Gold Priced in British Pounds (GBP) – September 2010 Update

It’s been a while since I had a look at gold’s movements however with it closing at $1,297 on Friday and the BBC writing articles like this which reported that gold had reached a new high of $1,300.07 during trading before dipping back I thought now was probably as good as time as any to review golds prices. Today I’m going to look at its prices in British Pounds though, rather than US Dollars, as this is the currency that matters for me. This is because I’m based in the UK and earn in the UK which makes my portfolio a GBP portfolio in my humble opinion.

The PE10 nears its 80 Percentile - S&P 500 cyclically adjusted PE (PE10 or CAPE) – September 2010 Update

Standard and Poors is showing, with 99% of earnings data available, that the Q2 2010 earnings per share for the S&P 500 will be $19.68. That’s a long way from the -$23.25 we saw in Q4 2008. This then has Standard and Poors all excited as they are now estimating that earnings for Q2 2011 will be $21.43 which is a year on year increase of 9%. So no predictions of a double dip recession there.

Why in this world do people always continually assume that because you have earnings of x this time that next time earnings will be x + 10% or so? My company does the same. You have a great year this year so the expectation is that next year you will have a great year plus another 10%. They do the same thing with turnover targets. To me this just seems nigh on impossible as eventually you end up so far up the exponential growth curve with it compounding year on year that you are almost destined for failure. Also where is this additional growth coming from? The world is not growing at 10% so the assumption must be that you are taking market share from someone else. But with the S&P 500 you have on average 500 companies all growing earnings by 9%. That doesn’t seem sustainable. I guess a good example of this is Nokia and the rise in competition from Apple and also the Android Operating System phones. I wonder if Nokia’s board was up until a couple of years ago forecasting this never ending exponential growth also? Now the flavour of the month is Apple but for how long?

Global Capitalist - My Asset Allocation

Back in August I introduced the concept of readers posts so that different perspectives other than those that I post and the comments that are posted in response could be seen.  So far only one person has taken up the challenge which is a shame because different perspectives was one of the outputs that I had hoped to achieved on this blog rather than just me talking to myself.  These different perspectives would allow us all to head off and do our own further research which could only be a good thing.  The person who has taken up the challenge is Global Capitalist who's previous post is here and who today discusses personal asset allocations.

Look further than the press releases – UK Property Market – August 2010 Update

If you were reading the papers over the last few days you will have probably seen the house price data from the Nationwide reported on. This will have been taken straight from their press release and I’m sure monthly changes of -0.9% will have been mentioned. I however prefer to analyse the raw data as the figures presented to the press are seasonally adjusted. The actual figures are worse than that reported. In July 2010 prices were £169,347 and in August they are now £166,507. That is a fall of 1.7% in a single month with the annual change now at +3.9%. This is now 2 months in a row that we have seen price falls. This is all shown in my 1st chart today.

The low fee mantra – a look at the results of Hargreaves Lansdown

Firstly an apology to regular readers of Retirement Investing Today. My life outside of this blog has recently become extremely busy. It’s going to take me a couple of weeks to get everything sorted out which unfortunately means for the next couple of weeks posts are going to be very sporadic if I manage any at all. Please bear with me as once everything is back in control the regular posts will reappear.