I cannot tell you how bad things will get in the future for this virus or tell you how much it will affect your investments. My advice as always is to simply sit tight. If it gets really cheap, there is a potential opportunity and we will advise accordingly.

I have produced a table below to show how world equity markets have performed in recent epidemic scares.

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MSCI World Index: World epidemics and global stock market performance.

Source: Charles Schwab, Fact-set data for 1,2&3 month performance. Dimensional Matrix Book 2019 for That year and 1 year later. The MSCI Index captures large and mid-cap representation across 23 developed markets countries. With 1,646 constituents, the index covers approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalisation in each country.

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So how should we approach the news about COVID-19, better known as the coronavirus. We know that human beings are finely attuned to what we see as an immediate threat. It’s how we evolved. But it isn’t always helpful.

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What about the impact on your investment portfolio?

Stock markets fell heavily in the last few days and there’s no shortage of market “experts” in the media warning of further “turmoil” to come.

But the simple fact is that they just don’t know. Yes, coronavirus could develop into a global pandemic. Or it could blow over in a matter of months. In any event, predicting what impact all the different possible eventualities might have on the economy, let alone the financial markets, is nigh on impossible.

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Focus on what you can control

A very important principle in investing is to focus on what you can control and let the rest go.

You have no control over coronavirus or the markets. Unless you’re a professor of epidemiology, don’t kid yourself either that you have any unique insight into how the virus might develop. And remember markets could go sharply up or down from where they are now for reasons totally unrelated to COVID-19.

But, if you’re anxious about the markets — and it’s a natural human reaction to be so — please feel free to give us a call.

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“If history teaches us anything, it’s that great investment gains go to those who are diversified, optimistic and patient. In other words, if you spread your investment bets widely, favour stocks and have a long-time horizon, good things should eventually happen.”

It seems logical to believe that the performance of a country's stock market is linked to the state of its economy. After all, if GDP growth is strong, company profits are good, and that should help share prices.

Economic prospects are even often used to identify which stock markets are likely to perform in future. If a country is experiencing positive GDP growth, then investors are encouraged to see it as a good place to put their money.

What the evidence reveals

Yet several studies have shown that this link is actually weak. A comprehensive analysis of 21 countries over more than 100 years by the authors of the book Triumph of the Optimists found mixed results between GDP growth and stock market performance.

An MSCI analysis in 2010 found similar results. Most notably, for the 60 year period from 1958 to 2008, Spain and Belgium enjoyed real growth in their economies of between 3% and 4% per year, yet the real returns from their stock markets over this same time were negative.

One of the clearest examples of the potential breakdown between a country's economic performance and that of its stock market has been Japan. Since 1989 the country has grown its economy at over 1.5% per year, yet the Nikkei 225 Index is still well below its December 1989 peak. That is a period of more than 30 years in which Japan's GDP growth has not been reflected in broad market returns.

A closer look

This doesn't only occur over the long term either. It can also be play out from year to year.

The tables below, which consider the last 90 years of GDP growth in the US, make this clear. On the left are the 15 calendar years during this period in which US growth was weakest, and on the right are the 15 years in which it was strongest.

What stands out is that in more than half of the worst years, returns from the stock market were still positive. In six of them, the S&P 500 was up more than 20%, even though GDP growth was zero, or negative.

Not quite as striking, but nevertheless noteworthy, is that even in some of the best years for the US economy, the stock market fell. Incredibly, in 1941, when GDP growth was 17.7%, the S&P 500 declined 12.8%.

Understanding the gap

It is clear from these studies that the state of a country's economy should not be seen as a guide for how its stock market is likely to perform. As MSCI notes, there are three main reasons for this.

“First, in today’s integrated world we need to look at global rather than local markets. Second, a significant part of economic growth comes from new enterprises and not the high growth of existing ones; this leads to a dilution of GDP growth before it reaches shareholders. Lastly, expected economic growth may be built into the prices and thus reduce future realized returns.”

Investors should therefore be cautious about basing their decisions on economic data. This has even been apparent in the UK over the past five years.

The story in London

Since 2014, the local economy has mostly staggered along at growth rates below 2%. Yet, the FTSE All Share Index has delivered an annualised return of 9.4%, which in today's low inflation environment is a real return of close to 8%.

If an investor had stayed out of the market due to fears around Brexit and the country's general lack of economic momentum, they would have missed out on this period of growth.

Similarly, those who argue that the US stock market is going to continue to show good returns almost always base their argument at least in part on the fact that the US economy is still strong. As history is shown in the case of Japan, however, a growing economy does not necessarily equate to good returns for investors on the stock market, particularly if share prices are already high.

Trying to guess which markets may or may not deliver the best returns in future based on the economic prospects of the country in which they are based is therefore not a way to investing success. Investors are far better off building a strategy diversified across markets that they can stick to no matter the economic environment, and reap the rewards over the long term.

Photo by Vlad Busuioc on Unsplash

Two children decided to compete to see who could grow the most luxurious garden. Both Peter and Paula prepared the ground, laid down the seeds and watered the soil. Three years later, Peter’s garden had barely grown, while Paula’s flourished.

What was the difference? Peter was impatient. Coming back the next week after planting the seeds he was disappointed there was little movement. He decided to dig it all up and start again. Paula added water and fertiliser and waited.

This cycle continued over the years. Peter decided at one point there was not enough sun, so chopped down an overhanging tree. The soil dried up under the full sun and baked hard. Paula decided to leave well enough alone with her garden.

The difference in approach between these two aspiring gardeners is evident every day in the share market. Many investors, having assembled their portfolios, insist on fiddling. They respond to news, second guess themselves and churn their holdings.

The Peters of the investment world chase past returns, pick up on investment fashions and are impatient for quick results. The Paulas leave their asset to grow, knowing that compounding will do much of their work for them.

Of course, this isn’t to say the second group of investors are totally passive. They come back every six months or so and do some pruning in the form of rebalancing. They water, weed and fertilise the investment garden with new cash as it comes to hand.

But the more successful gardeners are systematic in their approach. They focus on the basic elements and what is within their control. For the most part, they let nature take its course. And they exercise discipline along the way.

This is part of a series of blog posts in which we use illustrative analogies to simplify the often-complex world of investing. Take a look at some of the previous articles below:

Pay less attention to weather forecasts

Why stick with a losing proposition?

Why you should ask the audience

Generally speaking, it’s good to have a positive outlook on life. But too much optimism, or overconfidence, can be a problem, particularly when it comes to investing.

In this video, Lisa Bortolotti, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham, explains why investors need to be realistic.

You will find plenty of helpful videos like this one in our Video Gallery. Why not have a browse?

Video transcript:

Generally speaking, it’s a good thing to have a positive outlook on life, and to be reasonably optimistic about the future. It’s better for our health and mental wellbeing for a start. But there are potential pitfalls too. Lisa Bortolotti is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham and an authority on the dangers of overoptimism and overconfidence.

