Computer 0:00
Podcast 10.
Clip 'Hippies Film' 0:00
Since the dawn of history man's goal has been to create a society free from drudgery, hunger and disease not only for himself, but as a legacy to pass on to his children. But only after the founding of our free society was the atmosphere created in which he could reach his goal he worked and plan built and innovated and grew. Eventually, he was able to provide not only the necessities of life for himself and his children, but he could dream of acquiring some of the luxuries as well. As man's dream of his children's future ended in a nightmare.
JB Beckett 0:44
Salutations Dear citizens as we peer into the new fund order to discover the immutable truth for asset management and wealth managers, the lowdown from the dark side the frontier on the fringe of asset management, and fund research. A podcast for wealth managers fund selectors, distributors and investors. Bringing to you the People's Republic podcast on finance, in association with my sponsor, Allianz Global Investors, capturing the latest market news, views, and interviews with leading minds in our industry.
Allianz Global Investors is one of the world's leading active managers.
And in these strange pandemic lockdown times, rest assured that all guests are calling in remotely.
So Clive, I want to explore your Zen about fund allocation, I guess finance generally, and specifically your mindfulness and unique views on environmental social governance. Welcome to the new fund order...
Clive Hale 2:09
Jamie, thank you so much for inviting me. Yes, selling the art of investment management is there's quite a lot of ground cover that
JB Beckett 2:17
I have to pick on Pirsig, it was the book that got me into into motorcycling, I read it when I was at university, and of course, it's it's so much more than, you know, frankly, riding a motorbike, the motorbike is the metaphor, I guess for for life and how you conduct yourself. But Pirsig talked about this idea of laws of nature as human, I guess inventions, like ghosts, laws of logic of mathematics are, in many ways, also human inventions, is the whole blessed thing in Finance, is it just one big human invention?
Clive Hale 2:50
I have I take I take exception to his observation that laws of nature are human inventions, I think that's, that's human nature, thinking it can actually control nature, when of course it can't. But aside from that, the laws of logic. I mean, the extraordinary thing about the laws of logic is that if you have an argument for something, logically, you can also make the opposite case. So this is a this is a big problem with logic, you know, you can be for something and against something at exactly the same time for very good valid reasons. It's a very difficult dilemma for the, for the mind to actually work out. And we'll probably talk about this later. But it's the mind is the problem that we have the mind is a fantastic analytical tool, give you that balance sheet, you know, spreadsheets, data, it'll crunch through that, and it'll look at it and come up with an answer. But it's not actually the mind that makes the decisions. But we can talk about that a little further down the page, if you feel,
JB Beckett 3:49
Sure, well, let's let's pick out another human construct. Like we might get back at the laws of nature as well. But let's talk about I guess, environmental, social governance. And if it is also a construct and an invention of the mind, how does that affect how we approach ESG as humans?
Clive Hale 4:05
I think the whole ESG debate is very is difficult. It's become, you know, topic dejour, everybody's got an ESG strategy. But I think at the end of the day, or your starting point should be yourself not, you know, not what's going on within the fund management industry. If you have a, you know, a credible personal ESG policy, then I think that's, that's, that's where you start. There are so many there are so many different opinions on ESG. And I think one of the problems I have is one of the observations you've made is, you know, the regulator is now getting involved in defining what ESG is, what on earth is the regulator doing, telling us what ESG is, and equally the Bank of England are now climate change climate control experts. We have too much regulation, far too much regulation. On particularly on ESG I think this is a very personal matter. I think It requires a lot of discussion with your clients in particular, very often I don't think they fully appreciate that, you know, the recent performance of ESG funds has pretty much been down to the fact that they're their growth funds or growth is an extremely well as we know. And I think it's an important question you need to ask your client, are you really in ESG? Do you really want funds and espouse all these values? Or are you just riding on the back of the performance? Because it's been good, because this, unfortunately, is one of the other ways it gets marketed? You know, look at look at me, ESG.. 'Oh, and by the way, the funds performed very well over the last three years, how much do you want?' I think that is provbably coming at it from the wrong way round.
