Why do so many people prefer property to pensions as an investment? One reason is the feeling of control. Property feels safer because you can do something about it. You can find a tenant. You can fix the roof. If prices fall, you can sit tight. But as I explain in my latest article for The Times, some of the biggest risks are completely out of your hands. Property prices can fall and stay down for years. Your mortgage rate can jump when a fixed deal ends. The government can change the tax rules. A tenant can stop paying rent, and it may take months to evict them. Investing in shares through a pension can feel much riskier. You're exposed to the ups and downs of the stock market, and you can't normally access the money until later in life. But here's the difference. A low-cost global index fund spreads your money across thousands of companies around the world. A buy-to-let flat is one property, in one street, with one tenant. So which is really safer.. the investment that makes you feel in control, or the one that spreads your risk? #Property #Pensions #BuyToLet

One of the reasons why investing in property seems safer than investing in shares is that we can see share prices fluctuate, minute by minute, every day. But a house is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, and we never know the value of the house we're living in until we come to sell it. Yes, share prices sometimes fall very fast, but house prices do as well. The latest figures from the ONS, released today, show that average property prices in Kensington and Chelsea fell 13.8 per cent in the year to August 2026. Meanwhile, Bloomberg is reporting that Sir John Griffin, the founder of the London taxi company Addison Lee, has sold his home overlooking Regent’s Park for £11.5 million. It's been on the market since November 2022, when he was asking £29 million. Scary place, the housing market. #HousePrices #Property #Shares #Investing

Be honest. Have you ever chosen a fund because of its track record? Almost everyone has. It feels like due diligence. But the people paid to do this properly, the consultants and fund selectors with teams, data and access, don’t pick winners in advance either. The academic research is consistent on that. Craig Lazzara, who ran the SPIVA scorecards at S&P Dow Jones Indices, says the main problem is that long-term outperformers are extremely rare. Even Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has underperformed the S&P 500 by about two per cent a year since 2009. 👉 If even the smartest, best-resourced professionals find it very hard, why do we trust ourselves to do it? 🤔 #ActiveVsPassive #EvidenceBasedInvesting #IndexFunds

We keep hearing about how the US stock market is "dangerously concentrated".. and how that's a reason to avoid index funds. But markets all over the world are concentrated. In the UK, France, Germany and Italy, the ten biggest companies make up somewhere between half and two-thirds of the main stock market index. In Australia it’s around 60 per cent. Nor is it new. Across the whole US market, the ten biggest companies made up 38 per cent in 1900. Today it’s under 30 per cent. And at the end of 1899, railways alone were around half the value of the UK market. @benjaminfelix tested whether a market’s starting level of concentration predicts its returns over the next ten years. In US data back to 1926, and in a range of other markets, he found no meaningful relationship. 👉 If concentration doesn’t predict what happens next, what are the warnings we're hearing actually based on? 🤔

If you’re choosing a hospital for an operation, or a school for your child, the obvious thing to do is look at the league table. Many of us pick funds the same way. Five years at the top of the table looks like evidence. It doesn’t feel like chasing performance. It feels like doing your homework. In my latest piece in @thetimes, I look at how useful that evidence really is. S&P Dow Jones Indices took 69 UK equity funds in the top quarter for the five years to 2020. Over the next five years, only two stayed there. Some 32 dropped to the bottom quarter. Another 16 merged or closed. If the 53 survivors had landed at random, you’d expect about 13 in the top quarter. Only two made it. The reason is that a track record bundles together skill, investment style, market conditions and luck. The record alone can’t tell you which produced the returns, or which will still be working after you buy. Whatever a fund earned before you bought it went to someone else. YOUR returns start on the day you invest.

In the late 1980s, a judge in Basingstoke gave @AlanDonegan’s family a month to leave their home. His dad’s business had failed. The bankruptcy was secured against the house they lived in. They sold things at car boot sales to buy food. Alan shouted at the judge. Security threatened to drag him out. He calls it one of the worst days of his life. It’s also why he spent the next 20 years learning everything he could about money. What he and Katie eventually did was unglamorous. They opened up a gap between what they earned and what they spent, and put the difference into a global equity index fund, month after month. Katie stopped needing to work at 35. Alan at 40. They now teach it, free, to tens of thousands of people a year.. And, two years ago, they were awarded the British Empire Medal for services to financial education. Money is rarely just about money.

