Archive for the 'General' Category

The "free financial review

The “free” financial review

There’s something wrong with my car. There is an engine warning sign came on first. Then the Add AdBlue sign came on. Despite putting about 15 litres of the stuff in, it won’t go off. I brought the car to my mechanic. He couldn’t fix it and said he doesn’t have the equipment required to […]

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Inflation – a new base line is set

In August 2017, the footballer Neymar moved from Barcelona to PSG in a move that shook the football world. Barcelona had a massive buy out clause of €222 million in the player’s contract. A figure so high that it would put club’s off bidding for one of their star players. But in the new football […]

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What kind of advisor do you want?

I have been working as a financial advisor for 25 years. I have been an “old type” advisor, charging high commissions to reach my sales targets. Thankfully, for over half of my career I have been a “new type” advisor, working for my clients and getting paid for the work I do. While the industry […]

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Are banks in trouble again?

I wrote at the end of March about the collapse of three banks; two in the US and one is Europe. Last weekend, we saw First Republic Bank taken over by JP Morgan in a merger that was rushed through over a weekend. It is not surprising to see more banks collapse after ones of […]

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Enjoy the moment

Enjoy the moment

Life is about experiences, not possessions. It is about being able to recall about things that you have done in life. In saying that, I was one of the lucky 18,500 crammed into the RDS on Friday night to see Bruce Springsteen play what could be his last tour. Given his age and the energy […]

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The obligation of debt

The obligation of debt

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger had a third partner, Rick Guerin. Like his partners, Guerin was a great investor but he was in a hurry to get rich. Where Buffett and Munger knew that in time they would become wealthy, Guerin leveraged up his investments. When the stock market fell 70% in 1973-74, he got […]

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Commissions aren't evil, but let the client choose

Commissions aren’t evil, but let the client choose

I remember when I was working on sales targets and charging as much commission as I could in telling clients “there’s no fee for you, the life company pays my fee.” This of course, isn’t true. The client pays for the broker’s commission through a higher annual management fee. I have explained how this works […]

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Warren Buffett Shareholder letter 2022

Warren Buffett Shareholder letter 2022

Warren Buffett issued his 2022 shareholder letter on 25 February. Over the last number of years, his letters has been getting shorter and this is the shortest one yet. But there are still nuggets of advice to gleam from it to help us be better investors. Saving is a habit “A common belief is that […]

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Guest Blog: which is a better investment strategy, the S&P 500 or the MSCI World Index

This week we have a guest blog from ChatGPT. If you haven’t heard of ChatGPT yet, it is an artificial intelligence tool designed by OpenAI. I typed in “write a 500 word essay on which is a better investment strategy, the S&P 500 or the MSCI World Index”. Within seconds, it started to type out […]

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The best start you can have in life is having rich parents

The best start you can have in life is having rich parents

Brooklyn Beckham, son of David and Victoria Beckham, has had many careers. One was as a photographer, and he published a book of his work called What I see. This included the silhouette of an elephant where he took the photo facing the sun. The photograph had the caption “elephants in Kenya, so hard to […]

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