Tacit Thought
“Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum” “Let him who desires peace, prepare for war”
April, 2024
According to data from the Project Mars International Conflict Data program cited in “Our World in Data,” since 1800, 37 million soldiers have died in battle with 75% of that total accounted for by the two world wars: 1914-18, 1939-45. It is perhaps hard to believe in the current geopolitical circumstances that the world has […]
Why not the UK?
April, 2024
The UK stock market has been stuck at these levels for what feels like forever. The chart below shows how the UK stock market has broadly tracked sideways in price terms (excluding dividends) since the turn of the century. On all conventional and comparative historic measures it appears cheap: so why does it not go […]
Cleared for landing
April, 2024
It is something of an obsession in professional investment circles to speculate on ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ landings, but what does it mean? Talk of landings comes after a disruption in the economic cycle. Economists and investors fret over whether the cycle can return to balance without passing through a process of purging. The global economy […]
Damn Lies and Statistics
March, 2024
That eminent thinker Homer J Simpson once noted that, “you can prove anything with statistics, 14% of all people know that!” Disraeli placed statistics below “lies and damn lies” in his hierarchy of mendacity whilst Darell Huff, back in the 1950s, wrote the canonical introduction for students, notably entitling it, “How to Lie with Statistics.” […]
Are things really so different?
March, 2024
Every generation believes that they have it worse than their predecessors. This is a human trait which focuses on the problems with the here and now, rather than comparing today’s issues with the issues of the past for context. Crudely put, is living in a house with two plus bathrooms today really worse than having […]
Bias
March, 2024
An opinion can cloud good judgment because it introduces bias into a decision-making process. When someone holds a strong opinion about a particular topic, they may become emotionally attached to that viewpoint, making it difficult for them to objectively evaluate information or consider alternative perspectives. This emotional attachment can lead to cognitive biases, such as […]
Value is in the eye of the beholder
March, 2024
At Tacit we have maintained a focus on valuations throughout our 14 years of investing, as overpaying for assets can lead to significant losses. At times in the market cycle, we have had a bias towards companies that do not trade at expensive multiples, referred to as Value Investing, especially when we believe markets are […]
Actively inactive
February, 2024
We’re often asked why we don’t make more changes to our strategies. It’s a fair question and in a world where activity is tracked second by second this may look like we’re busy doing nothing. But our view is that a considered decision not to change holdings is every bit as valid as one to […]
A Capital Endeavour
February, 2024
In the 19th century, at the peak of Empire, Great Britain was simultaneously the “workshop of the world” and banker to the world. Immediately prior to the explosive demolition of Edwardian gentility in the trenches of the 1St World War, it is estimated that 50% of the capital invested throughout the world had been raised […]
Lifestyling: It’s a Risky Business
February, 2024
“And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.” Few of us these days wear “slipper’d pantaloon,” but we still play a variety of roles as we travel through life: the dependent child, the lingering teenager, the thrusting entrepreneur, the stressed-out parent, and the grateful grandparent. Each of those roles […]