Substack milestones – since launch in August 2022, over 1,600 articles, 5 million emails opened, over 6,300 subscribers (50 paid with 425 ko-fi’s bought)

It is coming up for a full year of contributing to the SubStack “zeitgeist” and 5 million emails opened! Hat tip to Samantha as one of my earliest and most supportive subscribers!

Lots of posts on C19 and climate change, with occasional foray into topics like vallot rigging, political corruption and incompetence, macro-economics and fiscal policies, electric vehicles and country specific pieces.

Not too many hostile comments. It is a source of amusement that some call those of us who challenge conventional wisdom or widely accepted “mantras” as “deniers” when it is just as valid for them to take a look in the mirror at the flagrant denial they engage in! Always a 1 for every zero, right?

A far cry from the billions of views attracted by the MSM websites, mega social media hosts and the best SubStackers! I confess to being somewhat envious of those SubStackers that have thousands or tens of thousands of paid subscribers!

Thanks to all for reading – and apologies to those who consider themselves “spammed”. You can unsubscribe via any email you receive, or send me a request peterhalligan58@gmail.com and I will “unspam” you.

So, where are you all? Mostly North America and Australia.

And within the US, mostly California:

On a personal level, you may have noticed I advertised my birthday on 28th July.

I am a British citizen of Irish/English descent on my father’s side and German on my mother’s side.

I left home at 16 to work in London, migrated to New Zealand for 11 years, returned to London for 13 years, migrated to Chicago for four years, then quit working to travel before being shut down by C19.

I have worked at all levels in the investment industry, from clerical to investment manager and consultant to the largest pension funds in the US and UK.

I have directly managed investment portfolios In all the world’s major capital and derivates markets The thesis of an MBA completed all the way back in 1990 was centred on (mechanistically) using options on global stock markets to outperform global equities for zero cost and half the risk.

My last decade or so in employment was as a researcher of investment managers - each with up to 100’s of different investment hedge fund, real estate, fixed income and equity products - and advising multi-billion dollars corporate and government pension fund investors which products of which multi-trillion dollar investment managers had the best chance of delivering the highest consistent risk adjusted excess returns for acceptable risks – after fees and costs.

In the aggregate, the value of all clients served by a team of over a hundred high quality investment consultants (I finished up as US Head of Global Fixed Income) was many trillions of dollars, requiring the monitoring of assets of multiple times more trillions of dollars, managed by leading investment managers.

Out of interest, a typical “investment objective” for an active investment mandate might be written thus “target a return of 0.5% p.a. above a benchmark with a tracking error of 1.5% p.a. over a rolling 3-5 year period – AFTER FEES”. Quite different from a “passive” mandate that might simply state “match the benchmark”. Half of BlackRock’s managed funds are passive and pretty well ALL of Vanguard’s and State Street’s.

My days of being active participating in rugby, soccer, golf, sailing, skiing and so on are a memory as are raucous and bawdy drinking sessions, fine dining and long distance holidaying. I have travelled extensively in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean as well as all over the US, Europe and the UK, with many stops in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Bali as well.

I will keep churning out what grabs my attention from the internet for as long as my one good eye holds out!  My content is very much based on “standing on the shoulders of giants” with the occasional article sourced from primary “official” data.

Did I mention it was my birthday on July 28^th? On that day, I will begin the year that my government stole from me, by raising the statutory retirement age for the state pension.

Onwards

Please upgrade to paid, or donate a coffee (I drink a lot of coffee) - “God Bless You!” if you can’t or don’t want to contribute. Coffee donations here: https://ko-fi.com/peterhalligan  Buying just one Ko-Fi a week  for $3 is 50 bucks more than an annual $100 subscription!