Investing Basics
Reviewing your portfolio properly
An annual review covers what needs checking, and more frequent attention makes outcomes worse rather than better.
Investing Basics
Compounding, fees, diversification and the first decisions.
Investing Basics
Starting with a small amount
Small sums are worth investing, the obstacles are mostly cost and access, and both have largely disappeared.
Investing Basics
Investing through a pension
For most people the pension is the largest investment account, and the default fund is rarely examined.
Investing Basics
Common mistakes new investors make
A short list accounts for most of the damage, and all of them are avoidable by knowing they exist.
Investing Basics
When advice is worth paying for
The value is generally in behaviour, tax and complex decisions rather than in investment selection.
Investing Basics
Investing for children
A long horizon makes the arithmetic favourable, and the access rules at adulthood are the decision people fail to consider.
Investing Basics
Choosing a platform
Charging structures suit different portfolio sizes, and the protections available differ in ways worth understanding.
Investing Basics
What to do when you inherit money
The decisions are made at the worst possible time, which is an argument for deliberately making none for a period.
Investing Basics
Lump sum or drip feed
The evidence favours investing at once, the psychology favours phasing in, and both positions are defensible.
Investing Basics
How much you need to invest
Working backwards from a target produces a contribution rate, and the number is generally higher than people assume.
Investing Basics
Tax wrappers and why they come first
Sheltering returns from tax is a free improvement in net return, and the allowances generally cannot be recovered once a year passes.
Investing Basics
The order of operations before investing
Several things produce a better return than any portfolio, and doing them first is not a delay but a decision.
Investing Basics
Compounding, and why time matters more than returns
The arithmetic of compounding explains why starting early beats being clever, by a wide margin.