JB Beckett 5:37
You know, a lot of intellectual resource, right has been put into coming up with meta studies that prove that ESG doesn't hurt the returns back to the investor, in many studies, they will claim that actually boosts returns. And I think that's partly, as you say, to make the hard sell, partly to force it through, let's say legacy governance structures that are very much designed around, you know, conventional risk-return thinking, and it feels like that it's sort of been bludgeoned through through the system to some degree.
Clive Hale 6:09
No I agree with that. I don't agree that performance will not be affected, it will, it's like any other factor, they don't all work all the time. And you have to be aware of that, you know, I go back a long ways, you know, it's so I seen, you know, I seen the birth of ethical investing, and all its various transmogrification, and now we're at ESG. And I, I've seen it all happen before ESG, ethical investing tends to happen or tends to be flavour of the month, when markets have had a good run. Because they are very much growth orientated. They are also tend to be small, small cap orientated. And they tend to be traits that kick in at the end of the end of a bull run. So I think, you know, caveat emptor at the moment, yes. ESG, for a lot of reasons, is, is something that is beneficial to all of us if it's done properly. So I'm not decrying ESG at all, but I'm just saying, from an investment perspective, you need to be aware that it is just one of many factors in it, it won't always be the best, best solution for your portfolio given whatever outlook you might happen to have.
JB Beckett 7:17
It's interesting that, you know.. I think finance media needs to take a lot of responsibility, I think on this as well. When I think back to the mid 2000s, Clive, you know, issues such as climate change, sustainability, ethical investing, they were there as well. But the mainstream finance media didn't want to talk about them. Right, then that point, you'll recall that the the golden egg was collateralization, it was about let's take the debt model and do some weird and fantastical things, all you nice climate and ethical people, can you just go to the back of the room, because we've got some really serious stuff to deal with here, you know, but 10 years in a bull market, you know, we're saying that this is the new golden egg as far as I can see it. And you know, absolutely, we should be tackling many of many of these issues. Do you think choice has become the ally of greenwashing? And I guess the enemy over a clearer path?
Clive Hale 8:08
Yeah. I, as I said earlier, I think now that we've got the regulator defining what you know, what ESG criteria are, as I said earlier, it's, it's far more of an individual base, you can't, you can't have one rule to bind them all, if you like, it's really, really very difficult to do, because it's got a lot more momentum behind it, that it's had on previous occasions. You know, the whole green clean environment movement, one way or the other has got a lot more impetus behind it. So the industry feels obliged to embrace ESG. But I I think it's still struggling to work out exactly how it how it then gets that message over to the to the clients. You know, you have, you know, very large companies with huge ESG departments. And then you find that they're buying companies like, well, they're buying oil companies, mining companies, which for some of your clients, that is an absolute 'No, no'. Now, if you are in the camp, where you say, Well, okay, well, BP are trying to be a green company. Yeah, okay, we'll give them some credit for that. And maybe that's okay to have it in the portfolio. But you come back at the end of the day to the end investor, who will have very different views on what actually ESG is, and just to make up a blanket set of rules, I don't see how you can do that. It's, you know, it's, it's kind of 'know your client' or, you know, interrogate your client, what, 'what is important for you Mr Client?' And then maybe go back to the fund industry and say, right, you know, here are the, you know, we've got different shades of ESG. You know, are you rabidly ESG or are you kind of, you know, on the edges, it's nice, but you know, I don't want to miss an opportunity in a particular field. I would highlight something as bizarre as the coal mine in Durham was not allowed to go ahead, right? Because coal is coal. And that's the end no discussion. Coal is lethal, deadly. This is metallurgical coal which we need to make, you know, high grade steel for all sorts of high tech industries. And so we can't do that now. So what do we do? We go and import it from China. So a) it's got to be shipped from China, b) the pollution in China is is vast, they've, they've actually agreed that they will start reducing their carbon emissions, Not now. But by 2030, which means between now and 2013, they're actually going to go up? Yet, we're importing steel from importing steel from China, rather than allowing a coal mine to be open in Durham ,jobs for the boys up north. And very clean burning coal. I rest my case on that one.
