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INVESTORS who like to take an opposing view to the rest of the market can make significant profits, but it does take nerves of steel to take a contrarian position and stick with it. To do this successfully, you need to understand a little more about how this works, so here we explain the basics. So what is contrarian investing? Contrarian investing is [...]

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WE ALL have different reasons for investing, some of us are trying to save to put children through school or university, others are building a lump sum for the future which might be used to pay off a mortgage or fund a dream purchase. However, for many investing is a way to create an income, [...]

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INFLATION is a silent thief – you will not necessarily notice how much it erodes your savings over time, because their physical ‘value’ does not change, but what you can buy with those savings is being cut, unless you do something about it. The rate of inflation is detailed by countries based most often on [...]

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INVESTING can be a curious business at times, one minute you can be on top of the world and making money without lifting a finger, the next you can be in a real slump and wondering why you bother with it at all. For most of us, the majority of time we have investments is [...]

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WITH THE imperfect political solution arrived at in the US over the contentious debt ceiling averting the threat of default and the resultant turmoil, it has recently been the turn of the Europeans to provide all the drama in the ongoing soap opera that we call the financial markets. For reasons that are largely irrelevant [...]

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HAVING an adviser to keep a check on your portfolio is ideal – you have someone who will keep track of what is happening, make decisions on your behalf, if that is what you agree, or explain to you why you should make the decision he or she is recommending. The one thing that it [...]

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Ethical investing used to be a very niche area of investment that was reserved for the brave few who would rather their money ‘did good’ than ‘did well’. But things are starting to change as the sector becomes more mainstream, and the performance of ethical funds is now competing with more traditional, non-ethical sectors. Alison Steed looks [...]

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The joy that children can bring us is immense – I should know, I have recently had my first child. So I can appreciate the fact that many parents will not want to think about how much their child or children are going to cost them to bring up. But when you do, my goodness [...]

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Finding someone you trust to help you with advice for your portfolio is not easy. Plenty of people will tell you they can provide the services you need, and to be fair in many cases, that will be the case. But is that really enough? Unfortunately, the time you will find out is at a [...]

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Getting older. Yes, it is happening to all of us, but some will accept the inevitable more gracefully than others. Thing is, as we go through life and age – whether gracefully or disgracefully – it is not just the colour of our hair or how many wrinkles we are gaining that we have to [...]

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Any good builder knows that you will never build a house on sand. Well, let me rephrase that a little. You would not build a house on sand if you wanted it to stand up to the elements and remain steadfast for years to come – sand simply will not support the structure for you. [...]

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Economics has more in common with physics than you might imagine, since the statement “what goes up, must come down” applies equally to both disciplines. The accepted wisdom is that when markets have rallied significantly over a period of time, the chances are higher that they will fall than rise, the question is just how [...]

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Interested in property as an investment? Well we might just have something for you. According to international property investment company St David Property now might well be the time to start thinking about a ‘pied a terre’ or a two-bedroom flat in central London. After all the market could well be within 10% of its [...]

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‘To thine own self be true’ is an old but well-known adage that was penned by William Shakespeare some five hundred years ago. However, if you are new to investing the phrase is as relevant today as it was then. Before you start investing you need to know certain things about yourself and your own [...]

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Confusing investment with speculation is one of the most costly errors a novice investor can make in an effort to grow wealth and achieve financial aims. Unfortunately it is also one of the easiest and most common mistakes to make too. To avoid being drawn in to the ‘speculation game’ make sure to have a [...]

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“I want to do that thing rich people do where they turn money into more money,” says Liz Lemon (played by Tina Fey) to her boss Jack Donaghy (played by Alec Baldwin) in the popular US sit-com 30 Rock. And although the line – like Tina Fey’s character – is fictional, it could very well [...]

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Before I start I should acknowledge Peter Fitzgerald from Insinger DeBeaufort Asset Management who both inspired me with a recent article and also provided much of the data herein. In 1997, an investor asked his advisor – “do you know the difference between a long term investment and a short term one?” Before the advisor [...]

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When it comes to investing you should broaden your horizons – and this is especially so when choosing how and where to invest. There are many who think that they should invest in specific countries and markets. And this might be especially so for those living in emerging markets such as Cambodia. It’s often tempting [...]

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For anyone looking at their finances and beginning to think that they should be investing or saving for their future the often most overlooked part of the planning process is that of protection. It certainly is the least sexy, until you need it and it takes a bit more time and effort to get it [...]

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Markets move in cycles, and often the best time to invest may be when you feel most uncomfortable doing so Years of stock market turbulence have left many investors poorer but not necessarily wiser and whilst we have seen a significant market recovery and a boom over the last 5 years it appears we are [...]

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