News & Industry insights

All PPBs are provided by insurance companies, so in essence, they are insurance products. However, yet further categorisation comes into play here, as they are known in the insurance industry as insurance-wrapped investment products.

Today marked a significant turning point in the riveting saga surrounding Elizabeth Holmes, the once-celebrated founder and CEO of Theranos. After a highly publicised trial, Holmes finally has to turn herself into Poison at @2PM TX time today May 30th 2023 to start her 11 years sentence. This ended the remarkable rise and spectacular fall of a tech entrepreneur whose dreams of revolutionising healthcare were shattered by scandal.

Your pension is your asset, just like any other, So it's reasonable to expect that when you finally shuffle off this mortal coil, your pension doesn’t shuffle along with you, landing squarely in the tax man's pockets.

You may have at some stage in the past, between 2006 and now, transferred your UK pension to either a qualified recognised overseas pension scheme, QROPS or an international Self-Invested Pension Plan, SIPP. If you have, then this article is for you.

As we get older, our perspective changes, different things interest us, priorities shift and targets are adjusted.

The illusion that we understand the past fosters overconfidence in our ability to predict the future. We experience this all the time at Forensic Finance when in final consultations with clients, it can often be cathartic for someone to let go of past experiences to clear a path to recover a poor-performing portfolio.

How can we legislate to counter confirmation bias in our lives regarding investments?

We are all somewhat de-sensitised to it when these large numbers are constantly quoted. In a recent survey, people were asked if they understood the size of specific numbers. Here is how the survey worked.

Statistics show that as of 2020, there was some $56.92 Trillion invested in Mutual funds ( Statista) Over the last ten years, the amount of funds available on the market has increased by over forty per cent.

If your target is to accumulate $2,000,000 over a given period, let's say by your 50th birthday, and today, you turned forty years of age. The required saving level, assuming zero investment growth, would be £16,666.66 per month.

The use of Statistical analysis is a cornerstone of investment strategies across the world. Using statistics to prove or disprove a point in a debate or political argument is commonplace. Without exaggeration, I have sat in hundreds of presentations from investment fund representatives and managers covering every asset class you can imagine. All of them will produce back-tested data that statistically proves their investing method is a winner.

Many people delegate their investment choices to others they have already carried out a risk assessment with, their broker. However, it would be a good idea to understand how much risk the money you have worked so hard for is exposed to daily. You may be unpleasantly surprised.

The sunk Cost Dilemma is a formal economic term that describes the emotional difficulty of choosing whether to continue with or abandon a given project or endeavour.

Have you heard of these companies? If you are or have been an expatriate and lived in Asia, the Middle East or Europe. Now, or over the last twenty years. Then there is a high probability that you would have come across names such as Friends Provident International, Zurich, Royal Skandia, Old Mutual, Quilter, Royal London 360, Hansard, Generali International.

In this article, we intend to highlight some factors that WILL affect your investment outcome. We have come across countless amounts of savers and investors that are unaware of this or believe it does not impact them.