One of the most common statements I hear from fellow investors is the idea that they are ‘long-term’ investors and that short-term price fluctuations do not concern them. In today’s blog, I want to unpack the idea of what it means to be a long-term investor and consider some of the challenges and benefits that […]
For the first time in a while, I picked up a paper copy of the Financial Times this weekend. Although I’m a regular reader of the paper, I tend to consume the digital copy more than the paper version these days and it was quite a decadent treat to enjoy leafing through the original format.
In my last article, I indicated that I wanted to cover investment idea generation for an investment portfolio in more detail. The very first stage of building a portfolio of investments, far before investment idea generation, is to define your investment goals. For the purposes of this exercise, let us define our goal as income
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.
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
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
During a recent investor event I attended I met a reader of this blog who asked me about protecting against inflation and what options I’m considering. For those of you old enough to remember such things, there was, once upon a time, a thing called inflation; a rate by which prices would increase every year.
I was recently speaking to someone at a dinner who wanted to get started with investing but wasn’t sure where to start with their portfolio design. They’d found a broker online and created an account, but didn’t feel confident enough to start acquiring assets. I spent the evening talking to them about my own investment
I have to confess to being a bit of a strategy nerd. For as long as I can remember, the idea of having a plan and working towards a goal has really excited me. I love the process of building the strategy and I love looking back and reviewing my progress towards the goals I’ve
I was reading through my investor diary and decided to look at all the companies I’d sold in the last five years and consider whether I was glad I did or not. I’ve sold (or been forced out of) 32 companies in the last five years; 26 were for a profit of between 5% and 54%.
A few years ago, I had the good fortune of bumping into someone (let’s call him James) that had a significantly more advanced financial life than my own. He’d made money in construction a few decades ago and now lived a relatively comfortable life on the proceeds. Some of their family still worked but mostly
In 2016, I wrote an article about why I like dividends so much as opposed to capital growth. Four years later and I’m largely still of the same opinion; I love dividends. There isn’t really much I can do about short-term price movement; prices go up (capital growth) and prices go down (capital loss). It’s
How long should an investor wait for capital growth? Read More »
