Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[superwomble]

Doh, been away and missed the fun again! Don’t suppose there’s a spare 1% lying around please...?

[tikay]

Jeez. The woman on the stretcher was 74 years old. She must have been well dizzy by the time she reached the hospital.


WARNING - turn the sound off.

https://twitter.com/Stapes/status/1136092598660034560

[tonytats]

And more news on the attempt to retrieve the bodies of the missing climbers;


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-48494037

Going to climb is possibly your first mistake some may say
Attempting to recover dead pieces of meat- bodies in mountaineering gear is definitely the second mistake !
They are mountaineers not marines who supposedly leave no one behind ?
The Art Gilkey memorial on k2 is testamount to that plus plenty of other attempts
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Gilkey

People choose to climb knowing the risks
Most are highly motivated very intelligent people
Best left up there . I think I’d rather stay up there but that’s just me !

[Doobs]

Did you see this Tony?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48506032

I don't know if there is a lesson here about relying on past performance, or about the effects of Brexit.  I think Neil Woodford was top quartile for very many years in a row not that long ago. How much of that was due to his stock picking skills or the outperformance of the sectors he chose in the wake of the dot com bubble and subsequent crash is up for debate  Looking back there have clearly been some huge tech successes, but back then so many of those tech stocks were so bad. 

My pension has been suffering a bit, as I tend to favour income stocks too; sigh Kier Group.  Those who believe Brexit is a great thing should be making a killing here by buying all these "cheap" UK facing stocks.

Update on this, here;


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48523968


...and here;

I'r take issue with this bit.

Mr Clapham added he would be "very surprised" if most people who had invested in the fund knew there was a risk that at some point they would not have been able to take their money out.

"It's actually not that uncommon," he said, adding that after the Brexit referendum some property funds had taken similar action.

Property funds have always had this issue as a lot hold large properties that can often take a long time to sell.  When properties perform badly, there tends to be a lot of redemptions as most investors tend to buy high and sell low (see Woodford Equity Income Fund redemptions!)

You also see it in some hedge funds, simply because the purpose of some hedge funds is to hold illiquid/exotic investments.  Having said that I have read a few notes on suspensions which I have been more than a little sceptical about.

Also you may see some fairly small funds get suspended if a big investor tries to take out a big chunk of the fund or similar.

I'd say the suspension of a large mainstream equity fund was very rare, so people should be very surprised when it happens.  I am struggling to remember anything of this size with a fairly mainstream equity strategy where this has happened.

[celtic]

Not sure if my memory is playing tricks on me but , didn't you have a run in with a Yank Cop once.
You should employ Jeeves as your full time driver as you obviously have no respect for the law.


@Nakor.   WOW   what an awful time you and your folks have been going through,i had no idea things were that bad.Best wishes to your Dad in his continuing recovery,he is lucky to have a son such as you.Much love.

Yes, a Mexican collided with me on the corner of Tropicana & Las Vegas Boulevard. He never spoke English, & I never had my insurance docs with me, so it all got a bit messy. It was 6am, I'd just finished at PH, & I ended up stuck there waiting for the cops for 2 & a half hours. MANTIS reckoned it was my fault, but you know what he's like.

Wear suitable clothing, with pockets to keep your documents in next time.

[booder]

 

[TightEnd]

Did you see this Tony?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48506032

I don't know if there is a lesson here about relying on past performance, or about the effects of Brexit.  I think Neil Woodford was top quartile for very many years in a row not that long ago. How much of that was due to his stock picking skills or the outperformance of the sectors he chose in the wake of the dot com bubble and subsequent crash is up for debate  Looking back there have clearly been some huge tech successes, but back then so many of those tech stocks were so bad. 

My pension has been suffering a bit, as I tend to favour income stocks too; sigh Kier Group.  Those who believe Brexit is a great thing should be making a killing here by buying all these "cheap" UK facing stocks.

Update on this, here;


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48523968


...and here;

I'r take issue with this bit.

Mr Clapham added he would be "very surprised" if most people who had invested in the fund knew there was a risk that at some point they would not have been able to take their money out.

"It's actually not that uncommon," he said, adding that after the Brexit referendum some property funds had taken similar action.

Property funds have always had this issue as a lot hold large properties that can often take a long time to sell.  When properties perform badly, there tends to be a lot of redemptions as most investors tend to buy high and sell low (see Woodford Equity Income Fund redemptions!)

You also see it in some hedge funds, simply because the purpose of some hedge funds is to hold illiquid/exotic investments.  Having said that I have read a few notes on suspensions which I have been more than a little sceptical about.

Also you may see some fairly small funds get suspended if a big investor tries to take out a big chunk of the fund or similar.