“I think, where you see the negative effect is where you have context, where things are so complicated that being optimistic about your competence or your performance leads you to making mistakes and taking too many risks. So, finance is an obvious case. Finance is very complicated. You need to take into account the relative value of different options and the idea that you will make the best decision because you’ve made a very good decision in the past where you tend to think your previous luck as skill makes you too confident about the decision you make and less likely to listen, maybe, to other people and take into account different factors.”

A tendency towards optimistic bias or unrealistic optimism is part of the human psyche. It’s the way we’ve evolved. Behavioural experts have identified different dimensions to it. One of these they refer as the Illusion of Control.

As Bortolotti explains, “The Illusion of Control is when something is happening and we witness the thing happening and we tend to think that we are actually interfering with what is happening and determining the outcome. I think, in the financial world it’s possible that we may think that we will be able to know whether a certain company will be successful or whether certain rates will go up or down. And this capacity, that we think we have to predict how things will go, will make us make decisions that are more bold and do not take into account other factors that we should factor in.”

Another aspect of optimism bias is the so-called Illusion of superiority. In other words, thinking we’re better than we actually are.

“The superiority bias, which is also called the 'Better Than Average Effect’, is the idea that we tend to think of ourselves as better than average - in a number of domains. So, we may think that we are more attractive, smarter, more generous as well. Now, The better than average effect has been observed across the board and it normally works in combination with the optimism bias to make us make predictions about the future that are too positive, too rosy, because if I think that I have a lot of skills and a lot capacities and I think that things that are negative will not happen to me, then I will think that I can control what happens in the future, and I can determine a future that is happy for me.”

Again, it’s good to be optimistic and confident to a point. In fact, you need to have a positive view of the future to invest in human enterprise in the first place. But be realistic, and don’t overestimate your ability to outperform other investors.

Picture: Benjamin Davies via Unsplash

Andy, his wife Sally and their son Jack, have been Ifamax clients since early 2018. After qualifying as an accountant following university, Andy then worked his way through the financial services industry as a sales and commercial director.

After becoming disillusioned and bored with corporate life Andy, Sally and a couple of friends set up their own financial claims business from their bedroom in 2004.

By 2008 they had 45 staff, a turnover of £7m and an average customer satisfaction score of 9.5 out of 10. It was this great feedback from customers that Andy notes as one of the most enjoyable parts of being in business.

When the time came to exit the business, they did consider selling but;

“thought the purchaser were unlikely to have the same customer focus that we did. We decided it better to bring in a couple of directors to allow us to take a step back and eventually wind the company down.”

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So how has all this led to Andy running around in a 10kg Rhino suit?

“One thing that defined me was that I was hugely overweight as a child and reached 18 stone at 17. I then lost 6 stone over a few months when I was 18. This was my biggest achievement in life (bigger than the business and running achievements).

Not only did it change my life completely and gave me confidence but also taught me that I had the determination to do the things I wanted to.”

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For this reason Andy sees running as massively important for both keeping off the weight he lost when he was young and as a continuing challenge for himself. After clocking up over 60 marathons and ultras all over the world for the last 30 years, he has now decided that it makes sense to challenge himself even further!

“I am getting slower but still like to look for a new challenge. I’ve never run a marathon in costume and the rhino costume is iconic so it seemed an obvious step. I contacted the charity in August last year to apply to run for them. Since then I have learned a lot more about the plight of the rhino. It staggers me that in this day and age we are still cruel to and slaughtering animals for totally unnecessary reasons and monetary gain.

Rhino horns are used in traditional medicine and as a sign of wealth. We have eliminated 95% of rhinos and 3 of the rhino species are on the endangered list. By running in the marathon and doing talks in schools I hope I can do a little bit to raise awareness of the rhino and what’s being done to stop rhinos, and other animals facing a similar plight, becoming extinct”

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When Andy first sent over pictures of him wearing the suit itself we were all surprised at how big, heavy and uncomfortable it looked and it appears that after taking it out for a practice trot last week he has confirmed it is all three.

“It moves around a lot, has limited visibility and is big and hot. It changes your running style and you have to hold the head when you to keep it still which quickly makes your arms ache!! I really hope that it’s not too warm on marathon day. Little wonder the charity said not to run too much in it before London because it might put me off doing the marathon itself.”

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Andy hopes to raise an impressive £5,000 for Save the Rhino International and all at Ifamax wish him well in trying to reach that target, the many training runs to come and indeed the big day itself on Sunday 26th April.

If you would like to read more information on Andy’s fund raising and ongoing training efforts please feel free to visit his Just Giving page by clicking the button below:

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Good luck Andy and thank you for being our first client in the spotlight.

If any other clients would like to feature in a future newsletter with a story, profile, event or indeed some charitable fundraising of your own please get in touch.

This year marks the 300th anniversary of one of the world's most famous financial catastrophes: the South Sea Bubble. It is a story with complex origins, but the pattern of events in 1720 has unfortunately been repeated in similar ways many times since.

It is not necessary to know all the details to appreciate what happened in London three centuries ago. However, it is worthwhile to look at how ordinary people were drawn into mistakes that left many of them ruined.

Money from nothing

At the start of 1720, stock in the South Sea Company was changing hands at £128 per share. The company was only moderately profitable, and the trade it ran between Britain and South America was small.

Its directors, however, were full of stories about how the riches of that continent were ready to be brought to Europe. Since the South Sea Company did have exclusive rights to provide the Spanish colonies with slaves, and to send one trading ship to the continent per year, these stories did have a kernel of credibility. They were, however, easily inflated.

The South Sea Company's main business had always, in fact, been supporting the British national debt. Since 1711 it had provided millions of pounds in funding to the government by selling its own shares.

It had become so important to the state that King George I was appointed as the company's governor in 1718. In 1719 it agreed to restructure more than half of the national debt in a way that would reduce the government's interest payments.

Growing interest

This gave the company room to issue even more shares on the public market. To make them more attractive, the directors not only pushed the idea that its South American trade was set to take off, but also came up with a scheme that allowed investors to buy these shares in instalments rather than having to pay the full price upfront.

This made them available to many more people, a lot of whom had no real idea what they were buying. They were however seduced by the rising share price and the tales of South American wealth.

By February, shares had climbed to £175, and in March they reached £330. May took the stock to £550.

Not wanting to miss out on this opportunity, more people bought more shares, and the price went up further. In August, the stock was up almost ten times in just eight months, at over £1 000, and the euphoria was at its peak.

However, just as suddenly as it had began, the bottom fell out of the market. At the price being asked, there were simply no more buyers.

Within months, demand for the shares collapsed. By December, the company's shares had slumped back to £124 and many people had lost huge amounts of money.

