The Times Money Makeover
Thursday 17 December 2009
Last Saturday, November 8th, Murray Round were featured in The Times for a reader Money Makeover.
The Reader, Fiona Tucker, 30, moved to London from Australia in 2003 and is now looking for a new home and how best to save. To read about her objectives and our response…click here
posted by Murray Round Wealth Management @ 09:17,
Swensens advice over tea?
Wednesday 16 December 2009
David Swensen is head of Yales University Endowment fund…a mere $16nb.Previous blogs have mentioned his success. yet there have been one or two falls from grace in the last 12 months as performance has suffered much more than one would have expected. That said, its Yale money not your money. But he does have certain opinions to help private investors…
In the FT in an interview with Chrystia Freeland, she says “Then, as we sip cups of tea, we return to Swensen’s favourite themes of money and markets. He says the crisis has reinforced his view that the most important investing advice is “you should invest only in things that you understand. That should be the starting point and the finishing point.”
For most investors the practical application of this axiom is to invest in index funds (low-fee investments that aim to mirror the performance of a particular stock market index). “The overwhelming number of investors, individual and institutional, should be completely in low-cost index funds because that’s easy to understand.”
His advice, keep it simple and use index funds. Take a look at your investments and unless you happen to be one our clients, I would predict you have little or zero exposure to index funds, let alone an effective asset allocation strategy.
So if you do not want to believe me, believe what David Swensen believes…its your future at stake.
posted by Murray Round Wealth Management @ 15:20,
ETF Seminar at the FT
I attended the London end of FT ETF Insights series which has presentations in Madrid, Hong Kong Zurich to name just a few. The topic… Exchange Traded Funds.
Rather than discuss uses of ETFs, perhaps it is important to understand how big ETFs are in the market. It is interesting why so many private individuals are unaware of ETFs and the benefits. Yet with anything that is fast growing and developing there are pitfalls - simply one reason why you need a fee-only adviser.
Toronto in 1990 saw the marriage between mutual funds and the stock exchange which is where ETFs started. The SPDR ETF on the S&P500 is listed in the US stock exchange…and is the most heavily traded share in the world!
Up to 2009, the Global ETF industry had 1660 ETF’s with 3008 listings of assets of $774 billion from over 90 providers on 42 exchanges throughout the world. Source iShares.
ETFs currently represent the fastest growing segment of the asset management world. In only 8 years since ETFs were introduced in the Europe, there are now 1828 listings with around USD $168 billion under management.
In Europe the rate of growth is geared to institutional investors, yet private investors are growing.
The growth of ETFs in the UK is likely to grow to private clients through fee-only advisers. Unashamedly, there’s our plug. I suspect many investors in 10 years time will say, “...hey, why I didn’t know about the benefits of ETFs 10 years ago?” That’s because they are not in the interest of many bank advisers and financial advisers because they don’t pay large commssion. It’s a sad reality that if investors do not do their own due diligence now, they could be coming to ETFs 10 years too late.
posted by Murray Round Wealth Management @ 09:48,
The Authors
Nicholas Round
Nic is the Managing Director of Murray Round Wealth Management Limited, who seeks to ensure the advice provided is truly independent. Based in Shropshire with clients local, national and worldwide, Nic has strived to find the best possible service for his clients needs, by researching and studying the market, trends and philosophies. Nic strongly believes Asset Class Management will bring his clients Financial Freedom, Independence and Happiness.
Kirsty
Kirsty is our communication guru. Managing information requires considerable due diligence and her passion for organisation gives the clarity we all seek. From Shropshire, with a Psychology Degree and much travelling, she is now back in Shrewsbury...and London often, keeping us all at Murray Round focused.
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