Elvis the Pelvis in the Memphis - Lets party like its 1999 in Milano Marittima

Cari Amici,

I met Paolo Bonolis in my hotel in Milano Marittima.  These could be the starting lyrics of a famous Italian song but they are actually true. He was and still is a famous Italian TV star running a show called Tira e Molla and had the unfortunate experience of staying at the same hotel as a bunch of rowdy traders.  He had a funny part of his show where he would get the public to try and act out 'Elvis the Pelvis in the Mephis' - google it if you havent heard of it.

We were having a desk weekend away and had all driven down from Milan to enjoy a bit of seaside fun. I vaguely remember no sleep for two days  lots of nightclubs and breaking my toe playing beach volleyball.  I think the year was 1999 (cue the song from Prince). A couple of highlights from the two days were the fact that all the Italians thought we were British footballers and kept taking photos of us because all our cars (and there were some nice ones!) had English plates and were all sports cars. 

Another was the clear memory of me standing up through the sunroof of Maurizio's Ferrari 355 at 7:30 am having just got out of a club  in a haiwaiian shirt with my arms in the air banging out 'its Just an Illusion' by Imagination as we drove past all the local Carabinieri standing outside a cafe drinking espresso.  Was very funny.. they just watched us slowly drive by like a surreal moment from a Luis Bunuel film.

Markets like Climate are constantly changing. Back then the yield on the 10 yr Italian government bond  was 5.3%. Today it is 1.7%  a 68% tightening.   Gold back then was 257 USD an ounce rather than 1400 USD today.  If you had bought 50k of gold then you would now have 272,000 dollars.   Makes you think really that it is better to be invested than not whatever the asset.  

If you had bought 1 barrel of oil back then you would be sitting on a 116% gain inflation adjusted.

A Don fun fact to note is that the FTSE back in Dec 1999 was 6930 against today's 7226. Meaning if you held an ETF based on it (if such a thing existed back then) you would have made 4.2% returns in 20 years.  

All this screams that diversification of risk is a must in portfolios  added to the need to actively manage your portfolios over time rather than passively invest.  Am ever ready to have fireside chats about this sort of thing with people who are keen to take control of their money.

As a footnote to the story. Andrea, Lee and I having got back to the hotel decided to go and grab a breakfast beer on the beach and as we wandered down the sand Andrea turned to me and said  'Don all this has to stop..it can't go on like this'  He obviously meant our wild lifestyles but he could very well have been talking about the markets. The markets have adapted as have we.

Just a brief Monday thought and flashback to funnier times.

A presto

Don Pelvis King