tjh290633 wrote:
Global warming theories are largely spouted by people who are paid to produce them. Somebody will no doubt put the cold April down to the lack of aircraft putting CO2 into the atmosphere. But that probably caused the warm March, because of less water vapour in the atmosphere.
TJH
Hello?! Donald?
Or, both could simply be weather, always unpredictable on these islands. Or, they could maybe be influenced by long term trends and the rather more erratic meandering behaviour of the Northern Polar Jet Stream these days, possibly itself a result of complex weather and temperature-related climate behaviour which most of us don't understand . . . . . . . . .
Yes, and not forgetting the excessively cold winters in North America (also influenced by the Northern Polar Jet Stream), or the droughts and wild fires in West Coast U.S, or the unusually severe droughts, wildfires and floods in Australia which now threaten the very viability of long-established bush lifestyles, or the burning of Brazilian rainforests and savanna, the heatwaves in SE England with the associated invasions of lavender and grape crops, the unusual flooding events across England, the invasion of locusts into the Horn and East Africa, drought and crop-loss in the Tigris-Euphrates basin, the upward migration of mountain flora and fauna threatening the biodiversity of important crop species (e.g. Coffea arabica), the rising summer temperatures in India threatening the viability of key crop species such as maize, enhanced melting and reduction of summer ice in the Arctic which now allows passage of even un-hardened ships - we can kayak to the North Pole now, the melting and burning of tundra and forest fires in Siberia, or the measurable and accelerating reduction of glaciers across the world from the Alps and Antarctic to the Himalaya and Mountains of the Moon, and on and on . . . . .
But what does this perspective mean for my investments? Well, in my view, we will see a continued/accelerated move away from fossil fuels and plastics towards electricity and natural fibres. Oil remains important but can often be substituted by plant sources of organics, so major reductions in volumes of oil required over a 5-20 year horizon; I'm continuing to reduce small investments in Shell and BP but am hoping their prices will rise further in the short term; I wouldn't buy them now.
Don't know what to do about minerals, electrics needs specific minerals, seems to be a shortage of nickel, possibly copper; new sources of lithium being developed, rare earths important but some like Cobalt can be substituted. I do have BHP Billiton but its not very exciting - nearing its 2010-11 peak now and yielding 4.8%. I have been thinking about Antafagasta (Cu) for some time, but as usual, thinking was the wrong thing to do - it has gone up almost 200% since March last year it it has a low yield of 2.1%. I should also have invested in LG's BATG battery technology ETF 6 months ago, it has shot up, but I think it will probably continue to rise as pressure for better battery technology continues to grow and this gives a broad spread across minerals and technology - I bought a small holding yesterday to see what happens.
Forestry/trees/natural fibres become more important for building and packaging than plastics but how to invest in this? I have Smith DS packaging but they deal mainly with recycled cardboard and their performance has been disappointing, price is well below the 2018 peak, yield is less than 1% and I have lost almost 6% on purchase price - I am looking for a reason not to sell them! I recently bought James Latham (LTHM) as a punt on wood and housebuilding in the UK, the yield is low and flat but total return is reasonable, turnover and profit are growing slowly and share price has recently moved quite strongly upwards.
Agriculture is going through a technological revolution and I would like to invest in it but I don't know how; I hold Tate which is fairly pedestrian and still struggling towards its 2013 high, should benefit from BREXIT but seems to be far from the answer to climate change.
As for AI and IT the best I have come up with is the Vanguard US and All World trackers and Scottish Mortgage (SMT) which have all done ok. Are there any better ideas for AI and IT?
BP