azzuri82

This is how I see it re: Sterling. Wider expectations are always priced into the markets, and if there is some sort of 'deal' put together to effectively keep the UK in the single market then the £ could skyrocket.

Taleb calls this a 'barbell' investment strategy, with small %'s of your overall wealth on either end of a spectrum in order to take advantage of extreme circumstances one way or another (I'd argue that 'growing well if nothing changes' is also an extreme scenario given the current economic climate).

Bayer's a weird one. $40 billion takeover of Monsanto has gone badly wrong due to pending court cases - looks like it could end up taking both companies to the verge of bankruptcy.

Anyone else read Denninger re: yesterday's rally, why it happened, and what's likely to happen over the next couple of weeks?: see - https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=234758

Recovered to just a 2% drop now.

Not knocking the idea - I think it's a good one. But what would happen to the loan/s in the event of bankruptcy or worse, and IVA? Or would you make them non-dischargeable, sort of like student loans?

Nothing at the moment, I don't actually have a lot of time to trade so concentrating on my core fundamental hated list.

What's your thoughts on Card Factory SP?!

From my experience of living in Edinburgh and seeing these new self-contained bedsit-style buildings being thrown up, a lot of the residents here are the sons and daughters of the nouveau-rich from China, India etc. When China et al crash, these sorts of accommodation providers will be screwed.

Wow - is that just in the last few months?

Some good friends of ours have done exactly this. They've just had a baby and have extracted equity from their own 2-bed flat (in addition to a BTL mortgage) to buy another 1-bed flat in the same area for £125k (which will likely rent for £600-650pm) at what I think will prove to be the top of the market. They are lovely people, but although a talented tradesman, new 'rich dad, poor dad' isn't the brightest, and was telling me at lunch a month ago about this plan and I urged them both to have a rethink. I spoke to them about negative equity, problems re-mortgaging, brexit, possible downturns etc. and although they clearly respect me and my opinion on things, this shitrag of a book appears to be their new bible on life and financial decisions. God help them. Still though, the book encouraged them to take the bus rather than drive everywhere, a theory that might well save them a few quid over 20 years, but I'm fully of the belief that although the little financial decisions are important, it's the big ones that'll ultimately chart the overall financial well-being of your life.

Buffett won't touch it for the same reason.

Check out the Netflix chart for the last 2 years, sorry I'm posting this on my elderly smartphone otherwise I'd do it myself, but if you're a chartist it's real bear food type stuff. They're screwed.

I'd say that likely 80-90% of them make money, but not enough for it to be worth the risk/effort. A lot of the people in franchising are the sorts that get £50-100k redundancy money and splurge it straight away on such a franchise or a coffee shop to provide 'an income'. It gives them the illusion they're masters of their own destiny / self-employed, but they've just replaced one slave master with another.

Why would they, when they get a cut of every sale, regardless of whether your 'partner'/ franchisee makes any money.