Darwen, Tesla, Twitter and April Losses

No luck for the EPL Draw system this weekend, although two of the three qualifiers were level as late as the 86th minute and Crystal Palace missing out on the opportunity to match Darwen's 1891-92 season with no single-goal wins by scoring a stoppage time winner at Southampton. With two games remaining (v Watford and Manchester United) Palace do still have the opportunity to achieve the rare feat of going an entire season without a Home league win by said margin. The ROI on the Draw falls to 15.01% on the season. 

While there are still two-thirds of the year remaining, and much can change in that time, it does appear likely that the S&P 500 Index (US) might have a rare year in which it outperforms the FTSE 100 Index (UK). Of the 13 years since 2008, only one (2016) saw the FTSE come out on top but with April behind us, the S&P 500 is having its worst year since the market crash of 2008 when both Indexes saw losses in the 30% range. 

For me personally, April was the 135th best month of the 136 since I started tracking so closely, in real terms at least, saved from worst ever by March 2020 when the markets were in turmoil about the pandemic. 

In percentage terms April was the 129th best at -3.25% so not a lot to celebrate really. Tesla stock lost 19.9% during the month, with Elon Musk selling $4b worth of shares to finance his planned purchase of Twitter and my relatively insignificant Bitcoin holding lost 16.5% with Warren Buffett's comments this weekend at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting unlikely to help its prospects:

“Whether it goes up or down in the next year, or five or 10 years, I don’t know. But the one thing I’m pretty sure of is that it doesn’t produce anything,” Buffett said of cryptocurrency, as reported by CNBC. “It’s got a magic to it and people have attached magics to lots of things.”

He also criticized the passive nature of bitcoin, saying that if he invests in apartments, they'll produce rent, and if he investments in farmland, they'll produce crops.

"If you told me you own all of the bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me for $25, I wouldn’t take it because what would I do with it?" he said, according to CNBC. "I’d have to sell it back to you one way or another. It isn’t going to do anything."

Munger took a less measured approach, saying that "in my life, I try to avoid things that are stupid and evil and make me look bad - and bitcoin does all three."

“In the first place, it’s stupid because it’s still likely to go to zero," he said. "It’s evil because it undermines the Federal Reserve System and third, it makes us look foolish compared to the Communist leader in China. He was smart enough to ban bitcoin in China.”

Friday's losses mean that I am also now in the red year-to-date but by less than 1%. The net calories trend I mentioned last month - 1500 or fewer net calories a day and my weight goes down; 1900 or greater, and it goes up - was unfortunately reinforced after a month of too much eating and drinking and not enough exercise meant that my daily net calories averaged 2181 with a consequent guaranteed weight gain. 

As I mentioned previously, I shall be on the road this week for work which is never good for the scales with the company paying for my calories in and opportunities for exercise (calories out) limited but there is plenty of time left in May to get those pounds off. My employer made the decision to close my office location a couple of weeks ago, and so my working from home arrangement which has been unofficial since March 2020 is now official. This saves me several hours a week of course, and generally I've been putting the time to good use with 650 miles covered on foot so far this year, and the original target of 1,200 miles looking much too soft.  Back soon.