Repeating history

The lesson most often associated with this series of events is that investors should be wary of anything that becomes a 'sure thing' in popular opinion. Almost everybody was certain that shares in the South Sea Company were only going to keep going up, and the rapidly rising price appeared to confirm their view.

The danger is that when this kind of thinking takes hold, it does become a self-fulfilling prophecy for a while. The price of South Sea Company shares kept going up because people kept buying them. However, at some point the limit of buyers will be reached, and from there the crash back down can be brutal.

The more subtle lesson, however, is that most of the ordinary investors who were buying the company's stock did not know or understand what they were buying. Not only was trade in shares still novel to them, but they did they not appreciate that the South Sea Company's shipping operations were not its main focus. They also had no idea of the complexities involved in its relationship with the British government.

A recent Bloomberg article noted how more and more ordinary investors today are buying complex financial products that have become available to them due to technology. These include forex, leveraged exchange-traded products and cryptocurrencies.

These products are not necessarily going to create bubbles, but they do seem 'sexy' because they can make rapid gains. This, however, is exactly what makes them dangerous. Anything that can go up quickly can can down just as quickly, and these sudden price movements can be devastating.

The South Sea Bubble should stand as a reminder that successful investing is not about chasing the most exciting opportunities. It is actually the opposite: be boring. Diversify, keep your costs down, and let the market do its work over time.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Some financial professionals are dismissive of academic research, arguing that it’s too far removed from the realities of today’s financial markets. True, academic models are, by their nature, theoretical. But that doesn’t mean investors can’t learn practical lessons from them.

In this video, Gerard O’Reilly from Dimensional Fund Advisors briefly explains what those lessons are.

You can find plenty of helpful videos like this one in our Video Gallery. Why not have a browse?

Video transcript:

When we talk about evidence-based investing, what we’re really referring to is academic evidence.

Some financial professionals are dismissive of academic research, arguing that it’s too far removed from the realities of today’s financial markets. True, academic models are, by their nature, theoretical. But that doesn’t mean investors can’t learn practical lessons from them. Here’s Gerard O’Reilly from Dimensional Fund Advisors.

“Academics come with models of the world, and those models are usually incomplete. But what do you learn from the models? You gain insight about the real world. The models have to be incomplete for you to learn from them, but you do learn. You can gain insights about better ways to invest, better ways to structure portfolios, so that when you come to the real world, you’re better equipped and have better frameworks to make rational investment decisions.

“So academia, by its nature, has to simplify the real world so that you can understand the real world better. But that’s the beauty of how academics approach the problem: they simplify it just enough so that it’s real enough to be interesting, but understandable enough so that you learn something. “

Dimensional is possibly unique among asset managers in that everything it does is based on empirical evidence. Over the years, the firm has worked with some of the most famous names in academic finance.

Gerard O’Reilly explains: “Gene Fama, who won a Nobel prize a few years ago, is an academic that we have been very closely related to since the founding of the firm. Along with Kent French who’s a co-author and a very close collaborator with Gene Fama. And what we’ve used from their work, and they have shared their work with us and the world over time, is really the intuition that their work has given to us about prices - securely prices reflecting information.

“Other academics are academics like Robert Merton, who also won a Nobel Prize, Myron Scholes has also won a Nobel prize - and their work has also given us tremendous insights, whether it’s in lifecycle finance or in how to structure portfolios. So they’re to name just a few of what I would call some of the great academics in finance, and there’s many more that we’re associated with and that we work with. But the work that they have done has really led to some big innovations in the field of practical investing that I think Dimensional has been able to use to the benefit of our clients.”

The most famous contribution that Fama and French have made to our understanding of the financial markets is the so-called Three-Factor Model, and an updated version, the Five-Factor Model. In a nutshell, Fama and French have demonstrated how certain types of stocks — for example, value stocks, small-company stocks and stocks of firms with high profitability - tend to outperform the market as a whole, over the long term.

Gerard O’Reilly elaborates: “We think that there are differences in expected returns across stocks and across bonds. How do you identify those? With the intuition from the Three and Five-Factor Model. Lower price, higher-expected cash flows, higher-expected returns.

“So, we say, how do we structure portfolios? Let’s look for low-price stocks relative to some fundamental measure of firm size, high-expected cash flow i.e. high profitability. That’s higher-expected returns, less overweighting those stocks.”

It’s not necessary for investors to have a detailed understanding of the work of Fama and French, but it pays to use an adviser who does have that level knowledge. Academic research really does provide us with insights that you, as an investor, can benefit from.

Picture: Alfons Morales via Unsplash

In a recent research paper entitled 'How to increase the odds of owning the few stocks that drive returns', global asset manager Vanguard revealed a telling statistic. Between 1987 and 2017 just under half of the 3 000 largest stocks listed in the US delivered a negative return.

Over this 31 year period, 47.4% of companies in the Russell 3000 Index saw their share prices decline. Some of those went bankrupt, delivering a negative 100% return.

What's more, the return of the median stock over these three decades was just 7%. In other words, if you picked the average stock, your return was insignificant.

This was over a period when the total return from the Russell 3000 Index was 2 100%. As the chart below illustrates, this performance was driven entirely by just 7.3% of stocks that returned over 1 000%.

Source: Vanguard, Wealth Logic LLC

Needles in the haystack

Of course, this is something of an over-simplification. Just because a stock declined over a full 31 year period, doesn't mean that it didn't make significant gains in between.

For instance, Superdry's share price may be 80% down from its 2018 peak, but an investor who bought the stock in mid-2012 and sold out of it before it collapsed could still have earned a return of 700% or more. It was, therefore, still possible to make a big return, even though Superdry's performance since listing is ultimately negative.

However, the broad lesson holds: there is an extremely small pool of persistent winners in the stock market. An investor picking a share at random is far more likely to under-perform the market over the long term than to out-perform it, and has almost a 50% chance of losing money.

This illustrates how difficult it is to be a successful stock picker. There are very few companies that are going to deliver a long term out-performance. It may be possible to beat the market through buying and selling stocks like Superdry at the right time, but that comes with additional risk. If you get it wrong, the consequences can be severe.

Fewer needles, more haystack

Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in the USA also suggests that not only are the 'winning' companies rare, but they are becoming even more so. A 2016 paper entitled 'Is the U.S, public corporation in trouble?' found that, on average, listed companies in the US have become larger, but they have also become less profitable.

Profitability is one of the key factors in share price returns, as investors are effectively buying a share of the company's future earnings. The higher those earnings are likely to be, the more investors will be willing to pay.

What the NBER found, however, is that the profitability of the market as a whole is being driven by a smaller and smaller concentration of companies.

“Over the last 40 years, there has been a dramatic increase in the concentration of the profits and assets of US firms,” the NBER authors note. “In 1975, 50% of the total earnings of public firms is earned by the 109 top earning firms; by 2015, the top 30 firms earn 50% of the total earnings of the U.S. public firms. Even more striking … we find that the earnings of the top 200 firms by earnings exceed the earnings of all listed firms combined in 2015, which means that the combined earnings of the firms not in the top 200 are negative.”

