This Week in MoneyWeek magazine: what you can earn from history’s best investors; five high-quality emerging-market funds; and a new way to buy into big-name bonds.
Plus: should you insure your buy-to-let properties, why you should be wary of investing into social housing funds, and a “Brexit Bond” . All that and the usual news and opinion, share tips, strategies and all you need to demystify the world of investing. Sign up now and you’ll get the magazine delivered straight to your door, plus access to the MoneyWeek website and the MoneyWeek smartphone and tablet app. Sign up now.
How the world’s best investors made their fortunes
My colleague Matthew Partridge has written a book – Superinvestors: Lessons from the Greatest Investors in History (Harriman House, £24.99, available from all good bookshops now). In it, Matthew tells the stories of the Western world’s ten best investors, from David Ricardo, who made a fortune speculating on the outcome of the Napoleonic wars, to latter day geniuses including Warren Buffett. Matthew outlines exactly how they made their money, and explains what we as ordinary investors can learn from their exploits.
It’s a proper good read, so go out and buy it, and send Matthew soaring into the bestsellers’ lists. There’s even an ebook, for the more digitally inclined among you.
Anyway, In this week’s cover story, Matthew gives us a taste of what he’s written – a potted history of the world’s ten best investors. Even if you don’t buy the book (and you should) you can find out a little of what he’s written in this week’s MoneyWeek magazine. If you do, you’ll find a discount code, so when you then go on to buy Matthew’s book (as you should), you can get it for just £15 – with free postage. That’s almost worth £12 subscription price on its own, so Sign up now?
Five EM funds to buy now
Emerging-market countries offer enormous long-term potential, says MoneyWeek’s managing editor Cris Sholto Heaton. But their stockmarkets can be dominated by unattractive companies – huge, uncompetitive state-controlled businesses; commodity firms disconnected from the local economy; dodgy banking groups; or corrupt, sprawling conglomerates, for example. Do if you buy a run-or-the-mill emerging-markets fund, it could well be stuffed with this sort of unattractive company.
But as an investor who has 40% of his own portfolio in emerging-market stocks, Cris looks for more attractive businesses, which he typically invests in direct. And if you don’t want to put your money into individual stocks, there are “a small number of funds that follow a quality-first approach”, and these would be his top picks. Sign up now.
A new way to buy into big-name bonds
“Many of the alternative-finance platforms vying for your lending business have something of a “me too” feel to them, says David C Stevenson. They take investors’ money and lend it to “a slightly different niche market of borrowers”. But there is one alternative investment platform is doing something slightly different, offering you the chance to put your money into well-established, mid-and large-cap businesses via their corporate bonds. There are some well-known names in there, including Virgin Media, Aston Martin and Enterprise Inns, and you can get a return of up to 8%. Find out what it is and how to invest in Sign up now.
A couple of things to avoid
As well as telling you where to put your money, we take a look at a few investments that you should probably steer clear of. One building society is offering a “Brexit Bond” that lets you punt on whether the pound will be higher or lower when we leave the EU. It’s “hard to see the attraction”, says Ruth Jackson. And a couple of real estate investment trusts are tempting investors with high yields from investing in social housing. The decision o invest is ultimately yours, of course, but Max King isn’t keen – there’s a “lot to be wary of” he says.
Plus we have David Prosser on the coming crackdown on final salary pension transfers; Sarah Moore asks whether you should insure your buy-to-let properties; and professional investor John Goodall picks three attractive funds to buy now.
All that, and the latest news from the markets, politics and economics. The best blogs, the best financial columnists and a round up of all the best share tips from the rest of the UK’s financial press. All that could be yours if you Sign up now.