🎶Non, je ne regrette rien🎶
The 🐿️'s 'Start the Week' note! Our weekly review of BUSHY™ and live Acorn trade ideas. 2026, Week 14.
Am sending out this note early as it was written before the breakdown of the Islamabad talks.
In case you missed it, the flagship note this weekend focused on global opportunities in the world of closed-end funds.
In May 1993 - roughly eight months after even multiple hikes (to a back-breaking 15% policy rate) could not prevent Sterling from crashing out of the ERM on “Black Wednesday” - a BBC journalist asked UK Chancellor Norman Lamont which he regretted more - prematurely claiming to see “green shoots of recovery” in the UK economy a few months earlier (amid a rough ongoing recession) or “singing in his bath”.
This was a tabloid reference to him reportedly belting out show tunes through the soap suds while the ERM crisis unfolded. Lamont’s deadpan retort - “Je ne regrette rien”. Lamont took a lot of flack for that. Not deterred, the🐿️ is also going to channel his inner Edith Piaf this weekend.
The BUSHY™ ‘beta’ portfolio lost 4bps while its Vanguard target date benchmark advanced 3.47% on the back of last week’s ceasefire / ‘Mission Accomplished’ rally.
This is what will happen to a portfolio when you have cut significant length in equities without making corresponding cuts to the hedge book. The Strait is still not freely navigable. No regrets. The risk / reward of piling into risk assets so close to all time highs with the current backdrop feels poor.
Before we get to the weekly portfolio reviews, I want to follow up on the execution plan for those closed end funds.