The growing concentration of not just earnings, but many measures of corporate strength among listed companies is illustrated in the table below:

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research

Compare this against the table below, which shows how, on average, profitability has fallen significantly over this 40 year period:

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research

What are your chances?

“Though performance has worsened for the average firm, the winners have done very well,” the study points out. “One way to see this is that four new firms entered the list of the top five firms by market capitalization in 2015, relative to 1995. Specifically, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon replace AT&T, Coca Cola, General Electric, and Merck. In 2015, these four firms combined had earnings of $82.3 billion, representing 10 percent of the earnings of all public firms combined.”

This shows just how small the pool of 'winning' stocks has become. Successfully identifying them beforehand would be extremely profitable, but it is also becoming more and more difficult to do.

Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash

There’s been a big increase in interest in sustainable investing in recent years. But what exactly do we mean by sustainable investing? And, if we invest with our conscience, can we expect to receive lower returns?

Robin Powell explores these issues in this short video, with the help of Dan Lefkovitz from Morningstar.

You will find plenty of helpful videos like this one in our Video Gallery. Why not have a browse?

Video transcript:

An important development in the financial industry in recent years has been the growth of sustainable investing. But what exactly does it mean? Here’s Dan Lefkovitz from Morningstar:

“We define sustainable investing rather broadly. We consider it to be a long-term investment approach that incorporates environmental, social and governance criteria - ESG. And, it can range from sort of old-fashioned, exclusionary screening, like you might’ve seen in an ethical or socially responsible fund. Avoiding stocks of alcohol, tobacco or gambling companies, perhaps coal. It can also be just integrating ESG factors into the overall investment analysis. And that sort of integration is actually the most popular form of sustainable investing today.”

Passively managed funds are very cost-effective, but, by definition, they generally invest in the whole market. So, is there a conflict between passive investing and sustainability? Dan Lefkovitz says, on the contrary, they complement each other well.

“It’s interesting, you might think that, but in fact, we’ve recently seen quite the opposite. So, we’ve seen big passive investment managers, the likes of BlackRock, Vanguard, and StateStreet become a lot more active with the companies that they own, simply because they are replicating an index. Now you are seeing passive investment managers who have to own these companies and feel like they’re sort of suck in a long-term relationship with no option for divorce, be more active when it comes to their ownership.”

If you want to combine passive investing with sustainable investing, there are funds available — particularly exchange-traded funds — that effectively do both.

Lefkovitz says: “We actually think that sustainable investing lends itself very well to index funds and to exchange-traded funds. The kinds of positive and negative screens that are typically employed with sustainable investing actually fit very well in index and exchange-traded fund format. There also seems to be an alignment between the demographic that sustainability appeals to and the exchange-traded fund. Younger investors like sustainability and they also like exchange-traded funds.”

Of course, all investors are ultimately looking for good returns. So, is there is a price to pay for investing with your conscience?

“The number one frequently asked question we get about sustainable investing is: “Do you sacrifice returns if you are investing sustainably?”. And, interestingly, maybe in theory if you’re limiting your universe and not investing in certain companies because they’re not sustainable, that would be limiting. In practice, our data show, that sustainable funds perform on par with their non-sustainable counterparts. There is even some evidence to show, that sustainable investing leads you to companies that are poised for outperformance.”

That’s it. Thank you to Dan Lefkovitz from Morningstar.

Picture: Shawn Bagley via Unsplash

Suppose that you needed to rent a car for the weekend, but you could not find a rental company able to guarantee the kind of vehicle you were going to get. You could be given anything from a Citroen C1 to a Mercedes A class, and you would not know what it was going to be until you showed up to collect the keys.

While this scenario might be disconcerting, at least choosing which firm to use should be straightforward. All else being equal, you should go with whoever charged you the lowest fee.

This is common sense when none of them can be certain of what they will be able to deliver. There is no point in paying more if you can't be sure that you are going to receive extra value for that money.

Yet, this is how the fund management industry has worked for decades. Active managers have been charging high fees for their products even though there is no way anybody can be sure of the outcomes that they are going to be able to produce.

What are active managers selling?

The rationale for this is that active managers offer the potential to out-perform the market. That is their selling point – you pay more because active management is the only way that your money can grow ahead of the benchmark. This is why so many investors and advisors fret over performance tables and fund ratings.

However, every genuine fund manager in the world is very careful to point out that not only is past performance no indicator of future returns, but that no level of performance is ever guaranteed. Given the vagaries of the market, it is simply impossible for anybody to know how any fund is going to perform into the future.

This hasn't, however, stopped active managers from promoting out-performance as their unique selling point. It was what almost every active manager in the world strives to deliver.

The irony is that this is obviously unobtainable. It is impossible for every active fund to out-perform. Simple mathematics dictates that if the benchmark is the average return from all active managers, then there must always be under-performers.

What does the evidence show?

As an increasing amount of research continues to show, these under-performers are actually the bulk of the market. Far more active managers are on the wrong side of average than the right side of it.

The most recent S&P Indices Versus Active (SPIVA) scorecard shows that over the 10 years to the end of June 2019, only 25.66% of UK equity funds out-performed the S&P United Kingdom BMI. In other words, just under three-quarters did not.

SPIVA scorecards calculated in markets around the world all show similar patterns. So too does Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer.

Although this is only calculated for the US market, the most recent Morningstar barometer shows that only 23% of all active funds in the US beat the average of passive funds over the past decade. For US Large Blend Equity Funds, the figure is only 8%.

Where is the value for money?

Given this success rate, it should be obvious to active managers that what they are selling is not deliverable. It is much like a car rental company charging you for a Mercedes A class, even though it is likely that you would actually be given one. A company that did that would surely find itself out of business fairly quickly.

Yet, active fund managers continue to sell the idea of out-performance, even though more and more investors and advisors have begun to understand the research – that beating the market is extremely difficult to do, and improbable over the long term.

That is why there is now more money invested in passive funds than in active funds in the US. That milestone was reached in August last year.

Investors and advisors appreciate that the value proposition of index tracking funds is one that actually can be delivered consistently – to produce the return of the market, minus fees. It is understandable, straightforward, and reliable.

It is like the comfort of going to a car rental company and being given the keys of the vehicle that you actually booked. You should, after all, get what you pay for.

Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash

Regret has been cited by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman as probably the greatest enemy of good decision-making in personal finance. It is often the driving force behind panicky attempts to time the market, buying at the top or selling at the bottom. It can prompt us to place a far greater weight on the possibility of suffering a loss than the prospect of a win.

Landmark research by Kahneman and his partner Amos Tversky in the 1970s found that when confronted with several alternatives, people tend to avoid losses and choose the sure wins because the pain of losing is greater than the joy of an equivalent gain.