JB Beckett 10:54
I do cringe a little bit in some of the pontification, perhaps from the US in as much as you know, for the last, let's be honest, for the last four years, what have you been doing? But as you know, anytime the political class start making decisions, it sends those Orwellian chills up my spine. But you noted to me earlier, this idea of ESG credentials, and this idea, again, of understanding yourself before trying to impose on others. And that's definitely as we're as we're seeing, that's not what we're seeing right now, we can see that, frankly, contrarian opinion on this is quickly squashed on social media and on the forums, does that indicate that the industry's view of ESG has now reached a level of fanaticism?
Clive Hale 11:34
I think, I think the answer, the answer is, yes. Simply a contrary opinion these days, you know, if you don't, if you don't agree with the alleged mainstream view, the 'settled science', then you are a contrarian and you're a conspiracy theorist, and you will get shot down. I know that from acquaintances of mine, that you that's happened to them. I think the problem with any contrary opinion or problem with most businesses investment, or otherwise, is that you tend to leave part of 'you' at the door, you don't bring the whole JB or the whole Clive Hale into the room, because you know that there are going to be some things that you have opinions on that don't agree with the mainstream and are not not generally accepted. They're not part of a common narrative.
JB Beckett 12:24
Now I realise where I'm going wrong.
Clive Hale 12:27
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JB Beckett 12:30
But then taking that, I mean, you said about this, you know, one standard to rule them all, which is actually quite Tolkien, and I got me thinking on that as well, poor fund selectors in the room who I've been selecting funds for, you know, maybe 5, 10 years, 20 years plus, who are charged to balance all factors, not just the ranking of ESG factors. And it feels know that many selectors are put into a corner where they have to put those ESG factors above all else, when you know that the consequences of that could be quite dire. Was the imposition of ESG into that balance necessary? Or could we have found a different way of doing things?
Clive Hale 13:13
I think I think we should, we should find a different way of doing things. As I said earlier, ESG is a very personal, personal thing, every investor is gonna have a slightly different view on it. And as you say, we've got so many factors to look at these days. You know, we need another one like a holding, quite honestly... ESG. I mean, the way I've looked at ESG is I'm kind of surprised that companies all of a sudden found that they need an ESG policy. I'm really quite surprised they haven't always had one. I mean, a very good friend of mine, Gary Greenberg, who, who a lot of you will know, as head of emerging markets at Hermes or Federated Hermes, as they call themselves now. He's, he's, he's actually a is a Buddhist. He's been, in fact, when he left school, he went to the Far East, and he studied Buddhism under all sorts of teachers, including the Dalai Lama. And it wasn't until his sort of mid 30s, he got into Investment Management. And he, he he found Hermes, fortunately for him, because he worked for a big, big wall street investment banks whom are about as ESG friendly as something I won't mention. But, you know, Hermes, was very early into the sort of ethical investing, ESG syndrome, so he found found a natural home. I will blow his play trumpet. He's, he's written a wonderful piece, which is called ''and the Art of investment management'. But yeah, not so your question. I don't you know, ESG I think we have to, we can't, we can't define it absolutely for every one for every case, every fund, we just I think has to be aware that our fund managers are looking seriously you know, the main principles and espouse to us when we certainly when we're doing through the fund selection process, you know, give us ideas of companies that they've bought because of their ESG credentials and companies that have failed the tests and the reasons why. And that will then give you a better flavour, you'll then be able to kind of get the feeling of just how genuine this manager is when he's looking at ESG. Does he really believe it? Is it part of his credo? Or is he just following the company line? And if you like, it's it's greenwashing. It's, it's tick this box that box ticking? No, I I'm very much against that. So as is the regulator, but of course, they make us tick boxes all day long.
JB Beckett 15:41
Okay, well, when we've left, we've left ESG in our dust by the side of the road, Clive we will continue our journey. And again, picking up I guess, Pirsig, you know, he talked about the value of knowing the mechanics of motorcycling. And absolutely, that is true. And I felt there was maybe a metaphor here for selecting funds as well understanding how they work, you know, beneath their marketing, you know, when a fund breaks, how much are you enthused to get in there, remove the plugs and try to fix it, rather than just buy a new fund? Is there a bit of a problem in our industry in churning and switching and that, you know, fund selectors are sort of jumping from one fund to the next, when there's the hint of a problem? What's your advice to fellow fund selectors when a problem does arise?
