When I do a risk profiling questionnaire with clients with DataPoints, the first topic in the results that we talk about is Investing Confidence. Making decisions about investing requires you to have confidence in the decisions you make. You need to be confident that you invested in the correct assets and it will come good […]
In the book, How much is enough? by Arun Abey & Andrew Ford, they lay out the four golden principles of investing. They are quite simple and easy to follow. They are not new either but sometimes we lose sight of them, especially when FOMO takes over and we want large returns instantly. Principle 1 […]
In an episode of The Simpsons, in an attempt to get a free can of Crystal Buzz Cola, Homer sticks his arm up the chute of a vending machine and it gets stuck. He ends up with his other arm stuck up the chute of the candy machine. Just before they are about to saw […]
There is a lot of pension legislation coming from Europe that is having a big impact on pensions in Ireland. It is important to have an idea of where this has come from first. The first directive, known as IORPS I was introduced in 2004/2005. The government at the time availed of an option not […]
In 1992, the top 10 holdings in the S&P 500 were: General Electric Exxon AT&T Wal-Mart Coca-Cola Philip Morris Shell Merck Proctor & Gamble General Motors 10 years later the top 10 holdings were: Microsoft General Electric Exxon Pfizer Wal-Mart Citigroup IBM Intel Cisco System In 2012, the top 10 holdings were: Apple Exxon Google […]
I had a financial planning meeting with Bob last week. Going through his investments, he noticed they were up 7%. He was both delighted and surprised. How could this be with everything that is going on in the markets? Bob looks at his portfolio once a year when we update his plan. For the other […]
Apple announced that they are getting into the “buy now pay later” (BNPL) market. For those of you who don’t know what this is, BNPL is a way for you to spread payments on purchases over a number of months. And we’re not talking about big purchases lie a car or household furniture. It can […]
Two questions: 1. Imagine that you are richer by €20,000 than you are today and that you face a choice of two options: 1. Receive €5,000; or 2. A 50% chance to win €10,000 and a 50% chance to win nothing 2. Imagine that you are richer by €30,000 than you are today and that […]
There is a lot going on in the world at the moment. Inflation is out of control. Central banks are raising interest rates to try to combat it. This will reduce spending and growth, leading almost certainly to a recession. China is in lockdown again so the supply chain is impacted again. And there has […]
Brian runs his own business and is very successful. He has made a lot of money. Growing up, he always want to own a Porsche and now he can afford one. So he bought one and it is ready to collect. So he has taken the day off work to pick up his new car […]