Monty Carlo

Qualified financial markets professional  who has stepped back to raise his kids, having worked in both equities and fixed income. I am still married to my first wife so you can work out which institutions I didn't work for.

I still do some consulting work between the school runs, so please excuse the anonymity.

My professional claims to fame include buying Acorn shares to get hold of ARM before it was spun off, and my personal humiliations include buying AMBAC all the way down to bankruptcy. I was at the coalface during the dot.com boom and the 2008/9 crisis, which make me feel like quoting from Bladerunner:

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

Or at least I witnessed the Lloyds/HBOS rights issue. Hopefully the "Time to die" bit can wait the 30+yrs the mortality tables promise me.

Most financial intruments  can be broken down into 3 sets of variables:
1. Anticipated future cashflows
2. The timing of those cashflows
3. The probability of those cashflows actually being paid - often expressed as a discount rate

This covers equities, fixed income, and most derivatives. Of course all 3 variables can be fiendishly difficult to forecast with any accuracy, which is why you can safely ignore most predictions and watch the markets turn "experts" into fools.

For crypto, gold and art/collectibles you will need to find "greater fools".

I am a highly diversified investor as I've learned how easily confidence can be misplaced, and what the accounts don't tell you. Ironically, my best investment decision to date has been to avoid transferring my defined benefit pension into my SIPP. In 30yrs time (subsequent edit about the time of the mini-budget: or 3 months time...) it may prove to be my worst investment decision, but that will be for the kids to worry about. Will serve them right for frittering away their JISAs on unproductive assets such as a university education, when they could have spent the money on Pokemon cards that one day will be worth more than bitcoin.....(subsequent edit...that's coming true more rapidly than I anticipated as well!)