After publishing my 2022 Half Year Review, I was contacted by a reader asking whether I could provide further insight into my trade decisions. Although I responded positively, I decided that I needed to include a more detailed caveat around releasing the information. Firstly, the information in this article is in no way guaranteed for […]
Six months into 2022 and like most private investors I’m finding the markets increasingly challenging to handle. After 2021’s fantastic returns of 24% my portfolio is currently down around 10% year-to-date. That gives me a truly wonderful feeling considering inflation is running at 10% – meaning that I’ve effectively lost all my gains from last
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
Blimey. Well, I don’t know if crazy is the right word for it but if you’d told me back in 2019 that over the next two years I would face a multi-year global pandemic, a stock market rout, a six month recovery following by ever more rich valuations, then a collapse of global supply chains,
This blog is probably a surprise to any readers who read my site regularly as I haven’t made a post in over six months and have been fairly absent from Twitter. Where to begin? Well, I should start with the exciting news; I got married! Not only did I get married in October but my
Well. What a year. 2020 is going to be long remembered by many investors (myself included) for being their first ‘real’ bear market. According to my trading journal, my worst official month for the year was March, when I was down over 18% in a month and looking at a total decline of over 23%.
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
Those of you that used to follow this blog will have noticed that I’ve been somewhat absent over the last few months. It will therefore come as little surprise to hear that I’ve been extraordinarily busy but happily have found some time to sit down and pen another article. When I started this blog in
I recently read an article from a fellow blogger regarding their portfolio where they looked at their actual behaviour vs their published strategy. In a similar manner to myself, this investor believes in buying long-term value plays, buying for income and holding for the long term. I’ve followed their blog for several years and have
You might have noticed that I haven’t been posting as frequently as I had earlier in the year. I wish I had some super exciting project that was taking up my time, but truthfully, I’ve actually been swamped by the day job. To give a quick precis of what’s been happening, I’ve ended up with
Last week, my concern over the political performance of the Labour party was compounded during a rout of voters in the local elections. It’s highly unusual for a political party to grow their share of the vote whilst being in power, but the Conservatives seem to have managed this during both the 2015 General Election
Last night, I celebrated a milestone birthday for my Grandmother, taking her to a fine dining establishment in Nottingham called Harts. It’s a nice restaurant based in the Park – about a million miles away from where I grew up and certainly not a location I would have ever expected to find myself when younger,
When the financial services sector (and most global economies) fell off a cliff in 2007/08, savings rates fell with them. Several years (and many interest cuts) later, I decided to take the plunge and invest some money with Zopa Loans. At the time, I wasn’t sure whether the company would survive or if I’d ever
Happy New Year! I hope you all finished 2016 with a laugh and a smile, and are enjoying a great start to 2017. I’ve learnt a lot from running my blog over the last twelve months, so I thought I’d kick this year off with a summary of what I want to achieve for 2017.
Earlier this year, I was browsing my local Waterstones, when I came across a copy of ‘Blair Inc.’ on the shelf. I have to admit to an enduring curiosity in our former Prime Minister, and so picked up the book and parked myself in the attached Costa to start reading. To those of you that
