"HatTip" - Say What?!

Most purported financial journalism is just advertising, held together on the page with reheated topics and lazy copy.

And an awful lot of that lazy copy (or “financial porn”) is designed to titillate, to sow seeds of doubt, or to get the reader to take action of some sort. Invariably these urges - if acted upon - do more harm than good.

Then, sometimes, you read something that is not so much financial porn as plain baffling. So it was with a recent article from Mark Dampier of Hargreaves Lansdown. For the record, I think this brand is fabulous; not so much for what they do but how they do it: the marketing, website and whole “customer experience” is second to none.

Mr Dampier’s article began by saying how investors have had an uneasy ride since the financial crisis of 2007-9.

To which I thought: “Say what?!” Watch this BAFTA nominated video to find out why: it only runs for a few minutes (though you may think it feels longer).

What should you take out from this?

In essence, when it comes to financial services. do not take things at face value: challenge; question; interrogate. If you do not wish to do this yourself then get a financial planner to do it for you.

Because the surest way to get diverted off your financial plan is to be influenced by external factors that do not have your interests at heart.

"HatTip" - Keeping Things Simple

In financial services the desire to over-complicate seems endemic. Junior ISAs, for example: designed to be for the parents, guardians, parole officers etc of children under 18, Junior ISAs are staple media fodder yet pretty much redundant for the vast majority of people.

Why? Because parents have their own adult ISA allowance of £15,000 each for each and every tax year.

 If parents want to save for their kids' future the adult ISA allowances will be more than enough for nearly everyone; how many couples with young children will be salting away £30,000 a year from taxed earnings, before putting even more aside for the nippers?

"Not many" is the obvious rhetorical answer.

Yet Junior ISAs continue to be a source of fascinatation for  the financial media totally out of proportion to their actual utility. Nobody with a brain should go near them. This short video explains why.

As ever, do not watch this short clip thinking you will be given chapter and verse. I cannot do that in a timely fashion and - if I could - I would be straying into giving advice. Which is uber-naughty.

Enjoy. I hope to hear from you and thanks for your time.