Expert Wealth Management

Today, government bond yields and bank deposit rates sit very substantially – and uncomfortably – below where they were 5 and 10 years ago, in negative after-inflation terms and more-or-less-zero before inflation terms. In March this year, the UK Government issued its first negative-yielding gilt borrowing £3.8 billion at -0.003% for a […]

‘Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It’s to see my dividends coming in.’ John D. Rockefeller To this day we can still relate to the words of American industrialist John D. Rockefeller, despite their utterance over a century ago. Be it a privately owned business or publicly listed […]

If you were asked who you thought was the world’s best investor, you might well say Warren Buffett, the Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. That would not be an unreasonable answer, given he is worth US$ 71.5 billion today , give or take a few million for daily market movements! He is also often held up by those in support of ‘market beating’ strategies as a shining example of their creed. Over 40,000 avid followers attended the 2018 annual shareholders’ meeting, referred to by some as ‘Woodstock for capitalists’ and his style of investing is known as ‘Buffettology’, on which numerous books and articles have been penned.

Dominic and Marcus had the pleasure of meeting Jan-Carl Plagge a few months back at an investment conference and thought that he would make a wonderful speaker for our ongoing Virtual Afternoon Tea webinar series. In this hour-long session Jan-Carl shares some of his incredible knowledge on the topic of environmental, social […]

The global lockdown continues to throw up important lessons. In particular, it’s a useful time to test one’s thesis about investing and retirement planning. I’ve always thought that a good retirement strategy should hold up, not just in good times, but especially in bad times.

One of the positive consequences of the current lockdown is that it does provide the opportunity to revisit a few of those old tasks, hobbies and pleasures that always seem to get put on the back burner in our busy lives. For some that might be picking up a new or re-reading a favourite book. Here is an example of the latter: in the early 2000s Nassim Nicholas Taleb published a wonderful book titled ‘Fooled by Randomness’ with the descriptive sub-title ‘The hidden role of chance in life and in the markets’.

Many of those reading this short note will have, at some time, travelled down to Devon for a lovely summer break amongst the rolling fields, moors and beautiful beaches of this somewhat remote county. Only a few will have ventured into Plymouth, the famous naval seaport and home to Sir Francis Drake (that famous Elizabethan pirate who so vexed our Spanish friends by stealing their gold) and the site of the departure of the Mayflower with the pilgrims on board heading to America 400 years ago this year. Even fewer will know that it was the place of an amazing insight into the powerful nature of crowds, which provides us with a wonderful word picture of how markets operate.