Clive Hale 16:25
It's a question of, you know, a fund, yeah, has a stock gone horribly roll, then it's had a significant impact on performance, then I think, you know, you do want to go in and, you know, ask all the right questions, you know, what actually happened? What was why did you buy the stock in the first place? What were the reasons for buying it? Did this fit in with your, your fund selection process? What failed? You know, was it fraud? Was it just bad luck? You know, they ran off with the money? Should you have known that they, you know, if you go into a meeting with, with company with a fund manager, or a company director, you know, part of the sort of 'Zen', if you like, of understanding what's going on is, you may mentally be sold a very good picture. But does it actually feel right? So, yeah, you need to go in and have a look and if it's, if it's something that is explainable, and that you can determine that the process is not broken, then fine, I wouldn't necessarily be looking to change your fund on that basis. If it's something more fundamental, where there have been compliance issues, shall we say, then I think you, you don't really have an awful lot of choice, you know, the regulator, rightly or wrongly will have made a decision. And you can't really, there's not a lot you can do about that sort of thing.
JB Beckett 17:51
I was just gonna say, I think, you know, we've probably both seen the evolution of guess of due diligence, you know, in our time, and one of the problems, I think, with both operational and and investment, due diligence is one, regulation tends to be iterative, and two, due diligence tends to be iterative. So the due diligence process just gets larger and larger and larger. And of course, when you're looking at those mid and larger sized players, their operations are complex, because they have so many people involved in their, in their process, whereas you go to a boutique, you're probably looking for a much wider gamut of answers from the lead manager, because they should understand how much of those things are operating within their own fund, but when you go to those larger players, you know, you might have to speak to obviously to the portfolio team. Yes, but you've got to go speak to the Risk team, the compliance team, you need to understand their pre and post trade compliance, you know, was there's so many other functions that suddenly you've got to, you know, get involved in. And I wonder if we have confused volume of due diligence, with quality of due diligence?
Clive Hale 18:55
Almost certainly, almost certainly. I mean, the larger, you know, the larger fund groups will often make a play of the fact that they have a risk management team, they have a compliance team, they have a this team or that team and every other team, and I'm forever want of explaining to them 'the size of the team has no relationship to the performance of the fund'. Very often it's the other way around. The larger the team, the less successful the fund is. Now whether that's because the funds been constrained by risk controls and a smaller management might be prepared to take or overly aggressive compliance. See, I don't know. But I, you know, that our job hasn't gotten easier. I mean, you know, 30 odd years ago, when I started looking at funds, you know, there were only about literally about a dozen people doing it because it's even harder these days. But it's certainly been harder over the last year or so, because we haven't be able to sit in front of fund managers in quite the same way. You know, you can have a zoom meeting with see some probably not all of the body language, but actually sitting face to face with a fund manager and looking him in the eyes is vitally important. And you will learn eventually, you'll pick up, you know, the signs and the signals of you know, who's telling you telling you the right stuff. And a lot of that is down to listening to, listening to your own reactions, listening to your own body, you know, how does that response actually feel to, you know, don't turn the sort of mind goes off up the top, you know, how does that feel? And it's not something that's easily trained, people don't don't spend time thinking about their, you know, how their inner being is feeling about things at the moment, and it's something that I think people should spend a lot more time doing.
JB Beckett 20:27
And of course, we see this I guess, this new generation of fund researchers fund analysts coming coming through it, I kind of felt I was I was part of the what I might describe as the as the 'second wave' we had the the pioneers, including your good self. And as you said, I had, there's probably about a dozen multi managers that I could identify with and, you know, try to learn from whereas obviously now, the profession is much more proliferated, there's far more, you know, kicking around perhaps a little bit harder for young fund selectors to identify with other fund selectors quite in the same way you know, who to to to learn for. But going into the pandemic, that I guess that pressure to move towards qaunt-only approaches was already on the rise, the pandemic also just gave further fuel to that. I'm saying that you do not like qaunt-only approaches to fund selection.
