Warren Buffett the king of aphorism. Perhaps his most famous maxims-quoted endlessly:
“Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful”
“You should invest in companies any idiot could run, eventually one will.”
Clients adopt a do it yourself approach for their investments, typically because of experience of poor investment returns and customer service.
Advantages of the DIY approach
- It’s cheaper doing it myself and I am experienced and good at buying my shares, pension (SIPP), funds and property investments, everybody knows the fantastic returns!
- I don’t trust anyone to manage my money I’m safer managing it myself. I can get advice from the internet and financial press. I can just do it cheaper and simpler and buy a pension (SIPP) direct with a provider or using a stockbroker or discount broker, to buy ETFs, Smart Beta, trackers funds and investments without advice such as ‘Robo Advice’.
- I don’t need a solicitor, I can buy a will at WH Smith, family protection from Tesco and company protection direct, it’s cheaper and I will do it myself.
- I like to manage my own shares with my extensive contacts with knowledge in various businesses and sectors, usually making good money doing this.
Disadvantages of the DIY approach
- We find that clients are good at buying shares and funds. Although many bought very good shares and funds in the past so what’s the disadvantage? The problem is they never sell them. This then creates large potential future tax bills. Typically these shares and funds are retained for too long along with your capital and property over your lifetime, when you or your spouse, civil partner or children can’t access this without paying a large potential tax bill and in addition when you pass away your beneficiaries and children may also then have to pay an inheritance tax bill.
- Anonymous recommendations by contributors (who have unknown agendas) and reviews on internet forums and press? That might be fine for choosing a restaurant for dinner, but not for serious investment decisions. Fund managers have different investment approaches and expertise that suit different markets and asset classes. Asset managers do not want you to know that no one individual or firm is good at everything. Managers change roles and companies regularly. Is your fund manager happy or currently looking for another job? There are tremendous tax benefits for either investing onshore or offshore. Funds divided tax efficiently between spouses, children and civil partners, to utilise all their unused personal allowances is an ideal way to mitigate and potentially reduce the future rates of income, capital gains tax and IHT suffered.You do not want to leave the pressure of managing your investments, on top of losing you, to your beneficiaries. Is your company pension scheme or SIPP correctly set up with the right trust in place?
- All we can say is the Inland Revenue/HMRC love these DIY wills. Who do you want your money and assets to go to? The Inland Revenue or your children? There are tremendous income and tax benefits that all your family, company protection, PHI and Pensions plans, are all paid either by your employer/company or by yourself and set up correctly in an appropriate trust. When was the last time this was all reviewed?
- So what’s the problem? Suddenly your sector or that good share becomes unfashionable and out of favour with the markets. Lloyds together with Barclays, both have been badly hit, Glencore, VW combined with concerns and BP as an example, joined the FTSE index in 1977 and suffered the loss of approximately 50% of its value from the gulf of Mexico disaster and the oil price. A major disadvantage of a DIY portfolio is it doesn’t have active management, diversification and is typically invested mainly in UK ordinary shares only. Unsuccessful shares and funds held can be an advantage to you by crystallising the losses which are very valuable to you.
We deal with people who have neither the time nor inclination to manage their own money, who want to outsource to someone who can do it for them.
We welcome clients who would like to be informed. We are confident about the quality of our independent, free from any restrictions on advice and service. To back this up, give you peace of mind, we can organise for new clients to speak to any of our clients at random direct to confirm these facts. We are happy to arrange a meeting without any obligation, for both parties.
Our recommended client portfolios are independently assessed with active management and regular reviews and proactive guidance. Our recommended portfolios will have access to different fund management styles and management groups whilst incorporating exposure to both onshore and offshore funds, different asset classes, tax planning tailored to client’s personalised risk profiles and objectives.
