Investing shorts

In this blog:

1. The up-to-date annuity rates.

2. Our brand new fees explanation for clients.

3. How share valuations are plucked from thin air.

4. Wealth management = financial planning plus investment management.

5. Japan – what the carry trade is, why it could sink Trump.

6. The real £sd cost of adding ‘guaranteed’ to your pension? It’s here.

In this blog:

1. ‘Mister, I don’t sell to fish’ - who the product is really designed for

2. You think. AI does not. What it got wrong about my own State Pension

3. There went $2.3 trillion dollars, and here most of it comes back

4. A worked example: Alan, Barbara and a 25 % fall

5. Why the money pages never say "nothing to see here"

6. On age, boredom, and brothers who fall out – the Miliband Mess

In this blog:

1. The best question in investing, asked two years too late

2. So where are we now?

3. What this has to do with your income

4. So, what were you thinking of?

5. What the pension is actually for

6. The awkward question this raises

7. So, what is the money actually for?

In this blog:

1. The chauffeur who gave the lecture

2. “You are never too old to make a good deal”

3. Twelve miles a day at ninety-one.

In this blog

1. Winning the Loser's Game - Charles Ellis

2. The Psychology of Money - Morgan Housel

3. Retirement Planning Guidebook - Wade Pfau

4. How Not to Invest - Barry Ritholtz

5. Pensionize Your Nest Egg - Moshe Milevsky and Alexandra MacQueen

In this blog:

1. Don’t assume the wealth of others

2. Retiring too early, and the boredom nobody warns you about

3. The man who sold at the bottom

4. On having enough

5. Twenty holes in the punch card

6. Do not buy the dip, and do not dump either

7. Probability is not the same as statistics

8. A Beggars Banquet of consequences

In this blog:

1. Commitment.

2. Every day’s a school day – the tokamak, and why it’s important.

3. “We can't change the year we're retiring: we need income irrespective of market values.”

In this blog:

1. Owning a business, not trading a screen

2. The cost of living, and the price of a ski pass

3. “You don’t make that kind of money selling bibles.”

4. You are not the average

5. Remember Sid, and remember mean reversion

In this blog:

1. Why the 4% retirement rule fails in the UK - a 55-year reality check

2. Private credit funds bolt the doors - what it means and why it matters

3. How dividends grow your money - yield on cost and the Rule of 72

In this blog:

1. How clients actually work with us - the whole journey, start to finish

2. The three ingredients of investing: timescale, costs and returns

3. What we do, week in and week out, that you never see

4. A note from a Hollywood hotel, and the only ingredient that really counts

In this blog:

1. The mismatch

2. What dies with you, what does not

3. The size of the gap

4. The three ways to replicate it

5. The arithmetic, in full - index-linking, a 26-year worked example to the last penny

In this blog:

1. Money market funds - not a bank account, and the difference matters

2. The wealth you did not spend - and two events worth your diary

3. Patience, Amazon, and the difference between $100 and $6

4. What is the State Pension actually worth

5. Annuities: the real rates, side by side

6. “Gee up, Neddy!” - is retirement the time to buy a horse?

In this blog:

1. What an LPA actually is - and why there are two of them

2. The numbers the retirement industry does not like to mention

3. The Court of Protection: what happens without an LPA, and what it costs

4. A worked example - meet Robert and Jean

5. Five things to do this weekend

6. Will AI make me rich?

In this blog:

1. The 10 Minute Retirement Plan

2. The Retirement Funded Ratio - your most useful number

3. The attractions of life in the slow lane

4. Say "yes" more - and where it will take you

5. Old money in the UK - how it persists

In this blog:

1. Pension Basics - what your pension actually is

2. Hotel California: what’s changing on 6 April 2027

3. £280,000: a worked example, in pounds and pence

4. Four conversations to have - now, not in 2027

In this blog:

1. I Will Survive - the longevity problem nobody told you about

2. Sequence risk: the quiet assassin of pension pots (with the maths)

3. Annuity rates on 15 April 2026 - and what a difference a year makes

4. The Dividend Heroes: trusts that have been paying through every crisis since your grandparents were courting

5. The conversation: what you haven’t told your spouse about the money

In this blog:

1. That’s who I want to be.

2. Total return, capital and income: the data.

3. Do you cycle? Do you train-ish? Alistair Brownlee ring a bell?

In this blog:

1. How to be rational in volatile markets

2. The client’s question: the maths of the value of planning your income.

3. Law Debenture or Claverhouse – AI for analysis, only when you know the question.

4. Don’t worry, be happy

In this blog:

1. Money – The Danger of Overthinking

2. Murray International

3. Law Debenture

4. When data lies and hallucinates – the acute danger of DIY.

5. What the client wrote…

In this blog:

1. Inflation is created in two ways: a demand-pull on prices, and a cost-push.

2. It’s not an investment; it’s an M&S investment.

3. Duration: what it is, what it’s not, do NOT invest in bonds or gilts without knowing.

4. Winner takes all: why women are the ultimate controllers of personal wealth.

5. The Big 5 Retirement Risks: and how to mitigate them.

In this blog:

1. How not to invest.

2. How to invest through crashes.

3. How to read investment trust data: F&C has never missed a dividend since start in 1868.

4. It’s not guaranteed, but does it make it any less likely?

In this blog:

1. How to get a 7% income yield on your pension, or, ‘Can you fix a leaking sink?’

2. To retire or not – how to tell when the time is right.

3. Why investment trusts and not unit trusts? Here’s why: we rely on data, not opinion, so here’s the data.

4. The later it gets, the less inhibited many become. (You should have grown out of the 4 am taxi ride by now).

In this blog:

1. Avoid the errors others make.

2. How the portfolio incomes have measured up against inflation.

3. The insides of the Rolls Royce final salary pension engine.

4. A Family Investment Company: what is it, and should you?

In this blog:

1. Going broke slowly.

2. Equities & bonds: how to lose your shirt on bonds and gilts.

3. The market correction: the timing and the size are all that’s missing.

4. Ok, so you want to do Bitcoin – try doing it without falling for The Winner’s Curse…

In this blog:

1. Of course you can, avoid retirement excuses.

2. The banks are at it again, though slightly more disciplined this time.

3. Financial abuse is real: bullying or controlling, don’t get caught with this in a divorce.

In this blog:

1. Getting your pension right first time

2. Damn teenagers, always on their phone! (So are you, here’s the proof).

3. Everyone is normal – here’s a family story about money.

In this blog:

1. Annuity rates, and that 20% per year.

2. If you’re considering an annuity, is it cheaper to self-insure your pension income?

3. Ten Years After – not the Nottingham band, it’s the tales of 10 people who retired 10 years ago. Regrets? They’ve had a few.

4. Yale Research on ageing: how to live 71/2 years longer, actionable insights.

In this blog:

1. ‘My absolute superpower in work and life is …’

2. Regrets? I've had a few – even though I've worked in finance

In this blog:

1. The Penshurst Place Problem

2. The reality: a 50ft garden and a dog with opinions

3. The pension admin confession (don’t tell Doug)

4. Why it’s so hard to care about your future self

5. The fantasy lifestyle I’m saving for (kind of)

6. The ending I’m working towards

In this blog:

1. The Yield Illusion

2. Gold will go up, down or sideways this year

3. Who’s buying at this level? Keep pumping your trackers

4. Easy money, daily habits

5. Do what frightens you: here I come, ready or not