Tom Stevenson

England

Contributing Editor at London Review of Books

Foreign correspondent. Contributing Editor @LRB. [email protected]

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Articles

Warren Buffett's greatest lessons for ordinary investors

1 week ago | telegraph.co.uk | Tom Stevenson
Tom Stevenson | Condo Diplomacy

1 week ago | lrb.co.uk | Tom Stevenson

The Trump court is a royal progress that moves between Palm Beach and the White House, for the most part in private planes. But the interests of the US government require that at least some of its members be willing to travel farther afield than Florida. Trump talks of putting the US economy behind a great tariff wall, but he also wants deals, which means he needs dealers. America’s official chief diplomat is the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, but so far his activities have been fairly limited.
What I learnt from 100 days of investing under Trump

2 weeks ago | finance.yahoo.com | Tom Stevenson

Unlock stock picks and a broker-level newsfeed that powers Wall Street. Tom Stevenson Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 9:38 AM 5 min read There is a risk of overstating the importance of the Trump presidency to the performance of gold - Spencer Platt/Getty Images One of the problems with taking the credit for markets going up is that others might make the same connection when they go down again.
Trump's planned chaos is testing the market's patience to destruction

3 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Tom Stevenson

The first is to avoid the twin illusions of knowledge and control. It is natural to think that more information should lead to better decision-making. But there is plenty of evidence that this is not the case. An experiment in the 1970s, cited in James Montier's excellent book Behavioural Investing, showed experienced bookmakers a progressively longer list of data points on horses, riders, course conditions and other variables.
it pays to stay calm

4 weeks ago | telegraph.co.uk | Tom Stevenson

The first reason that I am relaxed about equity market volatility is that you have not lost anything at all until you have sold an underwater investment. Unless you sell, it is just a number on a screen. And avoiding being a forced seller of that investment is simple. You just need to ensure that you have enough cash to cover your needs until the market has bounced back. This is doubly important when you start to live off your accumulated savings in retirement.
Markets are in flux

1 month ago | telegraph.co.uk | Tom Stevenson

When it comes to the most commonly used valuation measure, which compares share prices to earnings, it's another case of "move on, nothing to see". The ratio of price to earnings in the US has fallen from 26 to 21, which means the market is no longer expensive but not obviously cheap either. With the first quarter earnings season due to kick off, the focus will be on just how long profits can keep growing in the face of the tariff squeeze.
Trump's trade war has been a gift to China

1 month ago | telegraph.co.uk | Tom Stevenson

While these impacts are clear in the performance of the market indices, it is at the individual stock level that the effect is most obvious. The dispersion of returns over the past three months between the winners and losers is breathtaking. An investor who looked at Elon Musk's rise to prominence in the Trump White House at the start of the year and invested £100 in Tesla shares would have £64 today.
Betting against Uncle Sam is a high-risk strategy

1 month ago | telegraph.co.uk | Tom Stevenson
The world's markets have turned upside down

1 month ago | telegraph.co.uk | Tom Stevenson

I have always employed it when allocating my own investments, and I have for many years divided my self-invested pension using a simple, possibly over-cautious, 10-way split. If anything, diversification is more important to me now than ever. That is because my days of accumulating my retirement savings are largely in the past and, as I look towards drawing an income from them, a smooth ride and capital preservation are more of a priority than shooting the lights out in performance terms.
Ignore the Trump slump

2 months ago | telegraph.co.uk | Tom Stevenson

My pension, Isa and other investments have always been very broadly diversified, with exposures to the US, UK, Europe, Japan, emerging markets, some bonds, property, infrastructure, gold and cash. Asset allocation is within our gift. It is always something we can change. We recently analysed what would have happened to a portfolio split evenly across 15 different investments, comparing its performance with the same amount invested exclusively in each of them.