Author: Adam Southall

We tend to assume that wealth is accumulated over time, often growing fastest in the later working years. Yet, in a broader sense, we are all born with wealth in the form of human capital, which represents the value of the earning potential that we have over our working lifetime.  As younger people have a long time to go before they will need the money, the advice they receive is often that excess earnings should be invested predominantly in equities.  … Read More

Introduction The New Chancellor For the last six years, the government’s Budget and Autumn Statement have been synonymous with George Osborne – but as we all now know, the former Chancellor fell victim to Theresa May’s post-Brexit reshuffle. In fact, with his Tatton constituency likely to be impacted under the proposed boundary changes, our former leading man may well be considering a future outside politics. So we welcome a new actor to centre stage: Philip Hammond, aged 60, father of … Read More

The foundation stones of good investing Investing is the process of delaying consumption from today to some time in the future and employing that money in the meantime in the markets to grow at a rate at least in line with inflation, but preferably more. Investing money well requires a logical and robust framework on which to build a lifelong investment programme. Ten foundation stones provide the solid base on which to build such a programme. Foundation stone 1: Have … Read More

The fall and decline of buy-to-let? The British continue their love affair with being buy-to-let landlords. After all, with bank deposit and mortgage rates so low, and a rapidly rising property market, it all seems so simple: take your cash and make a 20% down payment on a buy-to-let property and borrow the rest at a low rate of interest; then find a tenant – perhaps one of the younger generation who cannot afford to get on the housing ladder – who will pay … Read More

Short term losses are common and a central part of growing wealth Unfortunately, humans are hard wired to ignore their rational thought processes and to focus in on, and become emotional about, adjustments to share prices. Three key behavioural flaws, deeply embedded over millions of years surviving as a species, work against us. The first is immediacy; this is the propensity to focus on something that is happening or has just happened, such as the readjustment of the outlook for … Read More