Last week’s Investors Chronicle contained an article that said “The FTSE-100’s record highs have been driven by share buybacks rather than any newfound enthusiasm for UK-listed companies by institutions or DIY investors….”. It suggested that UK funds were still suffering big outflows as investors continued to pile into North American equity funds. I can quite believe it. The herd mentality is clearly in play here.
In the last 3 months the FTSE-100 is up 9% while the FTSE-AIM All-share is up only 3.3%. The expected rebound in small cap shares is still very selective although I have been buying some of them.
I am not travelling much of late but instead I read travel books for some excitement. I reviewed Brazilian Adventure in a previous blog post on the 2nd May. This is a reprint by publishers Eland Publishing Ltd (see https://www.travelbooks.co.uk/ ) who specialise in reprinting old travel books. The latest book from them I have just finished reading is “A Pattern of Islands” by Arthur Grimble. This is the story of someone who joined the colonial services in 1913 as a cadet. He was posted to the Gilbert and Ellice islands with his wife and stayed there for many years, becoming district commissioner in due course. He learned the local language and became an expert on their culture and superstitions.
It’s a marvellous evocation of native life in the South Pacific and the dying days of empire. I recall my parents owned a copy of the book probably from their book club making it a “book of the month”, but I don’t recall reading it before.
The book contains useful tips on how to survive when the nearest doctor was hundreds of miles and many days distant. You can also learn how to kill an octopus – let it catch you and then bite it in a certain place when it promptly dies.
I recommend it for some summer holiday reading. Yes summer is almost upon us and we will have to start watering the garden soon. My younger grandsons went to the seaside (Herne Bay) yesterday but found the sea very cold as yet so soon gave up paddling.
I hoped to see the Northern Lights last night but they were certainly not obvious – probably too much background light in London. I have seen them before when I visited Michigan.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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