As Confucius said 2 500 years ago: Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance. A more modern take on this age-old truism is what is known as illusory superiority. Applied to investors, it helps to explain some wayward behaviour.
Read MoreAs many of you will know, we often ponder over the relationship between money, happiness and success. It’s certainly a great dinner table conversation: does happiness create success or does success lead to happiness? A recently published book, The Geometry of Wealth, asks: What is True Wealth? Author Brian Portnoy finds the answer in four words, each starting with a C.
Read MoreFrom time to time, we have some tough conversations with clients who have invested in the same fund but have had very different experiences. Here we take a look at two questions investors should ask before investing; the experiences of six people who invested in the same fund; and the lesson that was learned.
Read MoreSo, you’ve got your future covered. You have a financial plan with a pension scheme and retirement annuities; you have insurance policies; medical aid and gap cover; a living will; a healthy spread of investments in property, and the income to pay for it all. So you have everything covered, right? Or is something missing? What haven’t you considered?
Read More“It’s not that we’re dumb. We’re wired to avoid pain and pursue pleasure and security. It feels right to sell when everyone around us is scared and buy when everyone feels great. It may feel right-but it’s not rational.” US financial planner Carl Richards, calls the distance between what we should do and what we actually do when it comes to managing our money, the ‘Behaviour Gap’.
Read MoreMany people we see do not have a Will in place. Most people own something, whether it’s a house, a car or even a valuable piece of jewellery. If you don’t want the State to decide where your assets go when you die or, who will be in charge of your children and funds owed to them, then you need to draw up a Will.
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