clued up on investments and economics etc.

When you’re in a position to influence the course of political and economic events, and to profit from your influence, I’d say that makes you something of a special case? A bit conflict of interest? Open to accusations of venality and self interest?
Actually, I’m very interested in economics.

Malthusian

qwert_yuiop wrote: »

When you’re in a position to influence the course of political and economic events

What does this have to do with backbench MP Jacob Rees-Mogg?

If you influence the direction of a particular country it might make sense to overweight or underweight that country, in proportion to the influence you have over it. Sticking 100% of your money in that country because you think you're going to improve its economy would be idiotic because there is a chance that you may fail to influence it or that your influence doesn't have the beneficial effect you intended.

Or that you do improve the economy but other countries do even better than the UK, and you make an opportunity loss.

The less influence you have, the higher the chance you may fail to have any alpha-generating effect on the economy, so the less effect your influence should have in deciding your asset allocation.

That indicates that if Rees-Mogg thinks that his political actions will have a positive effect on the UK economy, he should increase his weighting to the UK by, say, 0.001% compared to the portfolio he'd hold if he wasn't an MP. That's being rather generous about Rees-Mogg's importance.