Earlier this month, I sadly lost my last remaining Grandparent – Donato Viola. The moment was a profound loss for our family but a reminder to me personally that love is to be shared, and our time on this planet is uncertain and finite. My Grandfather’s funeral was held in Retford, the town he had […]
Ciao Nonno: On Love, Legacy, and the Things That Truly Compound 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.
The Investor Summit 2025, held on the 13th August, will remain in my memory as a remarkable day. Not because of anything I did, but because of the extraordinary effort and commitment of Peter Higgins and the Copia Digital team, who made it all possible. More than 300 attendees gathered under a single roof, creating
Investor Summit 2025 – A Triumph of Vision and Hard Work Read More »
In a world fixated on speed, volatility, and the illusion of instant returns, the true edge in investing remains unchanged: patience, discipline, and long-term thinking. It’s easy to be swept up in the noise – social media trends, algorithmic trades, and investment fads that vanish as quickly as they rise. But as any seasoned investor
Investor Summit 2025: Why Long-Term Investors Should Be Paying Attention Read More »
In the ever-evolving world of finance, it is the discerning investor who recognises that fiscal policy changes are not merely legislative adjustments but harbingers of new opportunities. The latest UK budget reforms, published last Wednesday by our first ever female Chancellor of the Exchequer, offer much for the astute investor to consider. Initial reactions to
A few weeks ago, I was speaking to a newer investor who had listened to an episode of the podcast and had heard me talking about being “down 40, 50, 60%” on an investment. As someone that hadn’t been investing long, this had concerned them, and they wrote in to ask if I could clarify
In 2007, one of the world’s biggest investment banks, Lehman Brothers, collapsed into bankruptcy after suffering months of share price declines amid rumours of its subprime mortgage exposure. For those readers of a more tender age, the investment banking system had basically loaned funds to property investors that were fundamentally incapable of keeping up with
The Chinese property market – is it Lehman Brothers part II? Read More »
The death of my Grandmother has been a moment of deep personal sadness for both myself and my family. I have been deeply touched by the many kind messages of support from friends around the world that have contacted us to share their condolences. The past few weeks have been a period of mourning for
A few years ago, I wrote an article about the importance of financial literacy and education. At the time, I listed a number of sources such as podcasts as being key to my own self-directed programme of education. Today, I want to write about one of my favourite sources, both from an enjoyment and education
In 2008-09 we had a financial crisis; a credit crisis that required immense levels of government intervention in global financial markets. In the case of the UK, this included hundreds of billions of pounds in quantitative easing and an effective elimination of positive interest rates. Several UK banks required direct injections of capital and one
Sovereign Debt Crisis: The economic consequences of COVID-19 Read More »
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
I was speaking to a fellow investor over the Christmas break about how they had positioned their portfolio for 2021 and the challenges in finding growth in the UK stock market. In today’s article, I’m going to recap on some of our conversation points about the challenges facing the Financial Time Stock Exchange indices (FTSE
Where will UK stock market growth come from in 2021? Read More »
Most investors will be aware of the 60/40 model for cautious investors seeking growth in the markets whilst avoiding the turbulence of a pure equity portfolio. In this model, the portfolio is comprised of 60% equities and 40% bonds. Historically, bonds have much lower volatility than equities, causing the overall value of the portfolio to
Last month a friend kicked off a bit of a storm on Twitter one morning by calling out traders failing to make more than 50% returns a year from spread betting. The thread went on for a good hour or so but it made me start to think about what I consider to be a
Reader Question: What is a good return for an investor? Read More »
During a recent investor event I attended I met a reader of this blog who asked me about protecting against inflation and what options I’m considering. For those of you old enough to remember such things, there was, once upon a time, a thing called inflation; a rate by which prices would increase every year.
