Perspectives
Kitchen Sinking
May, 2020
The major consequence of the global financial crisis in 2008 was a decade of “austerity” where the excesses of global finance in the run up to the crisis were paid for in a decade of cuts to public budgets. In the famous formulation of the time, “profits were privatised but losses were socialised.” Having lived […]
Client Update Letter
May, 2020
18 May 2020 The team at Tacit felt that the current environment warranted a more in-depth assessment of the investment outlook, focused on recent events and, more importantly, on the changed investment landscape we foresee following the health-driven emergency that has dominated the first quarter of 2020. Firstly, we hope you, and your family, are […]
The Value of Growth
May, 2020
A lot of investors are familiar with Benjamin Graham – the father of security analysis and Warren Buffett’s mentor and first employer. Benjamin Graham popularised a style of investing called value investing. Its basic premise is that if you buy an asset at a discount to a conservative estimate of its value, you are likely […]
The Unholy Trinity
May, 2020
A fire requires three ingredients to be self-sustaining: fuel, a source of oxidation (oxygen in the air) and a source of ignition. This is known as the fire triangle. A fire can be prevented by removing any of these ingredients. This principle of elimination or avoidance of harm is used by fire fighters when fighting […]
The Cure?
May, 2020
Recently, there has been conflicting news of a potential cure for Covid-19 doing the rounds in the press. We thought it would be useful at this point to separate the wheat from the chaff and see what all of this really means. There have been three substantive clinical trials of the drug called Remdesivir manufactured […]
Estimating Fair Value
April, 2020
We are often reminded that financial markets can be volatile and erratic, and none more so at present than the oil market which briefly traded below zero last week. Imagine turning up at your local garage and being paid by the garage to fill up and drive on. Oil is by no means the only […]
Why the world could end but probably won’t
April, 2020
Stepping back from the frustrations of lockdowns, the growing toll of human tragedy, and the unhelpful daily twitter feed of President Trump, are investment markets actually behaving rationally? The current volatility in equity markets is driven by a change in future earnings estimates of the companies that make them up. As the price you pay […]
Navigating a Crisis
April, 2020
We have often written about the stabiliser and growth approach used in our strategies. The growth assets, as the name implies, generate the majority of the growth in investment returns. This includes shares in companies, high yield bonds and emerging market debt. The stabiliser part of the portfolio is less exciting. Stabilisers exist for one […]
Manager Updates
March, 2020
Although we spend a lot of time explaining the economic picture and risks associated with equity valuations, an integral and important part of the Tacit Investment Process is understanding the funds we include within our strategies, and, most especially, understanding how each of the managers of these funds behaves at times of market stress. The […]
The Eye of the Storm
March, 2020
You may have noticed that we have positioned portfolios very defensively at present with high allocations to Stabiliser assets and cash. This is to preserve values in the short term as we are experiencing a sudden, material shock to global economic demand which was not expected and appears to now be longer-lasting than any of […]