An investment ledger is more than a record of purchases and sales. Every serious craft keeps records. Merchants kept ledgers, sailors kept logs, and natural philosophers kept journals. Investing is no different. The investor who writes develops memory, while the one who does not is condemned to rely on fragmented instinct and recollection. Records create […]
There are periods in markets when safety feels less like a portfolio strategy and more like a rumour. The start of 2026 feels like one of them. The difficulty isn’t simply that share prices are falling. Markets do that from time to time, and any investor with a little experience understands that drawdowns are part
ISA Season Investing: What Safety Really Means in a Falling Market Read More »
Every January, investors conduct the same familiar exercise – an exercise which is rapidly approach again. Twelve months of market activity are compressed into a neat sequence of charts and percentages, then we draw conclusions with an air of finality that the underlying evidence does not support. The problem is not that annual reviews exist.
In times of market tumult, when the daily headlines scream fear and the broader public scurries for the exits, the seasoned investor remains calm. For those of us with a long-term horizon and a preference for businesses of enduring substance, such periods offer something truly rare: the opportunity to acquire quality at a discount. In
How to Find Quality Companies During a Market Downturn Read More »
The world of investing is, by its very nature, a realm of uncertainty. No matter how sophisticated our tools, how robust our strategies, or how informed our decisions, the future remains fundamentally unknowable. Yet, paradoxically, it is within this uncertainty that great opportunities lie. The art and science of investing hinge not on eliminating uncertainty
Embracing Uncertainty: The Investor’s Path to Acceptance Read More »
In last month’s article, I published a brief overview of the UK’s investment budget and explored how some of the changes may impact the investing landscape. Since then, reactions to the budget have turned decidedly sour, with most investors now resigning themselves to the view that the new Labour government are saying one thing and
How to Build an Investing Watchlist: A Timeless Guide for the Prudent Investor Read More »
Before making on start on this next article, I would advise going back and making sure you’ve digested part one of this series if you haven’t already. Part one lays the essential foundations of the series and can be accessed via the following link: Thinking like a long-term investor: Part 1 of 2 Human nature
In today’s article, I want to expand on what I mean when I say that I’m a long-term investor and give some tips and tricks I find helpful for both cultivating and sticking to, this mindset. In my experience, less “trading” activity and longer holding periods have generally led to superior results, with my largest
Thinking like a long-term investor – Part 1 of 2 Read More »
Most investors recognise that holding a diversified portfolio of high-quality assets is a key risk management technique. In today’s article, I want to explore the idea of portfolio diversification as a risk management technique in more detaill – in particular, looking at the pros and cons of diversified portfolio vs. a concentrated portfolio, and how
In my previous article about investing for income, I explored a brief checklist of ideas for selecting income stocks and building an income-focussed portfolio. In today’s article, I’ve assumed that you’ve gone ahead and selected a few shares that fit these criteria and are now wondering how to manage them. I’ve written multiple articles before
What is investing for income? A few weeks ago, I was talking to an investor about my approach and described myself as “primarily a value investor with a dash of income investor on the side”. Over the course of the following conversation, I went on to talk through my approach to investing for income, which
Having explored the idea of a quality company in my previous article, I wanted to follow up with an important caveat: price matters and my own approach is now more focussed on investing quality at a reasonable price than simply buying cheap companies. Without working to determine a fair valuation for an asset, an investor
“In the short-term the stock market is a voting machine but in the long-term it is a weighing machine.” Warren Buffett To some degree, I have always cared about ensuring that my approach is focused on investing in quality companies and have therefore used quality as a driver for what to buy and sell. Over
During the final week of September, I had two positions, Anglo Asian Mining and Digital 9 Infrastructure Trust drop by 20%+ in a single session. Both rebounded strongly the next day – the proverbial “dead cat bounce” but remain heavily underwater for recent investors. Despite this, I am still holding both companies and in this
Every investor knows the saying that investments can go down as well as up in value. Knowing and seeing this in action are two different things however, and my perception over the last 24 months has been of a huge number of investors disappearing from social media. After a decade of low interest rates and
Being a patient investor in a persistent market downturn Read More »