We prefer the safe option

In one famous experiment, students were given the choice of winning $1000 with certainty or having a 50% chance of getting $2500. Most people will choose the safe option of money in hand. Conversely, when confronted with the choices of a certain loss of $1000 versus a 50/50 chance of no loss or a $2500 loss, people tend to choose the gamble.

In other words, we tend to switch from opting for risk aversion when it comes to possible gains to risk-seeking behaviour when it comes to avoiding losses.

Asymmetric choices

What’s more, regret, at least in the short term, tends to be stronger when it relates to acts of commission than of omission — in the former case, the things we did do and in the latter case the things we didn’t do.

As an example of omission and commission, imagine Jane has held a particular stock for some time. She thinks about selling it but does not follow through. The stock subsequently slumps in price. In contrast, John sells his stock, only to see it rally.

In the first case, the example of omission, or inaction, leaves Jane feeling less regretful than in the second case, John’s example of commission, or action.

Put another way, there is an asymmetry to our choices when confronted with uncertainty than is assumed by traditional rational choice theory in which human beings are cast as automatons carefully weighing the costs and benefits of their decisions.

We’re less logical than we think

The fact is we are not the logical decision-makers we assume ourselves to be. Instead, we are highly susceptible to behavioural biases that cause us to place a greater weight on the possibility of losses than on the prospect of gains – even when the statistical odds of the competing outcomes are identical.

We would rather secure a guaranteed lesser win than opt for the choice of getting more or possibly ending up empty-handed. And given a choice of two bad outcomes, we’re more likely to roll the dice to avoid the worse one.

This is why many people remain doggedly loyal to a particular bank, for instance, even when they are being ripped off by inferior service and excessive fees. It also explains why many people won’t cut their losses and dump a losing stock (because they’ll regret it if it bounces back afterwards).

Regret risk is frequently seen in bull and bear markets. In the case of the former, with stock averages hitting repeated record highs, there’s a natural tendency to want to hold back for ‘more certainty’. In the case of the latter, we want to wait to see the bottom before we wade in.

We’re not good at probabilities

In all cases, we imagine we are carefully calculating probabilities when, in reality, we are slave to our emotional instincts and resorting to mental short-cuts to justify our decisions ex-post.

Kahneman’s approach to regret risk in wealth management is to seek a balance between minimising regret and maximising wealth. That means planning for the possibility of regret and understanding clearly the range of possible outcomes beforehand.

Why an adviser helps

Of course, there is no one right answer here and that’s because everyone is different. It’s also why it is so important to have a financial adviser who can map out the range of eventualities and test clients’ potential reactions to each one.

Everyone has investment regrets. They’re part of being human. The important thing is to learn to get over them, so they don’t derail your decision-making process.

Picture: Sarah Kilian via Unsplash

There’s a big dose of uncertainty out there as we approach the new year — about Brexit, about the impact of climate change, about what Mr Trump will say or do next.

That’s showing up in consumer sentiment in places like the UK and Australia (though in the US it’s proving resilient). People are reluctant to spend money when they don’t know what lies ahead.

With sometimes confusing signals, how can we find the clarity to make decisions for our personal finances in 2020?

The best advice is to focus on what you can control yourself, and not to worry about things that you can’t do anything about. With that in mind, here’s a list of things to think about as we enter the new year.

1. Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today

Your first task for the year should be to review your finances. First, understand your current situation. Second, write or review your budget. Third, set some new goals for 2020. Having goals makes budgeting much more fun.

To do: Check out a budget planner on an independent money site, like this one.

2. The sooner you start, the better

When it comes to savings and investments, time is your friend. Compounding is a powerful investment principle that means the earlier you start to save the more your savings will grow. Over time, interest is earned on not only your money but on the interest you’re earning on that money.

To do: If you need a bit of a nudge to save more for your retirement, play around with a retirement savings calculator to see the impact of even a small increase.

3. What goes up might come down

Always bear in mind the worst-case scenario — no matter how unlikely it may seem at the time. It's easy to be an optimist about taking on debt when interest rates are low.

To do: Stress test your finances – how long could you cope if your income was interrupted?

4. A pound saved is a pound earned

By not spending, you not only have that money in your hand but also the potential to turn it into more. Let’s say you have a car lease and it’s ready to be rolled over. When you’re not paying upfront it’s much easier to go for the 2020 model with all the extras. But perhaps you’d be better off, financially, buying a more “sensible” model and putting the money left over to work elsewhere. (Did we mention retirement savings?)

To do: As a first step, divert some of your pay packet – or more of your pay packet – to a high(er) ­interest online savings account.

5. Neither a borrower nor a lender be

You’d be surprised what debt collectors see: people going to the wall not for a £500,000 mortgage but over relatively small credit card debts. People tend to understand what their mortgage commitment is but can be a bit sanguine about smaller debts. Be mindful when you use your credit card – think about whether that purchase, and the associated debt, is something you really need.

To do: Obtain a copy of your credit report and check it not just for blemishes but for accuracy.

6. No pain, no gain

If you do have credit card debt, don't be lulled into a sense of complacency by the minimum repayment on your credit card statement. If you’re paying just 2% or 3% off your card when the interest on the debt is close to 20% (yes, really), it could take years to clear, at the cost of significant interest payments over time.

To do: Work out how long it would take to pay off your credit card paying only the minimum here.

7. You get what you pay for

Insurance should be part of the picture when your review your finances. But whether it's income protection, life, health or even car and travel insurance, don't select a policy just because it's the cheapest. A cheap travel policy may seem a bargain until you find that you can't claim for stolen cash or the full value of your camera, for instance.

To do: Do you need more insurance this year to cover increasing liabilities, or less because you've paid off the mortgage and the kids have left home? Try this life insurance calculator.

8. Be prepared

Why have an emergency fund when you've got a credit card? Because if you use the plastic all you're doing is putting the problem off for a month (and a bit). Financial advisers suggest having at least three months' living expenses set aside – and up to 12 months’ worth if your job is insecure.

To do: Check the terms of your income protection insurance – when does it kick in, and when does it drop out?.

9. If it ain't broke, don't fix it

Lastly, it’s great to review your personal finances at least once a year, or whenever circumstances change. But don’t feel like you have to change something, just for the sake of it.

If everything’s working, there’s nothing wrong with doing more of the same in 2020.

Happy New Year!

Picture: Jude Beck (via Unsplash)

It’s been said that you’re more likely to change your spouse than your bank. But, as you run the ruler over your personal finances, ask yourself whether your bank has been doing the right thing by you.

There’s plenty of research that shows we suffer from “inertia” when it comes to switching financial services, even though this could save us – or earn us – significant sums.

Think about it: When interest rates fall, does your bank pass on the full extent of those rate cuts so your mortgage is cheaper? When interest rates rise, do you get the full benefit with a commensurately higher rate on your savings? Have you been stung by the auto-renewal of a term deposit onto a below-par rate?

