A few weeks ago, I was speaking to a newer investor who had listened to an episode of the podcast and had heard me talking about being “down 40, 50, 60%” on an investment. As someone that hadn’t been investing long, this had concerned them, and they wrote in to ask if I could clarify […]
Anyone that runs their own portfolio will have heard the saying “bear markets turn traders into long term investors”. Outside of the obviously facetious element of the quote, it raises an interesting point about loss aversion – mainly that many retail investors seek to avoid crystallising losses in the hope of a share price rebound
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.
A few years ago, I got my fingers burned investing in Carillion. Fortunately, it wasn’t a life changing catastrophe and taught me a very important lesson early on in my investing career. Sometimes companies are cheap for no good reason but other times, they’re value traps. In short, a value trap is a business which
Most people equate risk with either extreme volatility or with low quality assets. Retail investors are often told to avoid ‘risky’ investments to protect their money; to never even consider them (I can already feel the eyes of my readers narrowing in suspicion here, but bear with me!). By contrast, ‘high quality’ investments are often
Unless you’ve been living under a rock recently then you’ll be aware of the problems facing INTU; a giant retail landlord which is facing a catastrophic collapse in the face of declining revenues and a mountain of debt. As a landlord, INTU has been in the business of buying and developing giant shopping centres. These
The appetite for extremely risky assets has grown and grown since the financial crisis of 2008. More debt and margin. It seems like noone is thinking about risk – just reward. Every since the first debt was issued, there have been individual and institutions that we all know shouldn’t be lent money under any circumstances.
When it comes to investment assets there are lots of ways to categorise them. You can categorise by asset type, geography, sector, and so on. One of the most commonly overlooked is liquidity. Generally speaking, assets fall somewhere on a spectrum of liquidity, which refers to how easily convertible they are into cash. Large, listed
Does your portfolio contain sufficient liquidity? Read More »
