The truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal. (Adlai Stevenson). Thoughts of Saltydog Investor

 
The above quotation really does apply to my own thought process when I am faced with making decisions on my favoured investment sectors. A perfect current example is the hydrogen stock ITM Power. I bought this back in time at a price of 126p.  then watched it over a number of months increase to 720p, then like a dummy, I watched it fall back to 320p, before recovering to where it is today at around 455p. Now in hindsight perhaps I should have sold half or even all. But the question as always is when, and how much? I wonder, does a mechanism exist or can it be created to help with these decisions?

Now, all of you that have read my previous missives, will know that I have a bee in my bonnet about technology, and in particular modern techniques for generating green electricity. The list is becoming endless.

Hydrogen, nuclear fusion, solar capture, wind power, tidal, reversible battery energy, baby nuclear fission generators, new hydroelectric schemes, and incredible improvements to battery life. The list seems to increase on a monthly basis. So, which of these is going to be the science that wins through in the end. It will certainly be some time before we find that out, and it will probably be a mixture of the above, or some phenomenon that presently does not exist which will arrive on the scene in the future.

I find the above multiple choice very frustrating, as I certainly do not have the skills to bet on which will be the winner or even the runner-up. What surprises me is that one of the investment companies has not formed a team and a fund to concentrate on this arena. Perhaps they have, and it is hidden inside a technology or energy fund.

Hopefully that fund will be created in the future or if it already exists, then it will make itself more obvious! The reason that at Saltydog we prefer to invest in funds is that the fund manager has a team to do the research, and they have the resources to invest in many businesses which as individuals we do not. If any of you know of such a fund, it would be great to hear from you.

Returning to my first paragraph, and the big question as when to buy or sell a stock, fund or a sector, or even exit the market altogether, and is it possible to get an edge on making that decision? Well, Richard and Dan Owen are going to attempt to cross that bridge. Only time will tell if they get to the other side!

Saltydog is going to buy ‘machine learning’ time from one of the main cloud computing companies, and the task for Dan is to use the Saltydog methodology and write a number of algorithms to create a picture of today’s financial, economic and political situations.

For those interested, machine learning uses neural network techniques that mimic the way the human brain matches patterns, but done on an unimaginable scale. Dan has experience of these ‘Neural networks’ from his early days writing software for Lloyds of London.

Back then it scared the life out of people with underwriters thinking the writing was on the wall for their jobs (and lunch time ‘meetings’), but at the time there just wasn’t the computing power that is now available.

If successful, it will be able to cross-examine the information in the cloud back to when Noah was a boy. It will make a comparison with today’s situation and see if there were any similar situations in the past. If there were, the question is what happened to the markets afterwards. This is what we want to know. I am not saying that it will be possible to get a meaningful result, but Dan and Richard are going to try.

Some members have asked me whether I follow the Saltydog portfolios at all with my own investment money. The answer is yes.

Approximately 75% follows the Ocean Liner and the other 25% follows my own interests of the moment, which as you will have gathered, is today’s green technology. But the security definitely lies in the “safety” of our own portfolios and following our numbers each week.

I would ask you to remember that Saltydog does not give investment advice, only regular information for you to make your own choices. Hopefully in the near future we will be able to launch a subscriber’s forum, and then it will be very interesting to receive ideas from those of you with far more experience than ourselves.
 
Best wishes and good luck with your investments.

Douglas.

Founder & Chairman
 
diy investing
 
www.saltydoginvestor.com <http://www.saltydoginvestor.com>
 





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