I’d be prepared to wager that the rate on your credit card (or cards) hasn’t fallen anywhere near as far as official interest rates in recent years. Some cards are still charging around 18 per cent, even though official interest rates are at rock bottom.

That credit card is probably with the same bank as your mortgage, and your savings account, and your debit card … need I go on? That’s part of the problem: banks and other financial service providers know the more products you have with them, the less likely it is you’ll shop around. 

In Australia, the Productivity Commission has identified “bundling” as an impediment to competition. Another study found that loyal, existing borrowers were paying interest rates on average of 32 basis points higher than those for new borrowers –  a “loyalty tax” worth billions of dollars in additional profits to banks.

It probably wasn’t so much that these borrowers were feeling “loyalty” but more likely that they were worried switching would be costly or difficult, or would just plain mess up their direct debits. Or maybe it was just a case of “better the devil you know”.

So, make a list and check it twice:

What are your top three needs from a bank?

Are you a borrower or a saver? Is a bank’s home loan rate or savings rate more important to you? Think about what really matters to you.

Is physical location important?

If you never go into a bank these days, why do you feel compelled to stick with your bricks-and-mortar institution? Make sure to check out the offerings of online-only banks.

How important is customer service?

I earn a good interest rate on my savings with an online bank, but heaven forbit I need to talk to someone on a weekend…

Compare rates.

Remember that “loyalty tax”? Keep up to date with changing rates and remember that you can haggle with your existing bank – get them to match new offers.

Compare fees.

That includes monthly “service” fees, ATM fees, and charges for overdrawing or declined payments.

Compare your values

I can’t begin to count the number of banking scandals in recent years. At what point would you take your money away from a big bank and put it somewhere like a smaller bank or credit union?

Picture: Steve Smith (via Unsplash)

Have you read any market forecasts for 2020 yet? There is something about the turn of the calendar year that brings out the thumb-suckers in the media as sage reflection on the year just past gives way to blue-sky speculation about the coming 12 months.

To be sure, there is an economic element in this. Newsrooms tend to thin out over the holiday season as staff are told to clear accumulated leave. Media outlets stockpile think-piece fodder from bankers and brokers to fill the gaps between the ads for a few weeks. End-of-year specials are a popular go-to feature.

This is why you are confronted with clickbait headlines at this time like “Ten Big Economic Surprises for 2020” or “Five Stocks You Can Count on in the Coming Year” or “Your Armageddon Portfolio: Bunker Down with these Shares”.

Last year’s predictions

Actually, there were plenty of these types of headlines around Christmas 2018 following the global equity markets’ worst calendar year performance in seven years. The US-China trade war was heating up, the Brexit saga was roiling markets and there was mounting evidence of a significant global economic slowdown in the pipeline.

So on New Year’s Eve 2018, CNN pitched in with a guest economist’s column titled How Populism will Cause a Crisis in Markets in 2019.  The argument was that the impossibly simplistic solutions enacted by populist politicians to the post-GFC stagnation in developed economies would come home to roost in the coming year.

How things panned out

The analysis appeared sound, but a year on and we’re still waiting for the promised reality check. Equity markets have experienced double-digit gains in 2019. The US market has kept breaking records, to be up more than 20%. Against most expectations a year ago, bond markets have had another stellar year, with yields reaching unchartered territory.

To be fair, expectations that 2019 would mark a brutal reckoning for markets were widely held. In December 2018, a survey by Natixis Investment Managers said two thirds of institutional investors believed the US bull market would come to an end in the coming year.

The biggest threats cited were geopolitical disruptions, such as Brexit and trade wars, while rising interest rates were also seen as posing a significant risk.

A year on and those issues grind on. Markets vacillate according to every tweet from Donald Trump, though the UK election has taken some of the wind out of the Brexit issue. As for interest rates, they have spent most of the year falling, not rising.

The growth slowdown also triggered a wave of downgrades by major brokerages and banks in late 2018. Barclays won headlines when it lowered its year-end target for the S&P-500 to 2750 from 3000, citing bearish retail investor sentiment and slowing growth outside the US. Actually, they got it right first time and should have stuck to the original call because the index was above 3100 going into December, or about 25% higher over the year.

The cataclysm that wasn’t 

Every year, you see these calls go awry, perhaps none so spectacularly as the headline-grabbing line from the Royal Bank of Scotland in early 2016, telling clients in a research note to ‘sell everything’ in anticipation of a “cataclysmic” year in markets.

“Sell everything except high quality bonds,” the bank told clients. “This is about return of capital, not return on capital. In a crowded hall, exit doors are small.” 

It would have been a shame for those investors who followed that advice, because global equity markets delivered a return of about 8% that year in US dollar terms. In fact, the total return of equity markets from early 2016 to late 2019, as measured by the MSCI All Country World Index was more than 40%.

Opinions are soon out of date

The truth is everyone can have an opinion about the market outlook, but that’s all they are — opinions. And the problem with writing economic commentary on the run is you are always responding to news. Within a day of writing it, it’s usually out of date.

To be sure, there is still a case for economic analysis. The problem arises when you try to connect long-term analysis to short-term speculation about market direction. Markets respond to news based on the collective expectations of millions of participations. This is another way of saying all those opinions are already reflected in prices.

In any case, an economic or market forecast is inevitably based on a bunch of underlying assumptions, anyone of which can be thrown awry by events. Nothing really is constant, which is why forecasting is such a tough and unforgiving business.

Don’t indulge 

The media’s need for big market calls that attract eyeballs is easy to understand. We’re naturally drawn to the idea that someone out there can see the future clearly. The reality, unfortunately, is that no-one can. Everyone is guessing. 

Seasonal speculation is fun and diverting. But you’re better off choosing something else to indulge in.

Picture: Denise Karis via Unsplash

Christmas is coming. It’s time to start thinking about Secret Santa gifts and what’s going under the tree. I find these decisions harder as children become adults and in a society where we want for little. Like others, I’m also becoming more aware of the impact my purchases may have for people and planet. 

So, for a few years now, my Christmas presents have included “gift cards” from Kiva, a non-profit crowdsourcing micro-business loans that can help people work their way out of poverty. Rather than give people something they really don’t want or need, the gift card allows them to support a micro-business of their choice. They get to re-lend the money when that borrower repays the loan – making it a gift that keeps on giving.

If you want to spend your gift budget ethically and sustainably this year, here are some ideas (with thanks to social impact researcher Associate Professor Danielle Logue).

1. Give a goat

Oxfam popularised alternative gifts with its “I bought a goat for you” campaign some years back. The not-so-small print does spell out that your donation may not actually be used for a goat but “in general support of” Oxfam’s efforts. But if you’re comfortable with the goat as a “symbol” of your donation, go for it. If you’re not comfortable with that, go to Good Gifts, which guarantees “ your money buys the gift described”. These include things like a trip to the seaside for a poor child, toys for children in refugee camps and fresh fruit for African orphans.

