Featured and Latest Posts
How Does the 14-Year Rule for Inheritance Tax Work?
A clear explanation of how the inheritance tax 14-year rule works, why older chargeable lifetime transfers can still affect later gifts, and the crucial difference between CLTs and potentially exempt transfers.
Investment Bonds: Withdrawals, Chargeable Gains and Tax Deferral
Investment bonds can be useful financial planning tools, but their tax treatment is not always straightforward. Unlike ISAs or General Investment Accounts, gains are generally subject to Income Tax, and the way money is withdrawn can have a significant effect on the resulting tax position.
In this article, we look at how chargeable gains are calculated, how the 5% tax-deferred withdrawal rule works, and why surrendering individual policy segments can sometimes produce a very different outcome from taking a partial withdrawal across the whole bond. We also consider onshore and offshore bonds, top-slicing relief and why the timing of a chargeable event can be an important part of effective financial planning.
Factor Investing Is Also About Diversification
Factor investing is usually discussed as a way to pursue higher expected returns, but it can also diversify the sources of those returns. Market, value and profitability premia do not reliably perform well or badly at the same time, reducing reliance on any single factor being rewarded immediately.
Across the complete calendar-year histories available from the Fama–French Data Library, the market, value and profitability premia were never all negative in the same year in either the United States or developed markets excluding the United States. This does not prevent a factor-tilted equity portfolio from losing money, but it shows how different equity premia have historically experienced their difficult periods at different times.
Should You Invest in IPOs?
SpaceX’s record-breaking flotation has renewed excitement around IPO investing, with potential listings from Anthropic and OpenAI likely to attract similar attention. However, an exceptional company is not automatically an exceptional investment. Historical evidence suggests that newly listed companies have often underperformed after their first day of trading, particularly where valuations already reflect extraordinary growth expectations. This article examines why the most exciting IPO stories can still produce disappointing returns, and why investors should distinguish carefully between the quality of a business and the price paid for its shares.
Good financial decisions aren’t about predicting the future, they’re about following a sound process today.
In investing, outcomes are noisy. Short-term performance often reflects randomness, not skill. Yet fund managers continue to pitch five-year track records as if they prove anything. They don’t.
As Ken French puts it, a five-year chart ‘tells you nothing’. The real skill lies in filtering out the noise, evaluating strategy, incentives, costs, and behavioural fit.
Don’t chase what worked recently. Stick with what works reliably.