Re: "DeepSeek" - China AI App Shakes Up Tech Markets

On 1/30/25 4:05 PM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 30/01/2025 20:19, Lars Poulsen wrote:

On 2025-01-30, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

...   I have in my portfolio anything that is *managed by someone else*,
that has shown consistent growth over the last few years.

On 30/01/2025 13:44, Lars Poulsen wrote:

TNP, what do you mean by "managed by someone else"?
Not managed by you? Not managed by an investor-appointed board?

On 2025-01-30, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

I mean these days I invest in managed funds, not stocks shares and bonds
directly.

>
My research says that index funds on the whole perform on a par with
most managed funds. Which I learned from Warren Buffett many years ago.
>
If you were a funds manager who could reliably beat the market, wouldn't
you spend your time managing your own investments rather than thos of
other people?
>

Most of them actually do that exact thing.
But the results are there. Some managers consistently beat the markets. Some funds habitually fail to return anything.
>

The only "individual stock" I hold is Berkshire Hathaway, but that is
really more of an exchange traded managed investment fund. And it has
done slightly better than SP500, butt not by a lot, and it probably will
get worse than that once Warren retires or dies.
>

Curiously physical gold is over time a very good hedge against inflation.
>
£10,000 purchased by someone I know in 2005 seems to be worth about
£80,000 now...

>
That's 11% annual yield. Good, but nbot amazing.
>

I aim for 20% but am happy to accept 10..

     Now take that gold doubloon to the convenience store
   and try to buy some Twinkies and a beer  :-)
    Like many hard assets, gold is only worth what the
   next guy thinks he can sell it for. Frankly I'm not
   even sure where in town I could convert a gold coin
   to paper money or anything else, there's just no
   infrastructure anymore for using gold as 'real money'.
 

   Hell, the convenience store clerk would have to have
   an x-ray florescence spectrometer to even tell gold
   from gold-plate, or brass, or bismuth. You can take
   a hot air gun and change a USA 25-cent piece to a really
   nice gold color ... but it's not gold.
    So, nothing against having some gold coin, but you
   are gonna be more liquid using some more intangible
   forms of currency. If you want WW3-proof, well, a
   big barn full of whisky, toilet paper, tampons and
   some heavily-preserved food-like stuffs such as
   Twinkies. In some areas you can add antibiotics
   and opium. These are what would be "most valuable".