So, a little later than I expected, I’m pleased to publish the next article in my series about Investment Idea Generation. In the first article in this series, I wrote about the topic of selecting investment goals, different types of assets and asset classes, and the different investment vehicles available to investors looking for alternatives […]
Listening to the latest Twin Pete’s Investing podcast (which can be found here or here for those heathens that aren’t already dedicated followers), I was particularly interested by a segment where they discussed transparency of investors presenting ‘research’ on social media. The reason I was so interested was because of my own management of this
The Narrative Fallacy is the idea that humans are predisposed towards believing a good story over understanding the facts of a situation. We are often drawn towards less desirable investments simply because they have a good story and then use the story to convince ourselves of the merits of the company in which we are
The last few weeks have reinforced the importance of portfolio managers and private investors having a solid process to protect capital and prevent themselves from opening position which are, frankly, only ever going to lose them money. For those of you that haven’t seen the headlines, a number of tiny US companies such as Bed,
Last year, I wrote an article which introduced some of the ways in which investors misjudge risk management. I always meant to cover the topic in more detail but for one reason or another never got around to it. In today’s article, I want to take a more comprehensive look at investment portfolio risk management.
A few weeks ago, I spoke to a fellow investor about a new company I added to my portfolio which they had already held for a few years with little joy. The share price is down fairly heavily over the last two years from a high of a little over £6 in 2018 to a
When undertaking a recent review of my portfolio I was struck by the great number of logical contradictions in investing. I’ll be publishing this review in the next few weeks but the process of writing it made me consider all the various hurdles and challenges that investors face. For example; Patience is a great trait
In today’s article, I’m going to cover my bi-annual portfolio review process, undertaken around July and December. It’s a follow on from an article I wrote back in August about the different types of portfolio review I undertake and will likely form part of a series when I eventually get around to writing up the
Earlier today, I had a call with a friend where we discussed the dangers of blindly following other investors. We’ve spoken before about the hidden costs of people following investing charlatans – in some cases, these costs can be absolutely tragic as inexperienced, naive investors are hung out to dry by unscrupulous characters only interested
I recently had a conversation with an investor about what they managed their portfolio and what changes they’d been making in 2020. This investor was closer to the HNWI bracket than most individuals, but whilst their portfolio size and focus differ from most, I was still able to identify three key ideas for their wealth
I was reading through my investor diary and decided to look at all the companies I’d sold in the last five years and consider whether I was glad I did or not. I’ve sold (or been forced out of) 32 companies in the last five years; 26 were for a profit of between 5% and 54%.
A few years ago, I got my fingers burned investing in Carillion. Fortunately, it wasn’t a life changing catastrophe and taught me a very important lesson early on in my investing career. Sometimes companies are cheap for no good reason but other times, they’re value traps. In short, a value trap is a business which
A few years ago, I had the good fortune of bumping into someone (let’s call him James) that had a significantly more advanced financial life than my own. He’d made money in construction a few decades ago and now lived a relatively comfortable life on the proceeds. Some of their family still worked but mostly
Most people equate risk with either extreme volatility or with low quality assets. Retail investors are often told to avoid ‘risky’ investments to protect their money; to never even consider them (I can already feel the eyes of my readers narrowing in suspicion here, but bear with me!). By contrast, ‘high quality’ investments are often
In 2016, I wrote an article about why I like dividends so much as opposed to capital growth. Four years later and I’m largely still of the same opinion; I love dividends. There isn’t really much I can do about short-term price movement; prices go up (capital growth) and prices go down (capital loss). It’s
How long should an investor wait for capital growth? Read More »
