The Narrative Fallacy is the idea that humans are predisposed towards believing a good story over understanding the facts of a situation. We are often drawn towards less desirable investments simply because they have a good story and then use the story to convince ourselves of the merits of the company in which we are […]
The last few weeks have reinforced the importance of portfolio managers and private investors having a solid process to protect capital and prevent themselves from opening position which are, frankly, only ever going to lose them money. For those of you that haven’t seen the headlines, a number of tiny US companies such as Bed,
Last year, I wrote an article which introduced some of the ways in which investors misjudge risk management. I always meant to cover the topic in more detail but for one reason or another never got around to it. In today’s article, I want to take a more comprehensive look at investment portfolio risk management.
Long-time readers of this site will remember my failed investment in Carillion – a leading international construction businesses that collapsed under the weight of its debts and ended up in bankruptcy back in 2018. At the time, I largely penned up the collapse of Carillion to poor management and a weak balance sheet but recent
A few weeks ago, I spoke to a fellow investor about a new company I added to my portfolio which they had already held for a few years with little joy. The share price is down fairly heavily over the last two years from a high of a little over £6 in 2018 to a
I was speaking to a fellow investor over the Christmas break about how they had positioned their portfolio for 2021 and the challenges in finding growth in the UK stock market. In today’s article, I’m going to recap on some of our conversation points about the challenges facing the Financial Time Stock Exchange indices (FTSE
Where will UK stock market growth come from in 2021? Read More »
Most investors will be aware of the 60/40 model for cautious investors seeking growth in the markets whilst avoiding the turbulence of a pure equity portfolio. In this model, the portfolio is comprised of 60% equities and 40% bonds. Historically, bonds have much lower volatility than equities, causing the overall value of the portfolio to
Well. What a year. 2020 is going to be long remembered by many investors (myself included) for being their first ‘real’ bear market. According to my trading journal, my worst official month for the year was March, when I was down over 18% in a month and looking at a total decline of over 23%.
When undertaking a recent review of my portfolio I was struck by the great number of logical contradictions in investing. I’ll be publishing this review in the next few weeks but the process of writing it made me consider all the various hurdles and challenges that investors face. For example; Patience is a great trait
In today’s article, I’m going to cover my bi-annual portfolio review process, undertaken around July and December. It’s a follow on from an article I wrote back in August about the different types of portfolio review I undertake and will likely form part of a series when I eventually get around to writing up the
If you’ve followed this blog for a few years, you’ll remember the early articles I wrote about investing for income and an introduction to dividends and today I want to continue that theme with another article about the importance of dividends. I was recently discussing this topic with a friend who told me that they
Earlier today, I had a call with a friend where we discussed the dangers of blindly following other investors. We’ve spoken before about the hidden costs of people following investing charlatans – in some cases, these costs can be absolutely tragic as inexperienced, naive investors are hung out to dry by unscrupulous characters only interested
To be a successful investor requires confidence in portfolio management – in particular, the strategy and companies which you have selected. This sounds like an obvious statement. After all, if you don’t believe in the performance of the companies then why would you invest in them? Having confidence in your portfolio management strategy often requires
Towards the end of Q3 in 2019, I was feeling increasingly nervous about the markets which seemed to be going on a never-end bull run and decided to ex-examine my portfolio construction with a view to de-risking and strengthening it. This process was fairly illuminating as despite holding a well-diversified portfolio of up to 40
Last month a friend kicked off a bit of a storm on Twitter one morning by calling out traders failing to make more than 50% returns a year from spread betting. The thread went on for a good hour or so but it made me start to think about what I consider to be a
Reader Question: What is a good return for an investor? Read More »
