There was a very amusing article in the Financial Times today following the alleged discovery of life on a planet many light years distant. The question posed by Lex is should we reposition our portfolios to anticipate intelligent life that might visit us from planet K2-18b?
The author (John Foley) made some suggestions such as investing in toilet paper makers – is that for demand from visitors or for us? Plus of course defence stocks and biotechnology companies. The author also suggests the planet could present a 56bn market for toothbrushes, cans of deodorant and luxury handbags, depending on the number of mouths, armpits and hands of its residents (the planet is bigger than earth).
All highly amusing but as planet K2-18b is 124 light years distant then discounting the time value of money might result in very small returns. FT Article here: https://www.ft.com/content/4502e62e-4538-42e6-a3a1-d9e5db038698
Another article in a recent Investors Chronicle under the “No Free Lunch” headline covered events at Tate & Lyle (TATE). This is a company that has a great historic brand and sells sweeteners and other specialist food products. I did hold the shares some years ago – last sold at 416p in November 2007 – the current share price is 539p.
I sold because I attended a presentation by the then Chairman and was not impressed – it seems that it was the right decision as progress since then has been very pedestrian. Sometimes impulsive decisions on brief impressions turn out to be sound.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://x.com/RogerWLawson )
You can obtain notifications of new posts in future by following me on Twitter (now “X”) – see https://x.com/RogerWLawson where new blog posts are usually mentioned.