Whatās going on today? Letās seeā¦
Good evening 
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As usual, we selected the best articles published in the past few days 
:
Portfolio Construction:
Do you need a separate allocation to real estate in your portfolio?
MSCI Index rebalance brings India-China weight gap to record low
Inflation-protected bonds: justified backlash?
Bond Ladders Gain Traction in Direct Indexing
Principles for investing success in four figures
The Largest Gold Reserves, by Country
Factor & Active Investing:
9 Charts that spell disaster for Active Investors
The death of small-cap investments
A Better Approach to Dividend Investing
Value investing with WisdomTree
āOnce-in-a-Generationā Opportunity in EM Debt
A great profile of Nvidia & CEO Jensen Huang
Not every Bitcoin ETF is going to survive
Wealth & Lifestyle:
10 Questions to Ask a Financial Advisor
The market rally is fuelling another wave of early retirement
FIRE Meets Ice (Iāll continue earning)
Equity compensation with Derek Jess
How to build a global startup platform
How to Embrace Slow Productivity, and Defend Your Time
Have a great week-end!
Francesca from BoW Team 
you think the NVDA rally is over? 
And here is another post, restless as i am
Iāve being comparing all sorts of long term ETFs for some months, and S&P500 eventually outperforms all the alternative index families I could think of. Consistently and by a long shot, through big global crises and short-lived regional disruptions.
Also, most of the arguments against S&P500 refer to very abstract principles (āpast performance bla bla blaā), strong bias on where the world economy is heading to (āAmerica is doomed!ā), and risks that never seem to materialise (or having hardly any lasting effects) .
I may reconsider my ETF of choiceā¦ 
never bet against the Sp500 in the long run 
80% of all my money has been made on the US market, very rare I invest or trade anywhere else
I found this video about the magnificent seven an interesting watch
I have three close friends who are interested in long term investing and when a big situation arises like March 2020, Summer 2021 or December 2022 I let them know my actual insight only when a big opportunity arises, (and if I even have an insight because it is rare for opportunities that great to appear),
one of these people in April 2020 ( with zero investing knowledge apart from my input) bought Berkshire Hathaway, Qualcomm and the S&P 500 and hasnāt made a purchase or sale since April 2020 and has ~120% return
one bought 4 main etfās in 2022 and does not rly understand the market but at least is involved
the other is a software programmer who is realising that when I single out a particular company in a momentum growth sector at a possible market bottom (December 2022) that he should rly not wait so long to get involved. When he asked me at the time what I would buy on an individual stock basis right now I said Nvidia for the decade.
Similar reasoning to how I called out BAE for cyber security - I said if youāre going to buy a single company it has to be at a time of depressed value and it has to be part of the growing momentum of life itself. I said to him if wealthy owners of companies can automate huge areas of their companies then that means they will own a self-functioning money making asset with little work from themselves, of course this is whatās going to happen over the company years.
I understand after 5 years what Warren Buffet and Peter Lynch and others mean when they say 100 options can pass through and itās the 2 or 3 you decide to act on which will get you to where you wanna be.
Short term it is clear you can not time the market on a 3-6 month basis BUT you can enter your opportunity once itās arisen at a time where you choose is a screaming entry point based on your sentiment. Itās just it only happens 1-3 times over a 5-10 year period if you are fortunate to have some volatility and momentum.
Take December 2022;
A war had broken out.
Mainstream media was in panic fear mode.
Inflation at 11%.
Stock market had fallen all year in 3 stacks.
Interest rates were being raised.
Workers were striking.
Property growth was levelling out.
BUT you also knew at the time;
That over 100 years the American market typically bounced back the following two years after a long down year.
Inflation was always going to come down.
Lots of cash was on the sidelines ready.
Pay rises were coming.
Internet based companies were nowhere near their potential of whatās coming.
Whenever another macro opportunity arises I wish everybody reading who is interested in acting on their find to make sure theyāve done their research and are as convinced as they could be at that moment to make a move.
The main markets including the property market fail upwards and it is actually tough to make a mistake worse than the mistake of not acting. There are not a ālot great opportunities which come your personal way but when lots of macro events happen it does go on to create an opportunity to get into a growing momentum investment.
A couple people here hate my posts, it is very tough to put into words how I personally see that a macro opportunity is one where I wish to risk waiting a little longer and then decide itās āthe oneā so I go in. It is very hard to put all that information and instinct into words but if it keeps proving itself to be correct then there must be a reason why it keeps being correct.
