Investment Advice

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Accept the price

Focus on what you can control. Don’t try to beat the markets. There’s a huge amount of evidence proving that the majority of fund managers don’t win over the long term. Accept the stock market is tough to beat and don’t try to pick shares or managers.

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Beware of market gurus

Advance with science - not speculation. Understand risk and return are related. Investors hoping for high returns with low risk can only be certain of disappointment. There are no magic tricks for getting around this.

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Control your costs

Keep your expenses and turnover low. Small differences add up to large ones over time. Investing is the one area in life where you don’t get what you pay for, as typically the more it costs, the less you get back. Active buying and selling adds significant cost and erodes value.

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Spread your risk

Diversify widely. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Diversifying your investments, which means spreading them around as much as possible, is a simple and sensible way of reducing risk.

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Be discliplined

Control your emotions and think long-term. Buying high and selling low sounds mad. But suprisingly, it's what lots of people do. They panic. You need to take emotion out of the process and invest for the long term. Anything else is speculation.

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Stay balanced

Let markets work for you. Focus on the investment mix. There are two things you can do with your money. You can lend it to someone, like a bank or a company. Or, you can own things, like property or shares. Finding the right mix between lending and ownership is crucial.

This way of investing works

Significant research proves it.

We’ve got a track record to back it up too.

To find out more about how we achieve this, download our Investment Policy Statement.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do we use Dimensional Mutual Funds (DFA)?

We believe DFA funds will improve your investment results for the following reasons:

Simple indexing. We eliminate manager risk, and the human emotional need to think they can “beat the market”. We also eliminate the cost associated with their compensation, which as many of you know, is never a small number. The benefit to you? Less risk, and significantly lower cost.
Simple diversification. We expand the number of asset classes in your portfolio to further reduce risk. Our basic portfolios employ a 4-step process to maximise your earnings potential.
Smart indexing. Some insider language: we go a step beyond market cap based indexes, by taking advantage of the higher returns associated with small cap and value priced equities – per the Fama/French research. In short, a smarter approach to indexing.
Smart allocation. Our approach lets us determine the highest return for the least amount of risk in any asset class. For you geeks, we go a step beyond “naïve” diversification using a technique called “mean variance optimisation.” The results, in plain English, are risk-calibrated portfolios.

What is your investment strategy?

We employ a “buy and hold” strategy. We believe the science of that approach is sound, because we believe that over time, no one can time the market. We adhere to a few simple principles:

Markets are efficient and for investment purposes assets are fairly priced.
Diversification reduces the risk of uncertainty and asset allocation across asset classes determines your results.

The focus for the investor should always be how much can you, the investor, risk losing, and how long are you willing to stay invested in the market.

Do you provide financial planning?

Yes. We don’t believe in investment without knowing where you are going and advocate always having a financial plan in place before making any form of investment decision.

Why does our independence matter to you?

Being independent from an investment perspective means we give investment advice but we don't manage money. This is in contrast to private banks, discretionary fund managers and brokers who are paid to offer you their own in-house solution. Because we don't have any conflict of interest when we recommend where you invest - you have far greater peace of mind to know our recommended solutions are in your best interest.

A way of investing that works

Significant research proves our method works

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This way of investing works

Frequently Asked Questions

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