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Our investment philosophy
Protect and grow what you have
Once we have created your financial plan with you, we’ll build an investment portfolio to deliver the future life of your choosing. With the right disciplined and structured approach, we ensure that your money is invested properly, not speculatively.
Our core investment solution is set out below. While confident, we aren’t dogmatic in our thinking and never lose sight of the fact that these are your finances that we advise on.
We adopt 10 investment principles to inform our approach:
1.
Have faith in the future
By long-term investing in capital markets, you should reasonably expect to be rewarded with a real return. We accept that publicly available information informs the price you pay for an asset and second-guessing the market is foolhardy.
2.
Asset allocation is vital
There is one key investment decision we will take together to manage risk and create return. This is deciding what proportion of your portfolio is strategically invested in each of the four main asset classes (cash, property, fixed income and equity).
3.
Diversify globally
Widen your investment universe beyond the UK market and embrace a globally diversified investment approach. This reduces the impact of geographical shocks, spreads risk and increases the reliability of outcomes.
4.
Be cost-effective
It’s important to keep an eye on incurring any unnecessary investment costs. Ensure that you are not paying more tax and costs than legitimately necessary. Not doing so is a sure-fire way to reduce your real investment return.
5.
Avoid market timing
With a disciplined approach and time horizon, accept that no one can accurately gauge when’s the best time to invest. Patience and control are vital and the cliché “time in the market, not timing the market” is the long-term approach to adopt.
6.
Manage your emotions
The Greed vs Fear battle resides within us all. By not panicking during market volatility, you’ll avoid reacting to short-termism and making bad investment decisions. In contrast, piling your money into a fad is unlikely to be a successful long-term strategy.
7.
Positive investment returns aren't guaranteed
The “low risk, high return” investment doesn’t exist. Investment risk can be quantified, and needs to be embraced to a lesser or greater extent to create the investment returns your plan requires, balanced with your opinion and appetite.
8.
Rebalance back to the model
Once invested, the proportion of money in each asset class will change, necessitating rebalancing back to the asset allocation and diversification models. This ensures that you ‘sell high’ and ‘buy low’.
9.
Maintain clarity of thinking
We avoid all conflicts of interest when creating investment portfolios. Investment decisions are based on academic and quantifiable evidence, not subjective preference and opinion.
10.
Focus on what you can control
Use energy to impact what can be controlled and influenced by adopting the above nine key investment principles. It’s not easy to do so, but accept that the consumer press typically exists to sell papers, and the pub or golf club investment guru wants you to envy or emulate them. They don’t want to take responsibility for your investment advice and provide you with the returns your efforts deserve.