There's been much discussion lately about one-fund portfolios. @Ben_Wilkinson_, Head of Money at @TheTimes and Sunday Times, wrote about how he uses just one fund.. the Vanguard FTSE Global All-Cap UCITS ETF (VALL). It gives him exposure to more than 6,400 large, medium and small stocks all over the world, including emerging markets.. and all for just 0.07%. There are similar offerings, but VALL is a very sensible option.. Many investors may never need anything else. Personally, though, I prefer a two-fund portfolio.. pairing a fund like VALL with a low-cost, systematic fund that tilts towards value and profitability. There's absolutely no guarantee, but, as long as you're prepared to stick with it, the academic evidence suggests that value and profitability tilts may well outperform over time. This isn't a recommendation, and it's certainly not financial advice, but one provider you should look at is Dimensional. Its Global Core Equity UCITS ETF (DPCG) currently holds more than 7,000 stocks — large, medium and small — in developed markets worldwide. It has systematic tilts towards smaller companies, lower valuations and higher profitability and costs 0.20%. So yes, it costs almost three times more than VALL.. and only time will tell if the premium you pay is worth it. But this two-fund approach I've described is broadly what I do with my own money. My latest video on the TEBI YouTube channel explains more.. There's a link in the first comment. Again, I'm only a journalist. If you're unsure about what to do, speak to an evidence-based financial adviser. And please let me know your thoughts. #Funds #ETFs #EvidenceBasedInvesting

When I first started writing about the folly of active investing 15 years ago, I thought I'd never see the money editor of a UK national newspaper telling readers that his portfolio consists of a single low-cost index tracker. But it's finally happened. @Ben_Wilkinson_ at @thetimes uses Vanguard's new Global All-Cap ETF (VALL), which gives him to more than 6,000 large, medium and small companies as well as emerging markets.. for a fee of just 0.07%. By way of comparison, it's FIFTEEN times cheaper than Terry Smith's Fundsmith Equity fund. The good news is, the number of global trackers available for 0.10 per cent or less is growing. I checked this morning and found at least six. Please let me know if I've missed any. 👇

Reaching a financial goal can feel like the end of the job. But it can be the start of a harder question. A goal like retiring at 60 only works if it leads somewhere that matters to you, whether that's a purpose, a set of values or something that makes life feel worthwhile. His suggestion for couples is simple: sit down and talk about your core values. Most of us never get round to it. 👉 When did you last have that conversation, with a client or with your partner? 🤔 There's a link to the full-length video in the comments. #FinancialPlanning #LifePlanning #Retirement

Before I discovered evidence-based investing, I regularly traded shares.. mostly acting on tips in investment magazines and quality newspapers. Most did badly. Some were disasters. In one case, I lost my entire stake. I never buy individual shares these days, because of the many studies like this one. Researchers tracked more than 1,000 share tips posted by Instagram finfluencers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The early results looked fine. After three years, the tips were well behind the market, even before dealing costs. And the finfluencers with big followings did no better than the rest. My latest video on the TEBI YouTube channel goes further, including why a winning tip can be pure luck. The link is in the first comment. I'm a journalist, not a financial adviser, so this isn't advice. If you think I've missed something, I'd like to hear it.

'There seems to be some perverse human characteristic," Warren Buffett once said, 'that likes to make easy things difficult.' Buffett was specifically referring to investing and the way investors (wealth ones especially) are drawn to expensive, complex strategies instead of just regularly investing in a low-cost index fund. But exactly the same applies to financial planning. Some people think they need a hugely detailed plan. Advisers are not immune either. Some think complexity makes them look clever, and worth the fee. But, as David Jones explains, simplicity trumps sophistication. Life is complicated enough as it is. What you really need from your financial adviser is clarity and peace of mind. #FinancialAdvice #FinancialPlanning #Investing

Is a global tracker fund too risky now that a handful of giant US companies dominate it? I hear that a lot. It doesn't worry me much. Over the long run, a low-cost global tracker is still very likely to beat most active funds once you properly adjust for costs and risk. But it probably isn't optimal. I split my own money between a cap-weighted index fund and low-cost systematic funds that tilt towards value, smaller and more profitable companies. Peer-reviewed research shows those companies have delivered higher returns in the past. Want to do the same? I hold funds from Avantis. Another option is Dimensional. For years, most people who held Dimensional funds did so through an adviser. If your portfolio is large or your finances are complex, a fixed-fee adviser is still the route I'd suggest. If not, Dimensional funds are now listed on several mainstream UK DIY platforms, including in ISAs and SIPPs. I'm a journalist, not a financial adviser, and this isn't a personal recommendation. Full article in the reply 👉

SJP, the UK's largest wealth manager, has a new line on client transitions: faster is better. As I point out in the FT, it's not that simple. When an SJP adviser leaves, their clients get handed to someone else in the firm. SJP has just automated the business valuation behind that handover, cutting it from three weeks to almost real time. The stated reason is continuity of service. But this comes the same year SJP has lost several large partner firms, including Prospera and Wellesley, to options outside its restricted model. A faster handover looks less like a client benefit and more like a way to protect SJP's revenue from walking out with the adviser. Smoother for the firm and smoother for clients aren't the same thing. If client interest were really the goal, clients would get to follow their adviser out, not just get reassigned faster inside SJP. For FT subscribers, here's @EDunkley00's article 👉 ft.com/content/2bb5f0f9-b428…

