Every so often I meet a personal investor who will tell me that now is the right time or the wrong time to invest, depending on whether the markets are going up or down as well as depending on that individual’s past experience. Despite having 30 years of investment experience I never get into an argument with them because I know something they don’t. Namely, very, very experienced investment professionals rarely, if ever, out think
Read more →Recently I helped a new client, of US citizenship, aged 28 and a full time worker in Ireland, set up a personal pension for herself. She wanted to make sure that her own retirement funding which she started in previous employments, also in Ireland, was continued. We chatted about pension funding in general and she was surprised that Irish people in their twenties didn’t treat it as seriously as she and her other American nationals do where
Read more →Stock markets are now at all time highs. Who would have thought that we would be saying that after the Global Financial Crisis back in 2008. Surely equity markets are now toppy? Many investors who went to cash around then have been too frightened to come back into the market in the intervening period and are now only considering re-entering after an almost 200% gain in stock prices. If anything this sounds like a classic
Read more →Have you ever given advice to a member of your family, a friend or a co-worker or even a total stranger? Of course you have, everybody does it. We do it partly out of trying to be helpful but we also do it sometimes because it makes us feel important. We have an agenda. People who write blogs or columns like this similarly have an ulterior motive. Sometimes it is to promote a product, sometimes
Read more →It’s amazing. Some years ago it was considered normal if you talked at dinner parties or in the pub about what you invested in and how much wealth you had as a result. With the Celtic Tiger bust, this had become a topic that was taboo. Nevertheless with stockmarkets hitting all time highs in recent weeks the discussion of wealth has hit centre stage again not only in Ireland but also in global financial media
Read more →As a founding member of the Society of Financial Planners of Ireland I am truly delighted to see increased media coverage of our fledgling organisation. This delight extends not from the ego trip that one might think such a name check might get but from the financial media’s recognition that far higher professional standards in the area of personal financial advice are needed in Ireland. Unfortunately the minimum standard that exists in Ireland to give personal
Read more →Irrespective of the professional service that we might look to engage, most people select those who they seek advice from on the basis of a “gut feeling” that the person eventually selected will do a good job. This is no different irrespective of the profession from tradesmen to architects, doctors to engineers and accountants to travel consultants. Such gut feeling is either reflective of someone else’s referral or the fact that there is something about
Read more →As someone who is in the investment advisory arena for more years than I actually care to remember I am often asked, by clients and financial media alike, what investments would I recommend to potential investors. My answer is always the same – None! My reason for such a statement is that there is no such thing as a standard investment client. Everybody is different by virtue of their family circumstances, their need for capital and or income,
Read more →There is a broad approach among investment advisers that as a client becomes older they should be advised to become less risk orientated in their investments. This is partly driven by the thought of “how would I advise my parents?” and partly driven by fear of the Financial Regulator finding fault with an adviser’s investment process. Since we would always want to care for our own kin, therefore why should we treat elderly non-family any
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