Weekend reading: Monevator readers are worth reading

Good reads from around the Web.

A quick erratum: The Accumulator got an Ongoing Charge Figure (OCF) wrong in his vast roundup of cheap index trackers on Tuesday.

The correct OCF for the db X-trackers FTSE 100 ETF (Ticker: XDUK) is a mere 0.09%.

To be fair to T.A., he wasn’t out by much. Only by a factor of – oh – ten!

I’m teasing, of course. His outsized error was a misplaced decimal point, and if I was in his shoes dealing with micro-OCFs in every other post I’d be regularly missing the point.

Anyway, I mention it here because thousands of Monevator readers only consume our words through email, and seldom visit the site. They might not know about the error, because they won’t see the comments or correction.

Comments worth reading

I can see the appeal of reading via email. Who wants to get off the virtual sofa to click over to some website when you can put your feet up in your in-box?

But one reason to do so is that Monevator has a really clued-up readership nowadays, especially on the passive investing side.

A dozen readers alerted me to that OCF error, for instance, either via the comments or by email.

So far (touch wood) our commentators are mainly pleasant and informative, too. We get very few nonsensical or rude battles here, and mostly I delete dumb comments anyway.

The number of comments beneath some posts runs into the several hundreds. You may be missing out on crowd-sourced wisdom if you never read them.

Of course, the typical thread flares out after 20 to 30 comments or so. But here are a few that are still pretty active:

• Low cost index trackers to save you money

• Compare the cheapest online brokers

• University has become an unaffordable luxury

• Why I’m not paying off my mortgage

• SIPPs vs ISAs for early retirement

• Vanguard LifeStrategy turns investing catatonic

The newest comments beneath any post are always shown first. There’s a “Previous Comments” link at the top to move you back through the stack.

Have a read, and add a few words of your own if you’re so-minded.

Community centre

A few years ago Monevator used a special plug-in, which enabled me to list all the new comments on the site in a table, like you see with a discussion forum.

Unfortunately it was discontinued and I haven’t found a replacement. If anyone has any pointers, please do let me know. (I’m not interested in a simple “Latest comments” sidebar widget. It’s a page collating comments that I would like.)

I also want to upgrade the comment system to enable you to post under your Facebook or Twitter identity, should you want to. This is easily done, but it has knock-on consequences so I go around in circles and procrastinate.

Finally I have a full-blown discussion forum waiting in the wings!

Techie types may be excited to know I am going with the sexy and modern Discourse system for this.

Unfortunately it’s so sexy and modern that we haven’t been able to make it stable.

Watch this space. 🙂

Note: I’m compiling the links a little early this week due to the Bank Holiday, so if you spot anything good in the weekend papers, please share it in those comments below!

From the blogs

Making good use of the things that we find…

Passive investing

• Try harder, or do something easier? – Abnormal Returns
• Stamps and art as an alternative to equities – Rick Ferri

Active investing

• Avoid lottery stocks like the plague – Millennial Invest
• What’s the worst-case scenario? – Oddball Stocks
• Is Kier Group a good way to bet on the UK recovery? – UK Value Investor
• Ukraine uncovers a value opportunity – Beddard/iii blog
• Most of the world’s money is in bonds [Data] – Meb Faber

Other articles

• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for financial freedom – Mister Squirrel
• The passive income myth – Under the Money Tree
• Financial matters – A Wealth of Common Sense
• How to make money buy happiness – Mr Money Mustache

Product of the week: Shawbrook’s one-year bond pays 1.95% (and bars any withdrawals for 12 months), which makes it a table-topper, according to The Telegraph. Its four and five-year bonds top their tables, too.

Mainstream media money

Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view these enable you to click through to read the piece without being a paid subscriber of that site. ¹

Passive investing

• You can’t buck the system – Carl Richards/NYT
• Rob Arnott defends fundamental indexing [Video] – WealthTrack
• The fallacy of a “stock-picker’s market” – Pension Partners
• Rise of “robo-advisors” [About the US, but they’re headed here] – ETF.com
• How DIY investors can plan to pass on their portfolios – Morningstar

Active investing

• “My gold fund is down 70%! Should I sell?” – Telegraph
• Surge in profitless IPOs could suggest a bad market to come – WSJ
• Bonds for the long run [Wonky but interesting] – FT Alphaville
• One valuation metric that still says US stocks are cheap – Bloomberg

Other stuff worth reading

• Interactive Investor waves exit fees, but only for new customers – Telegraph
• Goals versus systems – Morgan Housel / Fool.com
• Can we trust the next-generation of peer-to-peer firms? – Telegraph
• We’re living longer, but not healthier – The Guardian
• A fun night for $200,000 [Keep your money from them!] – Bloomberg

Book of the week: The print version of Michael Lewis’ Flash Boys is out.

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1. Reader Ken notes that: “FT articles can only be accessed through the search results if you’re using PC/desktop view (from mobile/tablet view they bring up the firewall/subscription page). To circumvent, switch your mobile browser to use the desktop view. On Chrome for Android: press the menu button followed by “Request Desktop Site”.”[↩]