Most families have the same unspoken rule about inheritance: nobody wants to be the first to mention it. I chaired a panel on this with Charlotte Ransom from @netwealth and financial psychotherapist Vicky Reynal at last week's @TheTimes Wealth Management Forum. We discussed recent rule changes, including pensions coming into inheritance tax from April 2027. But most of the half-hour session was devoted to the psychological aspects of this topic.. particularly why families avoid these conversations, and how to start one. A video of the full session is now available, free to view, on demand.. The link is in the comments. 👉 Please do share your thoughts.. Are you holding off having this conversation with your own family? And if you've had it already, what was it that got it started? 🤔

Hamptons says buy-to-let has narrowly beaten the S&P 500 over 30 years. In my latest piece for @thetimes, I explain why that's a poor guide to the next 30. A Bank of England working paper found falling real interest rates more than explain UK house price growth relative to incomes from 1985 to 2018. About two-thirds of that fall has since reversed. On £250,000, the old growth rate is worth about £7,200 a year after inflation. On the OBR's latest forecast, about £1,250. 👉 If you're thinking of investing in a buy-to-let, this is the question to ask: Would the rent alone still justify a second property? 🤔 #BuyToLet #UKproperty

Someone put this to me the other day: 'I hold one fund, a Vanguard LifeStrategy fund, 70 per cent shares and 30 per cent bonds. Is one fund enough, or should I pick another one to go with it?' Its a fair question, but the instinct behind it is usually wrong. A second fund feels like spreading your risk. Often it does the opposite. Take the shares side of it. More than 60 per cent of a global tracker is already invested in US companies. Put half your money into a US tracker alongside it and that rises to over 80 per cent. Two funds, one country, less spread than you started with. As I explain in my latest TEBI video, I made that mistake for years. Fund after fund, each one meant to widen my net, most of them holding the same companies I already owned. The part of the question that really does deserve careful thought is the 70/30 itself. How much of your money belongs in shares is a hugely important decision, and one I'll tackle in a future video. #Investing #Funds #FinancialEducation

Ask a fund manager if active management is finished, and watch what happens to their language. Professor Crawford Spence from King's Business School interviewed 28 of them for a new study. The answers, he explains, start out measured. Push a little harder and they shift: talk of cycles, equilibriums, a return to form that's always just round the corner. It sounds less like strategy. More like faith. There are links to the full video and to Professor Spence's paper in the comments. #FundManagement #ActiveManagement

𝗖𝗮𝘀𝗵 𝗽𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝟱%. 𝗦𝗼 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗹? 🤔 It's an important question to ask, so what does the historical evidence tell us? Barclays says UK shares beat cash in 91% of ten-year periods since 1899. But a 2016 study by @paullewismoney found a FTSE tracker beat top savings rates only half the time. For my latest article for @MoneyWeek, I reran the numbers on fresh data: MSCI indices against actual best-buy savings rates, not the headline Bank Rate. The result: over rolling ten-year periods since December 2000, cash beat shares just 9% of the time. Cash isn't a bad choice. I explain in the article why I myself hold more cash than I used to. But the size of your cash pile should be a deliberate choice, not one today's rate decides for you. #Savings #Investments

People like to read stock tips. And nowadays they're everywhere. One in five UK investors uses social media to research investments. In an FCA survey of younger investors, 43 per cent said it was their main research tool. But, as my latest article in @thetimes explains, the academic evidence shows they don't provide information you can actually profit from.. at least, not in the long run. And that includes stockpicking columns in national newspapers. The latest study concludes that share tips on Instagram are little more than "digital financial entertainment". I realise of course that, for many people, stock trading is a hobby, and that's absolutely fine.. as long as you can afford to take the risk and realise that it's just a bit of fun. But if your goal is to maximise your net returns, you're much better off using low-cost index funds. #EvidenceBasedInvesting #ShareTips #StockPicking #StockTrading

In most professions, average is fine. An average dentist can still fill a tooth. An average plumber can still fix a leak. Craig Lazzara started out as an active manager. He wasn't bad at it. But he came to realise his results were little better than average. Then he read an article by another active manager, Hal Arbit. It changed how Craig saw his industry, and eventually his career. He went on to spend years at S&P Dow Jones Indices, home of the SPIVA scorecards. In the full TEBI video (link in the comments), he explains how the industry keeps thriving when so few managers deliver, and what the most important skill in fund management REALLY is. #EvidenceBasedInvesting #ActiveManagement