There are few bigger priorities for people today than investing for the future.

A combination of the rising cost of health and education, soaring house prices, longer life expectancy and the increasing strain on welfare budgets means it’s vital that everyone does what they can to remain financially independent for the rest of their lives.

But the reality is that most of us are saving far too little and levels of financial literacy are pitifully low. All too often we base our investment decisions on industry marketing and advertising or on what we read and hear in the media. That wouldn’t matter if brokers, fund managers, advisers and financial journalists acted solely in client’s best interests. But everyone’s conflicted to some degree or another, and, as a result, ordinary investors typically end up doing precisely the opposite of what they should be doing.

There has, in fact, been a welter of independent, peer-reviewed research dating back to the 1950s on how best to invest, and the findings are remarkably consistent. Yet although this evidence is widely known in academic circles, the investing public remains largely oblivious to it. Even investment professionals and industry commentators are either unaware of it or for their own reasons choose to ignore it.

Robin is an award-winning journalist and campaigner for positive change in global investing, advocating better investor education and greater transparency.

Robin’s goal is to inform investors about what the evidence says, to explain why we don’t hear more about it, and to help like-minded financial advisers to communicate the benefits of an evidence-
based approach.