Sunday 4th December 2022

The bias in the mainstream media is criminal as far as I'm concerned, so it’s encouraging to see what Elon’s done with Twitter in a couple of short months. From the Twitter Files in relation to Hunter Biden's laptop, to being a place where accurate information and questions are being asked. 

Platforms like Substack and Twitter and journalists like Matt Taibi, Alex Berenson, David Zweig, Michael Shellenberger and Lee Fang, among others are hopefully in the early stages of making a real and positive difference to what defines media today, because it needs to change.  

I know I’m banging on about Elon and Twitter but it’s literally that important to our world moving forward as without it we have no place on the internet to share opposing views without being heavily censored or cancelled like we saw across all platforms during the pandemic.  

Tuesday 6th December 2022

The RBA announced a 0.25% interest rate rise to a cash rate of 3.1% today. On the topic of the RBA it’s been entertaining to see the RBA Chair apologise to the public for his comments during 2020 and 2021; that interest rates would not rise until 2024. 

I’ve got to say it’s worrying that people in such powerful positions can be so out of touch. The lesson for me here is people's biases despite their positions, fame or status in society have an impact. We’re all products of our environment…

Monday 12th December 2022

Had an interesting chat today with an athlete client on investing. He’s mid 20’s and thinking about his future. He likes the idea and process of building a simple index fund based share portfolio.  

Interestingly he was commenting on his Dad’s direction since retiring. His dad has become noticeably negative about the future and into what I call ‘negative newsletters’. 

In my late 20’s and early 30’s I went through a phase of subscribing to all the negative newsletters myself. It’s so easy to get sucked in because bad news sells. Plus our old reptilian brain connects strongly with bad news. Add the fact that everyday households around the world are indoctrinated with bad news in the media - if it bleeds it leads - is the philosophy of news producers.

Now from an investing point of view, there’s SO MUCH incentive out there for people to promote problems so other people buy their solutions. It’s literally a multibillion dollar industry. Don’t believe me? Start with a book called ‘Where are the customers' yachts? Then move to ‘The Psychology of Money’ by Morgan Housel. 

To be clear I’m not suggesting the future is all sunshine and lollipops. Far from it. After day comes night, I promise you that’s not going to change. But after night comes day.  

Jim Rohn famously said the next 6000 years is going to be about like the last 6000 years. Opportunity mixed with difficulty. Now sometimes there’s opportunity than difficulty and other times there is more difficulty than opportunity but the mix is about the same. 

You see, the same wind blows on us all. The wind of disaster, the wind of difficulty, the wind of opportunity, the wind when it’s favourable, the wind when it’s unfavourable. But it’s not the direction of the wind that matters, it’s the set of the sail. We’ve got to learn to set a better sail this year than last year. So the next two years, the next 5 years, the next 10 years can be drastically different than the prior 2, 5 or 10 years.

For some perspective this is a post going around the internet of the challenges faced by someone born in 1900. To me it seems like we’ve got it pretty good thus far. But I’ll leave you to decide for yourself.  

[Add image post re: born 1900]    

Thursday 15th December 2022

US FED increased interest rate by 0.5% and signalled further rate rises into 2023. 

Australian unemployment remained the same as last month meaning more people working in Australia than ever before.

Monday 26th December 2022

https://youtu.be/HE5CTKqWEV0?t=3530 

This YouTube clip is worth watching. It’s a serendipitous interview of Elon Musk while at Twitter HQ followed by one of the Twitter Files journalists. 

These two interviews that you will not see any coverage on in mainstream media highlight so much of the shifting sands currently happening in terms of transparency in media, free speech, mistakes and correcting those mistakes, influence and incentives, the FBI breaking the law, censorship, product focus in business and economic commentary.

It’s worth checking out if you haven't already.  

December 31st 2022

The end of another quarter and calendar year means it’s spreadsheet time for tracking their financial progress. I’ve got a close group of mates who all track their progress as well. I always look forward to these discussions. 

ASX returned: -7.4%

S&P 500 returned: -19.3%

NASDAQ returned: -33%

BTC returned: -60%

Who’d have thought?!

What’s in store for 2023? I have no idea, so I’m sticking to my central theme ‘just keep buying’. 

All the best to you for 2023.