There's a sad story in The Times this week of the fate of the sailors on the Dutch East India Company ship, Rooswijk. It sank off the coast of Kent in 1740, and its recent excavation has uncovered a haul of rather lovely silver coins. The not-so-lovely bit is that the coins were sewn into the clothes of many of the 237 sailors who went down with the ship something that wouldn't exactly have helped them save themselves from their watery graves.
I thought of this again when the Nasdaq hit yet another record high on Tuesday as Alphabet (owner of Google) beat earnings forecasts again. Apple, Amazon and Alphabet are now the three most valuable stocks listed in the US. You can argue that they should be: Google's advertising revenues are up 24%, and the company is making so much money that even after the stunning $5.1bn charge to cover last week's fine from the European Union for anti-competitive behaviour, it has still cleared $3.2bn in profit. Not bad going.
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