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FIFA: Football Investments Fail AlwaysAs I write this, I honestly don’t know the result of the final Test match at the Wanderers, but I put in a call to Mr Onions today and he said it was “in the bag” – but for whom? Funny old thing, sport – one minute you are the English cricket team and can’t hit a cow’s bum with a banjo, and then suddenly you are winners of the Ashes and making the Proteas look like world beaters. Well, those who play for England anyway!
Yes, sport and money are very similar. You are up, you are down, you are flush and then you’re either flat broke or broken. One minute you are hailed a star, then you are old news, suddenly you’re back again with all things forgiven.
Just ask David Beckham.
Or Lindsay Williams. He was the Summit TV frontman banished for being competent and is now back with that excellent “Warwick Market Report” on Fine Music Radio 101.3 and www.bizcast.co.za – a bigger comeback than Lazarus, well done, son!
On to more cutting-edge and challenging issues: how about the new phenomenon in world markets, Lego? Seriously, this is no joke.
Lego is apparently now scarce, as people are buying and selling it by weight. Perhaps it should occur to Lego that the reason it’s scarce is that people are selling it by the kilo on eBay and not Lego’s usually overpackaged and pre-built toys.
The next move is that we will be buying ‘single block futures’ and going long and short: going long being the bits from which you make wings and window frames.
Forget the LSE (London Stock Exchange) – it’s now the LBE (Lego Block Exchange)!
Speaking as we are, vaguely, about single stock futures (SSFs) – a futures contract masquerading as a friendly investment tool – I have recently read of many people financially crippled by this instrument, one with which certain stockbrokers and asset managers have been force-feeding their clients as a ‘safer’ version of futures and options.
One such ‘expert’ asset manager, ancestrally obsessed with gold, actually managed to lose millions of dollars (yes, dollars as well as rands) of its clients’ money on gold-based SSFs.
Just how a group of such habitually gold-obsessed types could lose people so much, in a rocketing gold market, has to be down to one of two things: either their stupidity, or greed.
In addition, certain people who promoted this particular organisation are more than merely regular churchgoers, so perhaps they simply don’t care about the loss of filthy luca. After all, you can’t get much bullion through the eye of a needle, can you?
Yesterday, I was asked for some sensible advice on 2010, which really got me thinking – which is an activity I try to avoid at the best of times.
Firstly, don’t buy property before the World Cup, as the Soccer World Cup is already ‘over priced’ into the value.
Secondly, don’t rent a house long term before the World Cup, as the rental will contain the World Cup’s ‘delusional’ factor.
Thirdly, simply take the government’s advice: “Do nothing before the World Cup or during it” – don’t travel, don’t educate your children for a month, and don’t ever be horrible to any tourists you may see, even if they are beating each other up and chanting, “you’re going to get your flipping heads kicked in!”. (The word “flipping” was used to protect the innocent.)
In 2010, beware the “FIFA Factor” entirely – “Football Investments Fail Always”.
So don’t buy, sell, rent or trade (be that players, houses, cars, clubs, futures, options or even Lego).
Simply stay home, tune into the TV, buy snacks and become a bore – trust me, it works. I’ve been in that state for the last four years since Germany, and nothing nasty has happened to me.
Come to think of it, nothing has happened to me since Wembley 1966!
Ian Kilbride
