How to get rich slowly and avoid the puddles. The hullabaloo over gilts has had a knock-on effect with interest rates, and you’ll have noticed that interestingly large rates are now being advertised. We should probably repeat ‘if it looks too good to be true …’,

I’m never sure whether the Chinese regard it as a curse or a blessing to live in interesting times, and I’m pretty sure anyone connected to the media in the UK is having a blast with our current shenanigans. Last week’s newsletter came to you a day early due to Kwasegate, and it happened that we pressed the button a mere five minutes before his disciplinary at the head mistress’s office.

And now again – as I write this on Thursday we’ll try to ensure we

I'm leaving this question in for you - it's rhetorical, but it is very important in setting the right frame of mind for income investing. A quick question to ponder on: are you more anxious about what your income will be in the next 12 months, or in 10 years time?

Baby boomers know about inflation, today’s 60 year old hit teenage years when the price of his Spirograph was shooting up in price by 24%. Spikes always occur, however from 1970 to 1980 the average of the annual inflation rates was 13.3%. Yikes.

The 4% Rule was defined in America by Bill Bengen using US stocks and bonds records, along with US inflation. This is Bill's original essay and calculations. The study does not transpose to the UK because UK equity, fixed income and inflation levels are not the same; the principle is valid in the UK but not the calculation.

This is what’s called macro – it’s to do with wealth in a country, a continent, the world, and within that macro environment we all exist, earn and pay our bills. The macro measures big ticket items, like the price of everything at the factory gate

We draw on Irving Fischer’s book “Money Illusion” and examine what inflation and deflations means to us.

Warren Buffet first invested in Coca Cola in 1988. He (Berkshire Hathaway) now own 400m shares, 9.4% of that company.

As a result, on the 15th March of this year he received a payment of $168,000,000 from Coca Cola. In cash. It’s a quarterly dividend.

This is the most important calculation any investor needs to know. It is simply a shortcut to estimate the number of years required to double your money for a given rate of return / interest / yield.

In this free white paper, we argue that Modern Portfolio Theory is an inappropriate basis for generating a retirement or other long-term income for individual investors because their main objective is reliability of income, not capital growth.

The golden goose of low fees and high yields has been the dream for investors and advisers alike and a common way to try and achieve this has been to predict the markets. However, in reality, this is akin to trying to predict the lottery.

Research from the actuary Lane Clark & Peacock assessing modelling of retirement portfolios alongside consideration of relevant asset allocations for decumulation. It also outlines their thinking on why the heuristics on spending rules and portfolios need to be updated.

The government will increase your State Pension for every week you defer it. You delay, they pay. This increase amounts to 1% for every 9 weeks you defer or 5.8% per year. But is it worth it?

A very simple rule that is very important – investment returns are not symmetrical; if you have an investment that falls 20%, it has to then grow by 25% just to get back to where you started.

In our everyday course of business we are constantly assessing investments, and we abide by the rule that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That said, we believe there are three simple concepts you can employ to potentially earn the same return with less risk.

As in every industry, the number of financial planners claiming to be experts are endless, but in reality, very few will give clear, personalised expert advice to those who are not planning investing with gold bars and computer code and mid-Atlantic hotel rooms.

Learn more about how much money you will need and how long it’ll last in retirement.

Investing might seem simple…buy low, sell high right? In reality, investing is a road riddled with potholes and cracks and successfully navigating it isn’t as easy as it might seem.

Research from the perspective of a mathematical theorist examining the patterns and behaviours of trust dividend payments to determine confidence levels for future projections via algorithms, and, specifically, the correlations to be found within the trusts. This drills down into the actual volatility of income to determine whether or not the term ‘risk’ is being correctly applied to income streams.

From an actuary’s perspective, the dividend returns of a pre-selected set of investment trusts are analysed to determine the mathematical relationship between demonstrable historical movements and future projections. It considers confidence levels within set bounds by calculating correlations and measuring causation effects, comparing model forecasts against actual portfolio returns.

We believe dividend investing is the best way to secure a retirement income and beats capital investing for capital hands down. 5 of these reasons are exposed in this article.