Clive Hale 21:34
No, indeed not, I think quant is a very useful tool. It's very useful screen. In fact, in the early days of Albemarle Street Partners, which I set up, I co-founded only 10 years ago now with Dan Kemp and Sam Liddell, we, Dan had something which we... It was a fund selection tool. It was purely quant based. And it worked very well. But it was a starting point, it said look at these funds. And then you go away and do your due diligence on them, but actually just having a chip, you know, there are so many there are there are so many factors you could put into, into a spreadsheet, say 'right rank all those, give me a number, I'll go and see the top ten funds.
JB Beckett 22:29
Sure. So then as I guess, if you don't mind me describing you as a humanist? Where do you see therefore the incursion of technology, machine learning? Is that an opportunity for greater purpose within asset management? Is it an opportunity for better decision making to remove perhaps some of the worst of of the human condition? Or is it frankly, just a threat to the human aspect of fund selection?
Clive Hale 22:57
It's a threat? It's a huge it shiny pill to make it better? I've got a computer that you press this button and it gives you the answer, I don't need you anymore, go away. Now. That's not not a world I want to live in. If we spent time actually looking at the investment decisions we have made that haven't worked and the ones that have worked, and reflect on those genuinely going inside yourself and reflect on those, you know, what's actually worked and what hasn't worked here? What what what can I learn from this, that's far more important than, you know, having having a machine that will do the work for you.
If you like, you know, we're seeing the machine at the moment. One of the machines is index tracking. And, you know, the machine says, you know, here are 100 stocks in the footsie and I'm going to own all of them in this percentage, and every day, you press a button and it says I got to buy some of these sorts some of those. And of course, you can buy trackers, if you're big enough institutional if you can buy some trackers for zero cost. And of course, you know, when when the vast majority, the vast majority, but certainly, a majority of active managers don't actually outperform trackers, then you've got a problem. And that's a problem at the moment because the trackers are buying the large cap stocks, particularly in the States. If you don't have the five, five or six FANNGs in their weightings in the index, you can underperform. So it's a sort of self fulfilling, self fulfilling prophecy. But I don't I don't, you know, I'm a I'm a great fan of active management. I mean, that's, you know, that's a big, central part of our job, we're going to be looking at active managers. And there are active managers who do work on a pretty consistent basis, again, you know, different factors, different managers, you know, who's going to perform in a growth environment, value environment, maybe even an ESG environment. But I don't know, I think, again, technology is useful but not not to be a total reliance on it.
JB Beckett 24:54
And then of course, at the extreme opposite end you know, when we're thinking about that, Human Condition. You know, Bernie, Bernie Madoff obviously just recently passed. And that was, you know, frankly, one of the poorer episodes in asset management's history. My worry, my worry is I wonder if there are times this element of nihilism in finance that these things seem to just come and go and finance as an industry, we sort of shrugiy off and said, well, 'they were a bad egg'. Therefore, you know, we don't need to worry about that. We don't need to necessarily learn from that. And, you know, without us getting embroiled, too embroiled into Neitzsche, I think that when you see some of the things that we see, you talked there about, you know, the rapping skill or scaling up of indexation, we see Reddit board rebellions, we see social media generally just you know, this idea of, you know, Instagram influencers and investments, tik tok investing, I mean, bizarre stuff, you know, feels very alien, alien to me, and probably feels very alien to any of us, you know, even just 10 years ago, big tech, big data asset concentration. Bitcoin at valuations? Yeah, exactly what over capitalised over $1 trillion. Non fungible tokens, systematic trading. I mean, so, so many things.
Clive Hale 26:19
Don't you get technical in me?
JB Beckett 26:20
Well, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just worried as human beings. I mean, we're, where do we go from here. I mean, is there still room for optimism left for us as an industry?
Clive Hale 26:32
Then, you know, the fact that you can write off a $5 billion fine gives you an idea of how much money is being made on the other side? So I would be very surprised if things like this don't don't keep happening. I mean, we just had the the Archegos, hedge fund blow up spectacularly. And one of the banks involved Credit Suisse, you know, heads have rolled: CEO has gone, head of compliance has gone, head of risk has gone, as it should be, you know, they don't drop 4 billion. I mean, Credit Suisse, you know, they're, they're Switzerland's old sort of Deutsche Bank. But they are not not in America, you know, the American banks, you know, they sort of sail along quite happily breaking the law. And you've got to remember that they're, they own the Fed, basically. So, you know, they own the regulator, it's quite, it's quite extraordinary.
