June 2025 Performance Review

We first began moving clients from Nucleus to Transact late 2021. So we can now show our performance versus our industry peer group across our portfolios for a full standard 3 year period.

In all of the charts below, each of our managed portfolios are shown by the bold green line. Our peers performance is shown in blue and purple lines.

Our Cautious Portfolio

Our Moderate Portfolio

Our Aggressive Portfolio

Our Very Aggressive Portfolio

Each of the charts above are actual client portfolios.

We continue to out-perform our peer groups in all portfolios. Our Cautious Managed Portfolio unfortunately is not a fair comparison versus its peer group as care home fees of several thousand pounds are withdrawn each month for the client in question. This reducing balance has blunted the true performance somewhat.

Charlie and I are happy with our achievements so far. The Transact platform has given us a huge investment universe of direct equities to choose from, with very reasonable custody, currency and trading costs.

The above performance is net of our fees, trading fees and Transact fees.

We remain dedicated to looking after your, and our, life savings.

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask. After all, unlike your friends and acquaintances, you can talk to the investment managers who look after your savings in person.

Obviously I have to say at this point………..Past performance isn’t necessarily a guide to the future.

What is Money?

Have you ever wondered; 

  • What is money anyway? 
  • Why do we trust money?
  • What’s that five pound note in your pocket really worth? 
  • Where does money come from and where does it go?

I’m guessing the answer is probably not. Money is just an everyday thing.  It’s there, we just spend it or save it.

Our own currency that we spend everyday is taken for granted, except when we travel and it’s no longer accepted as currency. Why is it even called currency?  Well the answer to the last question is indeed predictable. It’s the current value of our money versus other countries money. Which in itself begs the questions; 

  • What was our money worth previously? 
  • Was it worth more or less?

To answer these questions we need to go back a long way in time. To a time before money existed. 

Sapiens

I have read some very influential books in my time. Very few have been works of fiction. I’m intellectually poorer for that I guess. My Northern upbringing of seeking “value for money” has directed me solely to books I can learn from. One such book is Sapiens – A brief history of mankind by Yuval Noah Harare. Before reading this book I believed the Agricultural Revolution was the time before tractors. But no. The agricultural revolution was the time when primitive humans ceased to be hunter-gatherers and became the farmers of crops and livestock. Who knew? That transition changed everything. Prior to farming, life was free, but probably not easy.  Food was collected as needed, a free for all endless all you can find buffet. Once all the food was taken from one area, individuals moved on. A truly nomadic experience. Nobody was a landowner, primitive tools were the only possessions, used to dig for roots perhaps. Recent Bill Gates funded research wouldn’t have been needed back then, like today’s Aborigines, we would be happy obtaining protein from grubs. 

Continue reading “What is Money?”

Turn off the news

“I’ve been saying this since the 2009 Financial Crisis, and I’ll say it again today:

Turn off the news.

Back then, I was glued to the financial media. I’d watch the major networks, read the papers, soak up the headlines. I thought I was doing my job as an investment manager by being informed.

But all anyone did on TV was scream at each other. The newspapers were filled with terrifying headlines designed to make you panic — and usually trick you into doing something stupid with your money.

So I stopped.

I stopped letting the fear machine into my head. I stopped investing based on other people’s emotions. I decided to let the market tell me what was happening — not the suits on TV or the clickbait headlines.

Fast forward to today. I’m seeing people on social media flipping out about geopolitical developments, bombs dropping, oil surging, and the stock market “about to crash.”

The U.S. dropped some bombs this weekend and the fear juices are flowing.

I get it. The world feels shaky sometimes.

But when those feelings rise up, I take a breath… and I go look at the charts.

Because here’s the truth: the market is the news.

Continue reading “Turn off the news”