I'd say the suspension of a large mainstream equity fund was very rare, so people should be very surprised when it happens.  I am struggling to remember anything of this size with a fairly mainstream equity strategy where this has happened.

Neil, who i used to compete with, holds a lot of smaller companies and illiquid investments. You won't find a big FTSE100 bias in his fund.

If there is a run on the fund, then he simply can't turn those portions of those investments into cash easily. For example he often ends up (due to the sheer size of his funds) owning 10%+ of small caps where the stock exchange disclosable figure is 3%. If he is selling, everyone knows as its reported to the stock exchange, and that also has an impact on share prices

He also had an extremely sanguine view on Brexit on domestic stocks, case as yet unproven but its a tough spell for these companies as forward planning is tough and there are lots of structural changes in many sectors too (high street and suppliers to name one obvious one)

[tikay]

My two favourite photos so far from Mr Trump's visit.

Here No 10's cat decides to sit under the President's "Beast" Limo. Cat's know no boundaries & respect nobody & nothing.

 

Click to see full-size image.

[tikay]

And of course the famous "fist bump" with Her Maj. Course, if we had another camera angle it'd look completely different.

Click to see full-size image.

[Rod Paradise]

1% please Tikay if any left.

Hi Darren,

i sent a message via Shaz about this, I gather there was some confusion, but if you want 1%, that's fine.

Hi Tony

Yes 1% please. Will transfer monies now.

£69 received, & lost updated (top of page).

Thanks.

Freudian?

[tikay]

1% please Tikay if any left.

Hi Darren,

i sent a message via Shaz about this, I gather there was some confusion, but if you want 1%, that's fine.

Hi Tony

Yes 1% please. Will transfer monies now.

£69 received, & lost updated (top of page).

Thanks.

Freudian?

Oops. Very perceptive.....

[Steveswift]

Sent mine yesterday Tony, let me know you got it alright.

[superwomble]

Doh, been away and missed the fun again! Don’t suppose there’s a spare 1% lying around please...?

Hi tikay, this may have been missed? Thanks

[Supernova]

This is a most extraordinary image.  

Click to see full-size image.

This is the queue to summit Mount Everest.

More than 200 people are thought to have reached the summit on Wednesday.  Three of them died, possibly as a result of the queue in the death zone.

Wow, that is a captivating picture, for sure.

Imagine being stuck up there, and knowing you're done.

Imagine climbing past the remains of previous mountaineers like hannalore Schmatz who sat down at 8300 m in 1979 and died there n then and whose remains sat there for years after leaning on her rucksack tied on by a Sherpa who after her death sat with her ,losing his fingers n toes to frostbite after descending!
eyes open hair blowing in the breeze
A skeletal smile on her face as you negotiate your way past her !
2 more died trying to remove her remains some years later
Many bodies fall into the khumbu ice fall to be churned out many years later
It’s a pretty grisly hobby is high altitude mountaineering

Imagine climbing Everest like Reinhold messier and peter habeler did alpine style very fast  so fast in fact no one believed them so messner  returned and climbed it again .peter habeler said fk that

Another 3 have died there in the last 24 hours.  Must be a dreadfu;l decision to make.  You have climed to within 400m of the summit and face a 10 hour queue.  Your head says you should turn round, as you have effectively made it, but why were you there in the first place?

There are some vidoes of everest climbs on youtube and the like and it just looks brutal.   Even with someone carting your stuff up there for you, it must take extreme bravery and inner strength to get there.

above 7000 m  you are living in the death zone as mountaineers call it one uk climber lived above this height for 21 days once ,but most can only manage 3 or 4
a lack of water extreme exertion and very thin air combine to make your decision making not its normal self
you have expended all of your energy to get that high on the mountain the summit is your personal target - do u really want to go home and say you failed ?to your family /your backers ?
all sense of reason goes out of the window your bloods turning to treacle and thickening in your veins causing pulmonary and cerebal  oedema -thats lung n brain problems -strokes blood clots etc
but still you are so near so you kick on ,your only focus is the summit
lots summit and having expended all their energy make mistakes on descending or get caught in bad weather n bivouac out just below the summit -julie tullis was one such uk climber died in her tent on k2
or like hal wickwire leader of a summit on k2 -think 10x harder to climb  than everest !
he bivvied out just below the summit and lost all or part of one of his lungs
it really is a cruel sport

Hi Tony,

How come you are so well-versed in mountaineering stuff? Was not aware you were into that sort of thing, & you don't look like a mountaineer. Though I'm not really clear what a mountaineer looks like.

Meanwhile, a Brit & a chap from Ireland have since died on Everest, both of them whilst descending, which was something you mentioned.  

I saw this on the Beeb I think, then here, and then I came across it again with the facts that if you look closely (I still can't see it) there are actually 2 queues, one going up and one coming down.

[tikay]

The adventure begins.