Stock Market Summary Wednesday 29th February 2012

Posted by Stephen Sutherland on Wed, Feb 29, 2012 @ 11:10 AM

Yesterday’s market action was positive.

The Nasdaq Composite made another new high and this time it was accompanied by above average trading volume. When an index makes new highs on above average trade it means there is institutional demand for stocks at these levels.

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Tags: Stock Market Summary

Moving into an ISA cash park when a bear market surfaces

Posted by Stephen Sutherland on Tue, Feb 28, 2012 @ 01:30 PM

If your plan is to outperform the stock market over the long-term, you absolutely have to know the market's current state of health. Is it in a healthy uptrend, meaning it is safe to invest, or is it showing signs of an unhealthy downtrend? If it's the later, you should be out on the sidelines in the safety of an ISA cash park.

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Tags: Better protection, Achieving your investment goals

Stock Market Summary Tuesday 28th February 2012

Posted by Stephen Sutherland on Tue, Feb 28, 2012 @ 11:05 AM

Yesterday’s market action was positive.

At the open the indexes dropped. However a bullish reversal helped the indexes end the day well off their lows.

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Tags: Stock Market Summary

7 SIPP investing mistakes that can damage your capital's growth

Posted by Stephen Sutherland on Sat, Feb 25, 2012 @ 01:30 PM

In this post I'll look at 7 of the most common SIPP investing mistakes. A Self-Invested Personal Pension (or SIPP) is the name given to the type of UK-government-approved personal pension scheme, which allows individuals to make their own investment decisions from the full range of investments approved by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

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Tags: Better performance, SIPP investing tips, Achieving your investment goals

Are you getting value for money from your investment adviser?

Posted by Paul Sutherland on Thu, Feb 23, 2012 @ 02:10 PM

In this post, I'd like to take you through the likely performance of financial or investment adviser over a ten year time span. We'll then compare this to ISACO. We'll use an investor with a £250,000 ISA and SIPP portfolio as an example.

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Tags: Achieving your investment goals

Stock Market Summary Wednesday 22nd February 2012

Posted by Stephen Sutherland on Wed, Feb 22, 2012 @ 12:28 PM

Yesterday's market action was neutral.

The market indexes closed mixed, but even though the Nasdaq did pullback during the session we did see some buying as it approached the closing bell, giving it a tight close. The S&P 600 ended the day in the red and with volume coming in around average gives us a day of professional distribution.

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Tags: Stock Market Summary

Shadow Investing: My personal experience over the last 12 years

Posted by Paul Sutherland on Tue, Feb 21, 2012 @ 02:10 PM

My name is Paul Sutherland, I'm ISACO's Managing Director and a regular contributor to this blog. In this post, I wanted to share my personal experience of Shadow Investing over the last eleven years*.

I have been Shadow Investing my brother Stephen since the year 2000. Stephen Sutherland is ISACO's Chief Investment Strategist and bestselling author of Liquid Millionaire. Stephen is one of the UK's leading growth fund investors and a regular commentator on business television, radio, personal finance newspapers, magazines and other investment media.

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Tags: Better performance, Investment strategy, Investment Guidance Service

ISA allowances history and why adding the maximum makes sense

Posted by Paul Sutherland on Thu, Feb 16, 2012 @ 01:30 PM

Today I want to share with you an overview of historic ISA allowances. This is important as it shows the true potential of what’s possible when investing in ISAs. ISA history also ties in very nicely with Tip #7, ‘Invest the Max’ from our Top 10 Tips for Successful ISA Investing

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Tags: ISA investing tips, Achieving your investment goals

The consequences of poor investment performance

Posted by Paul Sutherland on Tue, Feb 14, 2012 @ 02:00 PM

Today I would like to share a true but shocking statistic with you. Did you know that 80-90% of financial advisers underperform the stock market. This means that most advisers will achieve less than the FTSE 100’s growth.

This underperformance by advisers can have serious consequences for investors. Over the last twelve years, if you’d been taking your guidance from an adviser, your performance will probably be either in line with the FTSE 100’s 19.6% cumulative loss or possibly worse.

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Tags: Better performance, Achieving your investment goals

Our Investment Outlook for February 2012

Posted by Stephen Sutherland on Fri, Feb 10, 2012 @ 02:15 PM

For 2012, my expectations and outlook remain the same as they were at the beginning of the year. I expect my benchmark the Nasdaq Composite to make a gain in excess of 18.3% and my aim is to outperform the Nasdaq.

The year has started with a bang. The Nasdaq Composite has returned extremely impressive year to date gains of 11.5%. The FTSE 100 is up a respectable 5.9%, and my account is up 10.6%.

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Tags: Investment outlook

HIRE CAR™ – How to quickly find quality investment funds

Posted by Stephen Sutherland on Wed, Feb 08, 2012 @ 02:10 PM

HIRE CAR™ is a screening tool I created to help me quickly find quality investment funds.

Funds are managed and controlled by a professional fund manager. The manager makes investment decisions on what companies to buy and what to sell.

When the market is healthy, my aim is to find the best fund manager using HIRE CAR™ as my guide. Here's a brief introduction to its track record.

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Tags: Investment funds, Better performance, Investment strategy

Is now a good time to invest?

Posted by Paul Sutherland on Mon, Feb 06, 2012 @ 03:15 PM

One of the questions we are most often asked by potential investors is a simple one - 'is now a good time to invest?'.

In a recent edition of our monthly premium client newsletter The Big Picture, Stephen Sutherland, our Chief Investment Strategist, wrote:

“My take is and has been for some time now that the market over the next decade will outperform. There are numerous facts and statistics that point to the likelihood of outperformance and the behaviour of the market over the last three years gives me even more reasons to believe a stock market boom may have already begun. My belief is the ‘boom period’ started back in 2009.”

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Tags: Better performance, Investment strategy, Achieving your investment goals

In a bear market parking in cash can protect your ISA & SIPP investments

Posted by Stephen Sutherland on Thu, Feb 02, 2012 @ 02:05 PM

Today I wanted to expand on one of my Top Ten Tips for Successful ISA investing and the tip in question is Tip 4: 'Park in cash during a bear market' (for more on my other nine tips, please just download our Top 10 Tips for Successful ISA Investing).

Your aim as an ISA and SIPP investor should be to profit in rising markets and protect in falling markets. This is not easy to do but is made easier when you understand how market cycles operate.

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Tags: ISA investing tips, Better protection, Investment strategy