When King Charles was a prince there was a long-running tale that he never carried money; that was probably correct as he has always had people to do that for him. I suspect, however, that he has probably never…

Since its founding, Black Hills has paid a dividend to its shareholders every year, for 81 consecutive years. This endows Black Hills with a place in the US’s Dividend Kings, though the longest run of increases belongs to American States Water at 67 years. Looking across the pond at dividends we see that

Financial advice from my Cypriot barber (credit card machine out of order again…), and how to walk like a duck called Warren Buffett.

If you looked at the UK charts only in February ’74, you’d be excused for believing the quality of music in that year was – hmmm – odd. If you viewed 1974’s music by the best-selling albums for the whole year you’d have a completely different view. How does that relate to your investments?

Everything is relative, including wealth, yours and theirs. This week I talk about… You - a perspective. And a type of calendar that I can’t imagine being a worse item to have in your house.

Death and Taxes: financial planning can help with both of them.

And the difference between cost and value: only concern yourself with the areas that make a difference.

The Investors’ Chronicle is a virtual bible for DIY investors and we were recently asked to comment on and critique one reader’s portfolio and planning – he was seeking ideas and reassurance as he steps confidently to his impending retirement.

Dying more quickly - the bad news and the good news. Be careful what you wish for, it might bite. And what happened when I was asked by a journalist from the Times to “mark” financial advice provided by ChatGPT (artificial intelligence).

Legal & General is at 8.18%, Aviva is at 7.38%, Phoenix is at 9.51%: if you held all four of these insurers equally in your ISA those income yields average at 8.99% per year. Two obvious questions arise – why, and should you?

Of all the recent blogs, this one you need to read. All the trusts share prices have fallen in recent weeks due to the Swiss ripping up of the banking rule books, but the reserves of those trusts have not moved a jot – that simply means that each £1 of income they pay is now cheaper to buy than before the crisis. Cheaper to buy means a higher income yield, the maths is quite simple. Remember that…

Blimey, it’s enough to keep you awake at night, so much going on it’s quite wise to stand at the side and watch the world go past – after all, you saw all this in the 70’s, 80’s and then the 00’s (the noughties, I believe). In the blog today I have just outlined a list of ten key items that caught our financial eye this week.

The largest survey of recent retirees in the US found the biggest source of anxiety that retirees suffered from was a lack of routine. We can tell when retirees are bored, they spend too much time fiddling with the detail of their money, accounts, investments, and sometimes ex-City workers keep…

In January this year, Kseniia, our Ukrainian analyst, ran comparisons over the last ten calendar years of the Vanguard FTSE tracker (cost 0.09% pa) versus a unit trust JO Hambro UK Equity (cost 0.67% pa) versus the Merchants Trust (cost 0.61%). Kseniia ran two scenarios, both covering 2013 to 2022…

Being independent, we are agnostic in our choice of assets, products, managers, platforms, strategies – we have the luxury of being able whatever we want in creating client portfolios. We live and die by the sword though – if the income a client needs isn’t delivered then the relationship is very short lived, so our job is finding the optimal solution to meet your specific needs.

Spending money – your retirement money – starts off being a science and then moves to the emotional. How people invest money is hidden, not visible, but how it is spent is the opposite and that may be more insightful. Money is a utility, it’s for a purpose; if it is…

If you’re nearing or at retirement, you should be aware of two new taxes that were introduced alongside Pension Freedoms back in 2015. And the two things your retirement depends on.

I noted on a DIY investor site this week that they were running a story on people who run their lives – top to bottom – on being able to retire when they reach 40. I wonder if they have understood what retirement really is? It's not just the length of retirement that’s important, it’s also the breadth…

This week David Stevenson wrote about us in Citywire, asking why don’t more people realise trusts are great pension income providers if you care more about steady income than steady capital growth.

Working with people like you all day, every day, we run several continual, repetitive conversations so I’ve outlined for you here the three dilemmas every client gets caught with, and why the questions are non-binary. There’s a point to noodles, but more importantly we outline for you the three main ways of drawing income from your pension.

This time I cover two aspects of retirement for you – one is what to do with the free time and your Third Age, the other is how to pay for it.