JB Beckett 27:22
It's what you're making comparisons to Deutsche Bank, I was just thinking there for a second, I was trying to think which side would actually be most afronted?
Clive Hale 27:29
Well, yeah, I yeah, that's, that's, that's a good point. I think that was, I mean, the European European banks are, you know, they've, they've never recapitalized, not to the same extent that the US banks have. So that, you know, they're always you know, that they're on the backfoot most of the time, but they have to go out and, you know, like Credit Suisse, they have to join the club, they have to take the risk to make the money.
If this, this thing hadn't blown up they'd have make a decent return on the investment, but it's gone horribly wrong, because they've taken too much risk. I was listening to one of your earlier podcasts on last week. Guys making a comment that, you know, people just blase about risk now, you know, because the Fed is going to be there, they'll look after you, you know, don't worry about it. But when you have all these bubbles blowing up at the same time, you know, Bitcoins having an interesting, run up a moment, you know, $62,000 bucks a piece weeks ago, it's it's 48.5. NFT, non fungible tokens, I mean, how crazy you know, you create a bit of modern art, convert into a PDF, and then sell it for $62 million. And I've got a copy of it on my computer. I haven't paid 62 million for it. But I mean, I just don't get it, I really don't get it. Spacs (Special-purpose acquisition company) are another thing. You know, they all of a sudden leave, you know, they've been found wanting as well. So I think a lot of these, you know, a lot of these sort of, come end of market bubbles, you always get these weird things, you know, not that long ago, in the sort of 2000s. It was vintage cars. You know, vintage car funds were being sold to people. And you've got a lot of people now selling wine funds, I say that the frost has decimated a large part of the French vineyards. So maybe, maybe having been in a wine fund up until now is quite good given the prices aren't going to go down a lot.
JB Beckett 29:37
One last question, I think and it just brings us all together this idea of I guess, mindfulness, your philosophy. Knowing what you know now, would you do it all over again? Or would you do something different? Would you just get back on your motorcycle and just ride around the world again?
Clive Hale 29:53
Very tempting to do the latter. That's not an easy question. I think I probably I would say 'yes', I mean, I had, I would say I started in this industry in 1979. And this was before any regulation. And I have to tell you, it was fun. Everybody had fun in all sorts of ways. There were bandits. But generally speaking, you know, if you couldn't see him coming, then you really weren't doing your job properly. Then we have regulation, it started getting worse, we had the '87 crash. And then we had the sort of honeymoon period into 2000 if you like, I think if I were, if I would go through it all again, I think I would say I would have probably packed it all in, you know, in the run up to 2000. Because it was becoming very obvious what was what was happening, I'll never forget. Going to BGI presentation where they explain the Eiffel Tower effects. And the, this was before the TMT crash. They are showing charts of stocks just went up and up and up and up right up from point, and it just looked like the left hand side of the Eiffel Tower. And then they draw the opposite side and this and this, and this is what's coming. And a lot of people that, you know, they just laugh, but that's exactly what happened. I think, you know, the Eiffel Tower effect in 2000 was quite a was quite an eye opener for me, I have packed it in there because I learned a lot by that stage. And in fact, I'm, I don't do this, you know, I'm, I'm not retired, not by a long way, I still have three or four consultancy clients and beginning to look at an offering my services as a 'life guide' to people because I have experienced not just in investments, but in you know, in life itself. And, you know, this whole question of mindfulness and getting into understanding who you are, and that works in a business, as well as in your personal life. So, yeah, I probably start again, but I'd be mindful of the fact that, you know, there'll be a point where I would want to change direction.
JB Beckett 32:06
So that just leaves us as I say, the 10 question rapid fire round, Clive, I'm afraid I do have to subject you to it. It's, I even hear that some guests actually enjoy it. So I hope you do too. If you're ready, we shall begin.
Clive Hale 32:24
Yeah go!
JB Beckett 32:25
Question one, bull or bear?
Clive Hale 32:27
Bear.
JB Beckett 32:28
I think you're the first bear answer which is which is great. There we go.
Question two, Bogle Buffett?