2. Donate with the crowd

It’s estimated that $US5.5 billion a year is being generated in donation crowdfunding. This is where people use online platforms like Crowdfunder, Causes and Chuffed to raise awareness and money for causes. You might like to make a donation on behalf of a family member or friend as a Christmas gift. Some projects will appeal more than others, but community-focused projects on these sites have included things like building a rooftop garden to be tended by refugees, creating an online knowledge hub for people with disability, and teaching children in disadvantaged communities about good nutrition.

3. Support a social enterprise

Social enterprises are business ventures that operate for “purpose” not just profit. So, when you buy their goods as Christmas gifts you’re also supporting a cause.  One example is Thankyou.co, which sells bottled water, body care and food products, in so doing raising millions of dollars for safe water, hygiene and food security programs. It donates 100% of its profits. Do your research, ensuring the enterprise spells out precisely how they make their donations.

4. Make a micro loan

Microfinance refers to lending small amounts of money (say $25) to individuals or groups that mainstream banking often neglects. Pioneer Grameen Bank was established to provide micro loans to rural women in Bangladesh so they could buy cows to produce and sell milk in their villages, repaying their loan with the profits. Kiva, mentioned above, is one of the bigger organisations working this way today. There’s some concern that micro-loans are also being used to fund consumption, but you can filter loans to find those you’re happy to support.

5. Spend with a B corp

Businesses certified as B Corps have had to prove they meet the highest standards of social and environmental performance and show that they’re committed to balancing profit and purpose. So by spending your money with a B Corp you’re assured that you’re not funding practices that harm people or the planet. It’s a bit like looking for Fairtrade certification on your coffee. There are now over 2,500 Certified B Corporations in more than 50 countries. 

If you’re stuck finding a present for someone who has everything, look for a gift that helps someone who has nothing.

Check out more of the latest news from IFAMAX:

Pay less attention to weather forecasts

How women view money and investing differently

A little encouragement goes a long way

Picture: Ben White via Unsplash

I thought I would give you a roundup of changes in this month’s newsletter as quite a lot has been going on behind the scenes here.

Ashton has now been promoted to Managing Director. He has been shadowing me now for more than a year and it has been great to see him step up and take the reins. This is great news for our business, as it means continuity. I have been delighted to see how he has developed since joining me in 2008. I will continue to work closely with him in the management team.

Personally, my role here has slightly changed. I am still looking after some of our clients, and that will remain the same, but I am now Chairman and our Compliance Officer. Effectively it is more of an oversight role of the whole business.

Since gaining Chartered Wealth Manager status, Jamie has been fully signed off as an adviser and is looking after clients in his own right. This means we have more capacity for dealing with additional clients.

Kat and Gethin are continuing to make great progress in passing their financial services exams. As many of you may know, there are quite a few to do. I expect by the end of next year they should both be fully qualified.

We have also taken on a new employee, Will Buckley, who has recently joined us. He has experience working in the City of London and is qualified as an adviser. He is still finding his feet with us but will be dealing with new clients in the new year.

Tamzin continues her important work as Company Secretary as well as dealing with the accounts and payroll.

Finally, as we are now in December, I hope you all enjoy the festive season. Thank you for all of your support through 2019.

Max and the Ifamax team

Check out more of the latest news from IFAMAX:

Pay less attention to weather forecasts

How women view money and investing differently

A little encouragement goes a long way

A key tactic in staying disciplined as an investor is developing the skill to separate short-term ephemera from long-term trends. A sharp drop in the market today, however disconcerting, is not important if your horizon is years away.

Highlighting the benefit of resisting the knee-jerk response to news is Warren Buffett, who once famously said that the most important quality for an investor is not intellect but temperament. 

He’s undoubtedly right. There are plenty of smart people in the investing world. But often the key difference between the successful and unsuccessful are not smarts, but patience.

Look at it this way. Most TV news bulletins conclude with two features — the finance report and the weather report. Both involve a person standing in front of a chart, describing what happened in the markets or meteorological conditions that day and what might happen tomorrow.

For sure, the weather is an interesting talking point in social situations. But we know longer-term that what counts is the climate and that this changes more gradually.

Likewise, what happened on the market today or yesterday is interesting. But if your horizon is 10 years or more it is unlikely to be as significant a factor as to how you allocate your assets, how diversified you are, and, most of all, how disciplined you can remain.

As investors, we spend a lot of time looking at the financial equivalent of weather reports, agonising over passing showers, and ignoring the long-term shifts in the investing climate.

In other words, our focus on today’s events reveals a tension between how we experience the passing of time day-to-day – through news and weather and market movements - and how time gradually shapes us and our investments in the long-term.

The difference between the two is in our temperament.

Check out more of the latest news from IFAMAX:

How women view money and investing differently

A little encouragement goes a long way

Weekly round-up: Week 48, 2019

In most relationships it tends to be the male partner who makes the financial decisions.

Yet in many respects women are better at dealing with issues of personal finance than men. There’s certainly plenty of evidence to suggest that women, on average, are more successful at investing.

Why, then, do so many women shy away from finance and investing?

In this video, Dr Moira Somers, a financial psychologist at the University of Manitoba, gives some interesting pointers.

You will find plenty of helpful videos like this one in our Video Gallery. Why not have a browse?

Video transcript:

Robin Powell: Research into couples and their personal finances consistently shows that it still tends to be men who make the investment decisions.

But women tend to have a different attitude towards investing, and when they are involved, they often make better choices.   

Dr Moira Somers is a financial psychologist at the University of Manitoba.

Moira Somers: My understanding of the current research is that women are much more conservative investors. They often wait far too long to get into investing. When they do start investing though, they tend to have better returns than men, because they are more prudent. They don’t seek the extreme reward end of the spectrum. They are content with more modest returns and they tend to achieve them. 

RP: Surveys repeatedly show that money is one of the main causes of stress. Women are especially prone to worrying about it.

MS: Another gender difference is that women tend to stress more about money. They will acknowledge that they lose sleep more often than men do. And, sometimes, that’s because they do not have sufficient knowledge of their own family finances. They’re not the ones in control. You know how sometimes it’s harder to be a passenger in the car than a driver? You’re glad somebody else is driving but you still have absolutely no control about what’s happening. So, it’s a different kind of stress. 

RP: So, a lack of knowledge about investing is one reason why women aren’t more involved in investment decisions. But Dr Somers says there’s another key factor.

MS: When we survey them, when we work with them to say: “How come this isn’t so easily transferable for you? You have brilliant skills in household management, why is this not translating into the broader financial picture?” And some of it, frankly, has to do with mistakes that advisers make. There are some real big turn off’s, real big mistakes that just leave women feeling stupid and embarrassed and uncomfortable and so they vote with their feet.  

