As concerns about a sharemarket crash gain both speed and credibility, there is a proliferation of videos which have sprung up on the internet from ‘experts’ and others. Most seem to basically copy each other; there are varying degrees of credibility when it comes to who puts these things out.
One channel which I follow and whose information is fairly credible is called Casgains Academy; always worth a look; good research is generally done by whoever puts it all together. One assumes from their accent that they are not a natural speaker of the English language, but the viewer-listener can usually understand them.
A couple of days ago, as part of a series about a coming sharemarket meltdown, they released this video, which warns that Bill Gates, the businessman, is selling his stocks in a substantial way; the implication being he’s rushing for the exit ahead of, say, your Kiwisaver fund manager who has probably managed to (in typical fashion) lose you even more of your retirement money in the last month.
Like many people, I don’t much care for Bill Gates. He is an oddball sort of fellow who keeps saying he would love the population of the World to fall by 90%, and is alleged to be involved in all manner of weird stuff. His vaccine program in Africa is also alleged to be, in reality, killing many people but, because it’s Africa where everyone expects lots of people to die, nobody pays much attention.
It’s not for me to express an opinion on any of these allegations in this article but what I will say is that, whatever diabolist qualities Mr Gates may possess [did you see what I did there? may ‘possess’ geddit?] my view of the world is that “business is business”. I am here to make profits. With New Zealand having no capital gains tax such profits are tax-free (as nature intended).
Therefore instead of all the hand-wringing and sticking pins into voodoo dolls why not take a look at what Gates is buying and jump on board? This clip shows a long list of companies whose shares he has been buying.
Berkshire Hathaway, Waste Management, Canadian National Railway (!), Caterpillar, Ecolab, Walmart, Deere and Co, Fedex and several others. Naturally, neither I, nor the BFD, nor anyone else, is giving financial advice but by golly if you can’t beat ’em then join ’em! haha!
One suspects Bill Gates isn’t a complete muppet and wouldn’t be investing a billion here, a billion there if he didn’t know things would work out fine for the shareholders once the dust has cleared as the crash gets worse in coming months.
One final amusing note; the video mentions how Gates has a large ‘short’ position on Tesla – Musk’s company. A short position is where you expect the price to fall and make money when it does. I remember debating this with my friend Leo back in January (he’s the chap who headed off to the war in Ukraine). My view was that Tesla at $1100 a share was mindless but Leo thought it was a bargain. If Gates is proved correct about Tesla, I wonder what else he may be correct about?