My own mistake was not paying the subscription to John Thomas from March 2020 to have access to his teams extensive relevant market insights and using my finds to base against their actions which clearly would have given me a professional guideline.
I sold out of all stocks during June 2021 as I personally saw a bubble, but I would have been even more guided & helped having seen John Thomas and his team actually laying shorts. I done it without any physical statistics of inflows and outflows, which kinda sucks. It was correct but there was an element of luck. I just keeping finding that the stronger the feeling and the longer I hold out until actually making the move - itās proven to be correct. What Iāve noticed is some of the risk which made the investment I made such a good timed one was that I risked waiting longer than most would to act, which went on to help me find the top and the bottom of the market without using Ā£1 million equipment haha.
It does not hurt to wait longer to get more confirmation should you see a huge macro opportunity.
Anyway. Hope this helped the younger crowd.
Good read I would just say though that I couldnāt be bothered telling friends or Co workers which things to buy due to the fact if it goes tits up they come crying at me saying you said this you said that I have lost so and so amount now I told you stocks were just gambling etc etc etcā¦
Other than that though I get your post and actully just finished an nvidia post whette I explained it was one of my first companies to look to buy but I had never got into investing at the time and I was playing with fake cash just testing markets scared to make the move as I really didnāt have much spare cash, nor do I now for the stock the price means I need to save for months to buy due to isa issues.
I have also been into AI since I first read my books back in the mid 1990s. Knew one day it would take off but it wasnāt until around 2022 I had that feeling something was about to happen due to seeing more and more pictures appearing, news articles etc
Honestly it wasnāt long after I just bought into my usual etfs that month and said ill buy nivida next month 100% and some other companies that had a tip to go for infact that other chip company increased far beyond nivida and so this all happened not long after I spent my cash and I watched in horror lol, by the time the next pay was ready it had already went up so far I was now scared to buy in.
I had the game stop, dark and the others vibes that everyone followed and it came crashing down with the big playahs all making cash while the followers and no doupt many first time investors now scared for life to invest again because they listened to others.
Just saying sometimes it works sometimes it doesnāt at the end if the day what happens to my portfolio is in my hands my newbie hands should I say, at least if anything happens itās all down to me.
Good article from SimplyWallSt where they try to address the current question: Is the AI rally a bubble? I think itās worth reading, especially for those who are enthusiastic about this technology.
Cheap for a reason. No one wants it 
$8.4 trillion in money markets, theyāll have to whether they like it or not soon enough
Yes, totally agree @dk1 Iāve been building up my ETFs from my money market funds ā¦ a lot of money will plough back into the market when the interest rates begin to reduce.
Outside of tech Iāve opted for a USA quality factor ETF - Still has 20% techā¦ will see how it fairs.
Good evening -
As usual, we selected the best articles published in the past few days :
Portfolio Construction:
100% Equities: Raphās View
100% Equities: The Economistās Criticism
What happens when you invest right before a bear market?
Mike Green about how the growth in passive has changed markets
The Trillion Dollar Equation
Financial Literacy and Financial Resilience: Evidence from Italy
The definitive history of private credit
ETFs:
Europeās Largest ETF Issuers
Hedging Bear Markets & Crashes with Tail Risk ETFs
Wealth & Lifestyle:
Broker Review: Interactive Investor
Evaluating Retirement Withdrawal Strategy with Christine Benz
Is your portfolio invested for you or for your advisor?
How couples can approach a financial life together
You wonāt be remembered for the work you do
Why experiences matter more these days
How Much Netflix Costs in Every Country
Have a great week-end!
Francesca from BoW Team
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/03/an-isa-tax-raid-would-be-a-disaster-for-us/
Jezza Crunt mulling over only allowing UK companies to be held in an ISA 
Personally, I donāt think itās a bad idea to have an additional Ā£5000 in allowance to invest in the UK companies.
the extra Ā£5k is good, but the other idea of only allowing UK companies in an ISA is a disater waiting to happen
Would be OK for dividend investors.
Certainly, itās a bad idea. I was only referring to the additional part.
This Idea if implimented (UK companies only part inside an ISA) I feel would have a significant impact on Freetrades buisness model. If you consider they restrict what can be bought in the basic plan and then no US stocks can be bought in the ISA then it leaves just the SIPP and even then there is no drawdown or employee contributions currently itās almost detrimental.