Clive Hale 32:37
Buffett.
JB Beckett 32:39
Question three, profit or planet?
Clive Hale 32:41
Planet.
JB Beckett 32:44
Question four, divest or engage?
Clive Hale 32:47
Engage.
JB Beckett 32:49
Question five, lower cost or better value?
Clive Hale 32:52
Better value
JB Beckett 32:55
Question six supertankers or boutiques?
Clive Hale 32:59
Boutiques.
JB Beckett 33:00
Question seven star managers or team players?
Clive Hale 33:05
Yes. Team players.
Yeah, I did let Mussie off last week's. I'm afraid I can't let you off either. So thanks.
JB Beckett 33:17
Question eight, public or private?
Clive Hale 33:20
Private.
JB Beckett 33:21
Question nine, high growth or stable income?
Clive Hale 33:23
Stable income
JB Beckett 33:26
Question 10. My favourite as, as all the listeners know, socialism, or free markets?
Clive Hale 33:32
What do you think? free markets. If only If only we had free markets.
JB Beckett 33:40
Yeah. I mean, it's funny, you're talking about Hermes. And of course that difference, I guess, heritage of form of capitalism. You know, going back to David Pitt-Watson.
That just leavs the bonus round Clive. And if you could pick a number for me between 11 and 14.
Clive Hale 33:56
21.
JB Beckett 33:57
Question 21 has been taken. Could you roll the dice again?
34.
Ahh, Past or future?
Clive Hale 34:05
Future.
JB Beckett 34:06
That's quite an apt question I think for the for this episode.
Clive Hale 34:09
Intruigingly 'bear'. 'Bull or bear', my my wife calls me Bear. And she just doesn't say Clive, in fact, quite a lot of people know me as 'Bear'. So maybe my knee-jerk response to bear was 'well, that's who I am'. But I think the valuation levels at the moment are heroic. Yeah, this could go on for some time, because I don't know how many trillions are arriving any day now from the States but we shall see.
JB Beckett 34:42
Yeah, it doesn't seem to be about actually right now who is right or wrong? albeit sometimes the circumstances change we have been here before.
Yeah.
Clive Hale 34:50
So you know, we're prone to make the same mistakes. I mean, I always I made the observation being in the industry for 40 years. I've seen pretty much everything. But we've got people in industry now who are, you know, getting on to being 'veterans' who joined the Club in 2008, 2009. So pretty much only ever seen a market going one way and interest rates ditto and nobody calls us a focus on what inflation looks like. When I started in this industry inflation was in double digits, the highest yielding Gilt was Treasury 17% nominal. And people, I say that to people today and they say 'what were you smoking back in the 70s?'
JB Beckett 35:36
I'm not sure I'm not sure I'll make the final cut but we'll see.
Clive Hale 35:39
Probably not probably not...
JB Beckett 35:40
Look Clive I've just just to say big thanks for for joining the show. You have survived the new fund order, as ever you bring your own very unique view, I think of our industry and I just want to say big thanks for that.
Clive Hale 35:51
By the way, you can't say 'very unique' it's either unique or isn't. I'm a pedant, is the one thing is the one thing if anyone says it's 'really unique....' "£$%^&*&^%$£ sorry
JB Beckett 36:15
Please don't forget to like and share and subscribe you know click the subscribe button. A new podcast every two weeks with a new guest. Stay tuned.
Thanks to you, dear listener for tuning in. Brought to you by my sponsor, Allianz Global Investors. And a warm thanks to today's guest. Legally, I am compelled to remind everyone that all views of this podcast are of course independent, and do not belong to any affiliation or organisation. Just in case that was in any doubt! Tune in for the next podcast every two weeks from the..
Computer 36:52
new fund order.
JB Beckett 36:54
Please subscribe, share, like and comment. Let me know what you think and what you'd like covered in future episodes. Until then, stay safe and keep it left field!
Clip 'Hippies Film' 37:09
Thousands are being drawn into this nightmare world of the hippies and become zombie like vegetables. This is one fad that doesn't end tomorrow. These kids are hooked, most of them to stay and 1000s more are being taken in. It's your children who are the pawns in the game and the solution is your responsibility or even remain free...
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
