Painting by investment numbers
ASSESSING an investment can feel like painting by numbers. In trying to assess anything, we strive for a simple measure which makes sense, quickly! Dudley Moore did it for Bo Derek in ‘Ten’, BMI tries to do it for health and fitness, the Gini coefficient did it for economic equality, SAT scores didn’t do anything […]
Investment and pension diversification
WE all have our investment or pension portfolios and we want the best from them as that’s what brings us the security and the ability to do the things we want. It is often believed, incorrectly, that investment/pension funds are fully diversified when they are not. Read that again please. Some are also over diversified […]
Are you being targeted by a financial scam?
IT’S back to financial scams again. I will just preface this column and all scams with this super sandwich quote from two bright young lads: Einstein: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it enough,” and Warren Buffet: “Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.” Put those together and you wouldn’t […]
Preparing investors for storms and potential losses
FOLLOWING on from last week’s introduction to investment risk, and still using the maritime metaphors, I will cover the other risk measures investors should be considering, to ensure you know the true risk of your investments and how to check them. Last week I covered volatility (standard deviation), or the size of the waves, alongside […]
How do I know if I’m taking too much risk with my investments?
HOW do you know if you’re taking too much risk with your investments?If there’s one thing better than learning from your own mistakes, it’s learning from others. In over 20 years of writing this column I have reviewed many readers’ investment portfolios/pension pots/ISAs. We have trust in institutions and advisers and hope they are well […]
Two cool ISA tips… before the rush ends
IN a final ISA column before the rush ends, here are some useful tips. Many people put off investing into an ISA for fear of loss. Instead, they wait until the markets are sounding buzzy, everyone feels great, and the TV is telling us all about how much the markets are rising. Like every party, […]
The brutality of tax on your investments
ISA season is upon us, so let’s look at their benefits. The basic, but very important benefit is that of tax-free growth on your money. How important is that? Two reasons: You don’t have to manage the money in and out of where it’s invested to take care of annual tax allowances. This can cause […]
Watch for the April 5 investment tax change
IT’S coming up to that time of the year again for the last-minute ISA rush. This year takes on a slightly extra bit of urgency, however. Given that you are allowed to invest up to £20,000 per person per year, this tax break is one you just cannot afford to miss, particularly because of the […]
Holding Your Nerve
“JUST when you thought it was safe to go back into the water” was the tag used when Jaws 2 was released three years after the original 1975 Hollywood blockbuster. Many investors are feeling the same way at the moment after the first serious stock market crisis since the financial collapse and recession of […]
No Quick Fix
Could you cope with losing your life savings overnight to a mystery voice at the end of a telephone? One of the UK’s top policemen has revealed the devastation and embarrassment of “boiler-room” fraud. How normally careful and sensible investors of a certain age, after a lifetime of frugal behavior, are lured into scam investments […]
US Debt Ceiling
When will the market recover? What is your view on the U.S. debt ceiling and its impact on investments as my pensions and ISAs have taken a pounding? A month or so ago we reiterated the need to be invested in real markets that have exposure to companies with real earnings and real profits, as […]
Absolute Returns
Absolute returns, the latest buzzword from the financial marketing world. But what exactly are absolute returns and do they really have a part to play in your pension fund, investments or ISAs? As we mentioned in this column a few weeks back, an investor subjected to the FTSE100 over the last eleven years would still […]