9
December
2011
A brief summary of some of the main changes arising from the latest Budget with particular emphasis on the main changes to savings, investments, pensions and capital taxes.
To read the full article, please click the link
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9
December
2011
In this brief review of the 20th Century, we consider current events in the context of Global history and conclude that our perception of how bad things are today is probably being excessively influenced by the media to the extent that on average many of us view current conditions to be far worse
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21
November
2011
"A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood... A day will come when we shall see ... the United States of America and the United States of Europe, face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas." Victor Hugo 1848
What a contrast
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7
November
2011
There has been some ongoing debate recently about value vs growth investing strategies and which is more risky.
We believe that investors are compensated with higher expected returns for bearing higher investment risk.
Research from leading financial economists has identified two r
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2
July
2011
As the USA celebrates it's 235th birthday, Wall Street was in a generous mood by giving nearly a trillion dollars in gains this week. To be more precise, the US stock market rose every day this week, increasing by a total of 5.6 percent, as measured by the broadest US stock index, the Wilshire 50
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27
June
2011
The papers were again full of recommendations at the weekend for concerned Irish investors to buy currencies as a way of hedging against Euro risk.
We repeat that we believe this is a bad investment strategy since it requires an investor to guess which currencies will "win" again
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6
January
2011
Does Monetary Expansion Stoke Inflation?
Since the financial crisis hit in late 2008, the US monetary base has more than doubled, from about $800 billion in mid-2008 to about $2 trillion in November 2010. When the Federal Reserve announced a second round of quantitative ea
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12
December
2010
It is often said that the markets are driven by two emotions: fear and greed.
We also know that on average savers and investors can be excessively influenced by current events and led to believe that the risks are lower than they are (for example as recently seen in the property market or
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9
July
2010
From time to time, we are asked for an opinion about some investment "opportunity". A while ago we were being asked if "now" was a good time to buy Irish Bank stocks and more recently the conversation has turned towards the opportunity to invest in BP plc created by the Gulf o
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22
June
2010
Many commentators are currently claiming that gold is in a speculative bubble and that therefore the price is sure to collapse shortly.
We believe that attempting to form a portfolio based on predictions of the future is bound to fail simply because the future is uncertain.News and events
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