Archive for the 'General' Category

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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The myth of the overnight success

The myth of the overnight success

We constantly read about overnight success stories. Young people who come from nowhere to own multi billion dollar businesses. At the same time, young people are looking at their starting salary out of college and wondering where they got it all wrong. How come they aren’t earning the big bucks? It’s all a myth. The […]

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One person Master Trust

The Pensions Authority shut down one person pension schemes last July. The replacement is the Master Trust structure. Over the last few weeks, the insurance companies have been launching their version of the master trust structure that can be used in one person arrangements. What is a Master Trust? Previously, when setting up a one […]

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