diversification | Ross Naylor

The danger of home country bias and how to avoid it

Home country bias occurs when investors concentrate their portfolios in shares and bonds from their home country. For example, while the UK stock market now represents only 3.2% per cent of the value of global equity markets (in 2006, it was 10.4%), British investors tend to allocate considerably more than this to UK stocks. It is a phenomenon that can often be detrimental to investment returns. Especially as the UK has lagged other world market in recent years.

Keep it simple – A financial planning lesson from Marie Kondo

I was watching Marie Kondo on Netflix last night (yes, being stuck at home due to the coronavirus has become that desperate already). If you haven’t heard of her, she is the author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying. Anyway, it made me think of how a spot of tidying could be applied to our personal finances. You see, if we have too many financial products, be they bank accounts, pensions, investments or insurances, it leads to us not being…

The Basics of Good Expat Investment Advice

Historically, expat investment advice has been characterised by the focus on the sale of a financial product, e.g. a pension plan or an investment fund. While products are, obviously, a necessary feature of a wider holistic financial planning strategy, good quality expat investment and retirement advice encompasses much more than simply selling products.