RP: Having the wise counsel of a good financial adviser is extremely valuable. There are signs that the advice profession is starting to serve women better than it has in the past, but there’s plenty of room for improvement.

So, don’t be put off by negative experiences. Find an adviser you trust and feel comfortable with. 

You can find out more about Dr Somers’ work via her website, moneymindandmeaning.com.

Check out more of the latest news from IFAMAX:

Pay less attention to weather forecasts

A little encouragement goes a long way

Weekly round-up: Week 48, 2019

Picture: Alice Donavan via Unsplash

Ask any parent, teacher, sports coach or line manager, and they’ll say the same thing. 

It’s easier to criticise than it is to praise. But the latter is far more likely than the former to produce the outcomes you want to see.

Of course, there’s a place for both the carrot and the stick, but all too often we get the balance wrong. Our in-built bias towards negativity means the tendency to blame comes much more naturally than the urge to encourage.

The oil companies

Take climate change, for example — and, in particular, what different companies are doing to tackle the problem, or indeed to exacerbate it. 

The big oil companies have rightly borne the brunt of criticism from environmentalists. True, they are, at least, finally acknowledging the need for action. Yet the resources that they invest in alternative energy remains only a tiny fraction of their expenditure on traditional oil and gas.

Calling out those firms that fail to match their words with action is of course important. But we also need to acknowledge the good guys — companies that are genuinely playing as part in addressing the climate crisis.

Several such firms were highlighted at The Values-Based Adviser, which IFAMAX helped to organise.

In his presentation, Dr Jake Reynolds from the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership highlighted two firms in particular that are really getting their act together.

Setting the standard

The first was the confectionery company Mars. Each year, according to the United Nations, an area the size of Bulgaria is lost to drought and desert. That’s enough land to grow 20 million tonnes of grain a year. To help reduce pressure on natural ecosystems, Mars has set as its goal freezing its land footprint, even as its business grows.

The second company singled out for praise by Dr Reynolds was Ikea. The Swedish flatpack furniture maker has substantially upped its game on the environmental front in recent years. As well as becoming climate positive, Ikea is committed to regenerating resources, protecting ecosystems and improving diversity.

Other firms that Dr Reynolds believes deserve recognition are the following:

Unilever (committed to sourcing all agricultural materials from 100% sustainable original by the end of next year)

Pirelli (improving methods of rubber extraction in Indonesia to extend tree life and reduce deforestation)

Fuji Xerox (now operating a closed-loop recovery system through product take-back, reuse and recycling, which is 99.5% effective)

Iberdrola (providing energy access to 4 million disadvantaged people by 2020, producing 50% less carbon dioxide by 2030)

Novo Nordisk (working with cities round the world to map and analyse the root causes of unsustainable planning) 

Balancing price with environmental impact

So, what are we saying? First of all, we’re not saying you should go out and buy these companies’ products and services. From a sustainability point of view, the less consuming we do the better.

But you should consider factors other than price when making a purchasing decision, and they should include environmental ones.

Remember too that you can support the efforts being made by responsible companies to tackle the environmental challenges we face by investing in a sustainable fund. 

The GSI Global Sustainable Value Fund, for example, which we at IFAMAX use, considers a company’s approach towards environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues; companies with higher ESG scores are given a larger weighting than those with lower scores.

Seeing through the gloom

And one more thing. That negativity bias we referred to earlier also helps to explain how the climate crisis is covered in the media. There are so many more negative stories than positive ones that it’s not surprising that many of us find this whole issue depressing and overwhelming. 

The true picture is actually more positive. There are companies out there who are talking climate change very seriously. They deserve our support and encouragement.

Check out more of the latest news from IFAMAX:

Pay less attention to weather forecasts

How women view money and investing differently

Weekly round-up: Week 48, 2019

Pictures: Ankush Minda and Adrià Crehuet Cano via Unsplash

It’s not mentioned often enough in the financial media that many of the keys to success as a long-term investor derive from qualities that are distinctly out of tune with the times. These include patience, discipline and crucially, delayed gratification — a readiness to prioritise distant rewards over instant ones.

In fact, the times we’re living in are almost antithetical to long-term investment. We are overwhelmed by choice. We are told we can have everything we want right now. And, if we can’t afford it, we can put it all on the plastic and worry about paying for it later.

All gain-no pain has a ready market 

The fact is there’s a ready market for the notion of all gain-no pain. Witness the dieting magazines that promise their subscribers perfect bodies with little expense or effort other than the cover price and sticking reminder listicles on the refrigerator door.

It works similarly in the investment world. Much of the financial services industry, and the media that serves it, wants people to believe in the idea that investment returns come down to “hot tips” and easy shortcuts. The giveaway pitch is “high returns with low risk”.

A dissenting view about the instant gratification, you-can-have-it-all-right-now economy has been memorably expressed by Charlie Munger, the business partner of legendary investor Warren Buffett and a man known for turning conventional wisdom on its head.

We can’t stand to wait

“Waiting helps you as an investor and a lot of people just can’t stand to wait,” Munger once said. “If you didn’t get the deferred-gratification gene, you’ve got to work very hard to overcome that.” 

Perhaps it’s due to the nature of modern consumer capitalism, which runs on encouraging people to pursue an endless and unquenchable cycle of externally generated desires. In other words, the notion of delayed gratification is out of tune with the times we live in.

But the ability to forgo today’s desires for the prospect of longer-term fulfilment is one of the most elemental requirements for success as an investor. Buffeted by media noise and the lure of short-term returns, we have to be able to resist the temptation to tinker.

Again, as Munger put it: “People are trying to be smart. All I am trying to do is not to be idiotic, but it’s harder than most people think.” 

One in five don’t plan for the long term at all

Just how hard it is was highlighted in a recent report by the UK online wealth management firm MoneyFarm, which looked at why as a society we seem to find it so difficult to invest in our future wellbeing and are so easily distracted by short-term temptations.

The research found that 21% of Britons don’t plan for their long-term future at all. And a further quarter (25%) think less than six months ahead. Five years was the furthest that most people (29%) currently plan for.

The causes of this short-termism are many, the report says, including a surfeit of choices and a subconscious view that by opting for one we limit our own freedom. Another factor is that thinking about our long-term future creates anxiety, which we treat with instant consumption.

How do we deal with it? The report recommends a number of strategies, such as imagining the most positive outcome from a change in our financial behaviour and consciously thinking about the biggest obstacles to our getting there.

Social support is important

Another underrated technique is galvanising social support around our goals from friends, family and professional advisers. The need, as Munger says, to wait patiently, to not do stupid things and to stay focused on a long-term goal is hard to do alone.

But the first step is setting the goal and building a plan to achieve it.

You can download the full MoneyFarm report here.

Check out more of the latest news from IFAMAX:

Pay less attention to weather forecasts

How women view money and investing differently

A little encouragement goes a long way