I am writing this from a very comfortable chair overlooking the North Sea as I try to give my legs as much of a break as possible between this morning’s 12km run and later this morning’s 30km run.
Running has evolved from a hobby of mine to a key part of my identity in the last few months and, if I am honest, it’s taking up more of my time than I expected. If I am not running, I am often too tired to be doing anything particularly productive. It’s not an ideal situation as I begin the countdown to my celebratory run around the coastline of Britain, but I will continue to work on it.
There’s a reason for this opening comment (aside from a shameless bit of self promotion). With time not on my side, my ability to follow the markets, or even my portfolio, is lower than it has been at any point since I started working as a financial journalist ten years ago.
But the impact of this shift in priorities has been reassuringly low. As a buy-and-hold investor, my aim is to keep any actual activity in the markets to a minimum. My research ahead of buying a stock is thorough and then I will aim to hold onto the stocks until the investment case changes. If it doesn’t change, I will just keep holding.
It means that in the last few weeks, I have been oblivious to any impact that political shenanigans have been having on global indices. Have the crumbling relations in government had any impact on domestic markets? Are ongoing tariff concerns stopping the relentless upward march of US stocks? Are international investors hunkering down as conditions in Eastern Europe deteriorate further?
It’s also reassuring, as I emerge temporarily from my running obsession, that in all cases, the answer is ‘no, not really’. Tetchiness from broader political, geopolitical or economic goings on remains on the minds of investors, but not to any greater degree than it was when I went into my running isolation.
And having preached for years that investment is something that more people should do and it really doesn’t take up as much time as some might fear, I am glad to have been proven right now that my work life doesn’t revolve around the stock market.…
