03 Dec The best of what we read, watched and listened to this week
Image by Alain Audet from Pixabay
We’re pretty accustomed now to hearing bad news about the impact of climate change on the natural world and in particular its largest living structure, the Great Barrier Reef. In case you ever wondered how such reefs form, they actually spawn twice a year and this year’s event indicates that there is a recovery going on. It’s also pretty spectacular to watch. [3 min read and 3:07 video]
Achieving financial independence from paid work is a goal for most of our clients. The easiest way to do that is to have minimal expenditure goals. Unfortunately, that comes with the downside that it entails foregoing certain things which we might regard as life-enhancing, such as a social life. This piece (which contains some strong language in case that offends you) relates one person’s journey to discovering that retaining some balance is important. [5 min read]
Rob recently appeared as an expert witness in a case where he was asked to opine on whether several investments were ‘low risk’ or ‘high risk’, one of the points that he made was that there is no universally accepted definition of this terminology. It turns out that the same is true of much else in finance, which is worth bearing in mind next time you hear or read a news headline about a market crash or a panic, which are, as the author puts it, ‘the first draft of history’. [1 min read]
There is no perfect way to construct a portfolio of shares, as the process is always a trade-off between conflicting priorities. However, starting with market capitalisation seems to offer a good practical solution in that it is both cost-effective and easy to stick with over time, which we know to be important contributors to having a good experience. [7 min read]
One of the things at which humans tend to be pretty poor is making good timing decisions when it comes to buying and selling their investments. We might reasonably expect this to be something at which highly trained and qualified professionals are better compared to the population as a whole. Unfortunately, not so much. However, one of the best defences against our own behaviour is to have a written plan and to follow it. We’re sure we’ve mentioned that before… [7 min read]
We hope you have a good weekend.
Charles and Rob