Blog
Over the longer term, being on course to meet your financial goals is the true meaning of success. The first aim is to grow or at least preserve the value of your portfolio after inflation over the medium term. This may not happen each year, but over a longer period, you would hope that to
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The quick answer is ‘no’ for two main reasons. The first is that few investors invest all their money into equities. You need to have a lot of intestinal fortitude and patience to do this. It is more likely your portfolio will be a mix of equities and higher-quality bonds. The second is that whatever
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Risk is one of the trickiest subjects to discuss in investing. Investors face many kinds of risk. For those planning their future, the ultimate risk is failing to meet their goals. Addressing this needs a sound investment strategy and solid financial planning. This is vastly different to what many think risk is. They think it
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In today’s markets, bond yields are low and those of high-quality bonds are the lowest. In addition, they could quite feasibly crash too with interest rate rises. So why have bonds in a portfolio? It is quite straightforward. Imagine you only hold equities with a portfolio of £200,000. The economy takes a turn for the
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The second quarter of 2021 has seen most major markets continue on an upward path. For once, the UK, as measured by the FTSE 100 was not the laggard, as that prize went to Japan. However, in Q2 the FTSE 100 was still behind the overall global equity performance of 6.8% in sterling terms. This
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Since 6 April 2010, the personal allowance is reduced by £1 for every £2 of income above £100,000. Since then, the personal allowance has almost doubled. It was £6,475 in 2010/11 and now stands at £12,570 in the tax year 2021/22. Income at this level is formally taxed at 40%. However, the fact that anyone
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Building an investment portfolio requires a mixture of investment science and common sense. The evidence suggests timing when to be in and out of markets (or sectors, or companies) is extremely difficult. It also suggests identifying a manager who can persistently beat the market is very hard to do in advance. We, therefore, focus on
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We sometimes refer to the way we invest as mostly being a ‘systematic’ approach. It is our duty to do what is right for our clients. When investing, we build on a foundation of facts. This is because we believe we would be doing our clients a disservice if we did it any other way.
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It has become common practice for employees to exchange part of their salary and/or bonus in return for their increasing the pension contribution they pay by the same amount. This can be far more attractive than the employee making a direct pension contribution on his/her own behalf, particularly if the employer is prepared to increase
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There is no doubt buy-to-let residential property has been profitable for some. However, it is not without considerable risks. These risks include increasing taxes, rent arrears, voids, dilapidations and many more. Any landlord effectively needs to run a small business. There is also the misconception that residential property only ever goes up in value. When
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