August's Monthly Performance

August’s monthly performance across all our listed investments was +0.06%. YTD (Year to date) performance is positive at +12.12%.

Top 5 company holdings: $BATS, $GSL, $SQZ, $RIO, $FDEV

Equities fund up +1.13%

REITS income fund down -3.06%.

GOLD and SILVER ETC up +5.80%.

Fund of funds up +0.55%.

The UK’s Stability Crisis

The current Labour government and, in particular, their Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Thieves Reeves, promised stability and that the grown-ups were now back in charge.

Markets like stability; it gives them confidence that tomorrow will be similar to yesterday and that things are always going in one direction (hopefully getting better).

Businesses like stability; it gives them confidence to invest and grow their businesses, employ more people. They like to know the rules aren’t going to change and that investments made today will pay off in the future.

People like stability; it gives them confidence to save for their future, to work hard today and plan out their lives. They want to know that they will be secure in their jobs and able to keep the fruits of their hard labour for themselves and their family.

Sadly, the government has delivered anything but stability, and every day (it seems) there is a new potential tax, new law, new change to make the country, economy, and your lives a little bit worse.

It just seems like a series of self-harm actions against the country. People and businesses have had enough. No serious economist, business, investor, or entrepreneur genuinely believes the current economic policies will work.

We are well over the hump of the Laffer curve, and the higher they push taxes, the less they are getting.

I posted up on social media a couple of weeks ago that pretty much every “millionaire” or highly successful person I know has either left the UK, is planning on leaving the UK, or is talking about it. Even last week, I heard of another couple of families at the kids’ school who were looking to leave the UK, for example. This is real, and it’s happening.

Worst still are all the thousands of entrepreneurs, investors, and skilled people who would have come to the UK who are instead seeing “The UK is closed for business”, “ We don’t want wealthy people”, “You will be arrested for wrong think”, and are going elsewhere. This is hard to calculate, but over the next few years and decades, it will be a huge loss for the country and the tax base.

I got a few responses from my posts from left-leaning people, and all of them told me I was talking nonsense and no one is leaving, people love the UK and are happy with the government and its choices… they simply do not want to believe the economic harm the current government and its policies are causing. I think the vast majority of Labour supporters (can’t be too many left now) have their heads in the sand and are refusing to look at what is actually happening on the ground.

With the budget pushed back another month to November, we have even longer to wait with more instability as they kite-fly even more stupid ideas on how to wreck the economy. Good luck everyone!

To end on a positive and more investor-style stoic note, remember that governments will always do the right thing after they have exhausted all other options.

Eventually, they will realise they cannot tax their way to growth, they will realise they need to cut costs, they will realise they need to start listening to the population, the people they represent, and start doing what’s best for the country. If they don’t, external factors will force the issue.

Use this universal truth as an investor to choose your investments wisely.