Investing

When deciding how often to rebalance your portfolio, you’ll need to consider several factors, including: The kinds of assets you hold The cost of trading such assets Tax issues The free time you have available Your personal judgement How often you can be bothered to do it I’m serious about that last point, incidentally. If [...]

Once you’ve committed to rebalancing your portfolio to maintain your chosen asset allocation, you need to decide when you’ll do the deed. As usual, I’m definitely not going to give you a precise plan on how often you should rebalance. I think there’s no perfect answer, and you need to decide for yourself. That said, [...]

I have previously discussed why rebalancing your portfolio is a good idea. In short, by reducing or adding to your holdings in different asset classes, you can smooth your returns and keep risk within a level you can tolerate. How do you actually do it? Well, rebalancing is definitely an art more than a science. [...]

Most of the benefits of investing are obvious. Many would say they amount to zero – or rather all the zeros you hope to see at the end of your bank balance! More thoughtful souls ask what successful investing could translate into, whether it be the sports cars and fancy holidays you imagine as a [...]

Very few private investors give much thought to asset allocation, even though it’s far more important than picking stocks or funds in determining your investment returns. Even worse, those who do set up a nicely diversified portfolio often forget all about their ideal asset mix once they’ve made their initial decisions! This is foolish, and [...]

This series has previously looked at the general principle of investing during a crisis, as well as how you might react to particular headline news events. But crisis investing is also relevant to particular company stocks. Companies are hit by media headlines proclaiming ‘crisis’ all the time, whether it’s a crisis in the boardroom, a [...]

Part one of this series introduced crisis investing and looked at the opportunity to profit when vague fears affect the stock market. But how should you react when a specific event makes headline news? Some events can be very significant for both history and stock markets, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall or [...]

A financial story gathering steam is the alleged miss-selling of structured investment products that ‘guaranteed’ your capital was safe. The issue concerns products ultimately backed by Lehman Brothers, the failed U.S. investment bank. Since what is left of Lehamn Brothers may be unable to honor its commitments as the underwriter of certain elements of the [...]

Deciding how to react to a crisis like a potential flu pandemic, a natural disaster or war is one of the most controversial aspects of stock market investing. Many panics, whether they affect the whole market or individual companies, turn out to be false alarms. Even those scares that have substance often turn out to [...]

Amid the horror story that was the UK budget today, one bright spot stood out for those of us trying to save and invest our way to wealth. The government is raising the annual limit on ISA contributions from £7,200 to £10,200. Half of this ISA limit can be ‘wrapped’ around cash savings, just like [...]

I looked last week at the steep rises in US and UK bank share prices as the fear factor has fallen back. U.S. banks are up 50% over the month, for instance. But in the case of certain UK banks, the reversal has been even more extreme. Consider Barclays shares here in the UK. When [...]

This is the final part in a series of three posts on riding out a bear market. To be sociable and mix things up a bit, the first two posts are on two other splendid financial blogs: MoneyNing (Part 1: Beat market volatility by being boring) Investing School (Part 2: Ignore your portfolio for months [...]

We’ve already looked at the benefits of stop losses in a previous post on Monevator. Please do read that introductory stop loss article if you’re not sure what a stop loss is, or why you might want to employ one. Personally, I rarely use stop losses nowadays, especially in the guise of an automatic sell [...]

They say even dead cats bounce, and that’s equally true of markets. While I wouldn’t be surprised to see this week’s stock market rally turn into something more substantial over the next 18 months, I’d be shocked if UK house prices are higher in 2010. I write this in the light of yesterday’s report from [...]

Important: What follows is not a recommendation to buy or sell the Rights and Issues Trust. I’m just a private investor, storing and sharing notes. Read my disclaimer. Rights, Issues and complications The Rights and Issues Trust is a tiny, £33 million split cap investment trust focusing on UK smaller companies. It invests in small [...]