Financial Peak

I should know better, but every once in a while I get lured in by a teaser headline, and this one on AOL made me click on the link "You'll hit your financial peak at the age of 48".

Well no, not exactly. The dingbat who wrote the piece, Ceri Roberts - ("I started my career writing for teen magazines Sugar and J-17, before moving to more!") should stick to writing about Justin Bieber if she seriously thinks financial health revolves around possessions in your home. The last sentence makes no sense either - "After the peak at 48, the value of the average person's belongings begin to decline at the age of 50". What happens at 49? It has to either be the peak or the start of the decline.

We're all feeling the pinch at the moment, so it's good to know that many of us haven't yet hit our financial peak.

A new study reveals that we are worth the most when we reach the age of 48: at that age the average person's possessions are valued at £52,587, compared to £44,081 at the age 35.

Researchers found that hi-tech goods made up three of the five most expensive items in the average home, with the top five being large electrical goods, computers, furniture, jewellery and electronic gadgets. One in ten people also valued the contents of their wardrobe at more than £2,500.

However many of us have no idea what our belongings are worth: a More Than home insurance survey of 2,000 people found that people valued their possessions at £21,477 on average. But a study by the Centre for Economics and Business Research calculated that the typical value was in fact £35,414.

After the peak at 48, the value of the average person's belongings begin to decline at the age of 50.

So home equity, stock portfolio, retirement funds don't matter - it's all about large electrical goods and furniture. Well that's good to know. I am off out to buy an electric chair. It'll come in handy for next time I click on a teaser link. Or you could read the same rubbish in the Daily Mail, but that's no surprise.

Griff has released his draws for this weekend, and they are Aston Villa v Norwich City and Blackburn Rovers v Chelsea. The prices at the time of writing are 3.75 and 4.5 respectively.

I was rather hoping the Green Pullover would be tipping Cardiff City today, and he is. Only not to win - their match v Crystal Palace is one of his draw selections at 3.75. His other entries in the Battle of the Draws are Reading v Birmingham City (3.5), Rennes v Valenciennes (3.5), Palermo v Bologna (3.75) and Athletic Bilbao v Barcelona (6.5). Interestingly, he has three Under 2.5 selections, all from the above list. I commented in my e-mail this week to the XX Draw subscribers that backing the Under 2.5 goals in each of the 53 selections so far this season would have seen a profit of 5.54 points and an ROI of 10.45%. Obviously when you are looking for draws, you are looking for games with a low goal expectancy, and in a way, it's more satisfying to pick a 0-1 or a 1-0 game than it is to fluke a 4-4 winner. Unless that one goal comes after 90 minutes, in which case give me the 4-4 fluke.

It's been about as quiet as I can remember from a trading perspective this week. Baseball has ended, NBA basketball has yet to begin and with European games of only academic interest, no football either. Well, there shouldn't have been any, but the devil makes work for idle hands, and the Cassini coffers show a small loss on the week since Tuesday. It'll have to be a small electric chair.

For anyone who likes the college version of American football, there is one huge game tomorrow at midnight. The first and second ranked teams (college sports have a large element of subjectivity) Louisiana State and Alabama play each other in the regular season, a rare occurrence in the world of college football. Also worth a mention is another all top-10 game between the Arkansas Razorbacks (7) and South Carolina (9) which starts even earlier. Go Hogs!