Investing philosophy – Page 16

Five investments to start your portfolio

2016-01-202016-01-23 FIRE v London1 Comment

I came across an excellent article recently in Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald – Five simple trades to get you started with share investment – and found myself lamenting that such clear, wise guidance isn’t commonly seen in the UK press.

The best time to start investing is always today. Especially when the stock market (sorry, share market, in Australia) is offering lower prices than for many years previously.

The specific suggestions for Australians aren’t quite going to work for most Brits, Americans or continental Europeans however. Here are my tweaks for those of us in the northern hemisphere: Continue reading “Five investments to start your portfolio” →

Revising my 2016 margin loan goal

2016-01-112016-01-12 FIRE v London5 Comments

I posted recently about my proposed 2016 goals for my portfolio. On reflection, I think I need to rewrite the first goal – about the loan that I am taking out against my portfolio.

In my article I suggested the goal about my portfolio loan was: “Continually reduce my margin loan’s Loan-To-Value (LTV) ratio“. On reflection, I don’t think this goal works, as the market’s recent declines have illustrated.

Continue reading “Revising my 2016 margin loan goal” →

Less of the UK, please

2016-01-062016-01-06 FIRE v London13 Comments

Why you should strongly resist changing your asset allocation

The principles of successful investing are, so I gather from my extensive reading, pretty simple. Pick your asset allocation, making due allowance for your risk tolerance. Invest passively in it, optimise for tax and minimise fees, rebalance regularly – annually is often enough. Job done. Resist the temptation to tweak your allocation, trade within it or even look at your portfolio valuation .

Of course I’m not the only blogger who knows the principles yet ignores them in certain practices. But I certainly respect the principle of sticking to your asset allocation. One of the benefits of having a consistent allocation and rebalancing against it is that this enforces a ‘buy low sell high’ behaviour. Taking fright at, for instance, the Australian market underperformance and lowering your target exposure to the Australian market is exactly the wrong thing to do.

So, please believe me when I say that I take changes to my asset allocation very seriously. But nonetheless I am making one – quite a big one – and I’d be interested to have my thinking challenged.

Why I am going to change my asset allocation anyway

Continue reading “Less of the UK, please” →