I went through all of the FTSE 100 and categorized all of the companies into the following based on their company mission and portfolio of products or offerings. I also checked what types of jobs they were recruiting for. I paid no attention whatsoever to past performance since it doesn’t predict the future in a shock.
Categories
- Agile
- Antifragile
- Fuck You Money
- Fragile
- Fuck Off
- Don’t know
Agile
Robust current business model and fairly mature agile businesses. Often tech, often newish. Successful now, but what about 30 years from now?
Antifragile
Can thrive in a shock, always needed, businesses are typically ‘pickaxes in a goldrush’. They’ll survive and even thrive.
Fuck You Money
Wealth and assets to survive no matter what and regardless of how they operate – ‘castles with sufficient moat’. Might not grow but are solid and have been around for a long time.
Fragile
Would suffer or collapse in a shock – very dependent on others. Banks etc automatically go in here as far as I am concerned.
Fuck Off
Avoiding them out of moral, ethical or environmental grounds (betting, alcohol etc) which may actually be a fragility of a sort in the long term.
Don’t know
I simply couldn’t figure out what they’re doing or where they’re going.
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I plan to pick about 6 investments and actually invest in them. I’ll also try to set up a tracker. Will I remain agile enough to actually respond to any market information. Probably not at the moment, but, then again, for some of these, I may wish to hang on for a long time. I cannot beat the banks with their millisecond trading, I can only work on a long time period.
My previous pension provider would have certainly invested in some sort of anonymous fund of the above, no doubt with plenty of ossified banks and betting shops, and, no doubt, it may perform quite well, but again, my intention is to have control of the pension – my money – (via a SIPP) to learn and adapt if necessary and also put my own skin in the game.
In terms of the categories, they worked out quite nicely in the end. The definitions may require some refining if this is indeed a viable way to look at investments. Of course, everyone’s interpretation will be slightly different, which is also healthy.