Even if you have a real knack for picking the best fund, if you invest and are wrong about the trend of the market, your portfolio is going to suffer. This happened to thousands of uninformed investors in the great bear markets of 2000–2002 and 2007–2009. Many investors mistakenly think that it is all about choosing the best investments to park your money in.

Each month I write The Big Picture newsletter for our clients, where I outline my current take on the market and its likely direction, as well as the performance of the funds I currently hold in my portfolio.

In this post, we'll look at the market's September breakout and discuss whether it can be sustained. You can find out more in October’s edition of The Big Picture monthly newsletter, which is now available – you can download your complimentary copy here. 

In my last post I looked at the resilience of the stock market and its ability to not only survive turmoil, including recessions, wars and natural disasters, but thrive in the ensuing years.

In this post, we'll look at the strong investment returns delivered by the stock market in the decades immediately following periods of poor investment performance.

There's no doubt that the current climate is a difficult one for investors. But how resilient is the stock market and will it recover? In this post we'll look at the history of the market for an answer.

This is definitely a difficult time to invest. It’s easy to be put off by the markets sudden rises and falls – you will need to keep a clear head when many people are losing theirs. It’s also worth remembering that there can be opportunities when it looks like a bad time to invest.

We are sometimes asked why our annual investment target is 12-15% growth. In short, we set this goal because of our track record of outperforming the stock market. This means we can have a higher investment target than traditional financial advisers.

If you are an investor, you owe it to yourself to know about the Retail Distribution Review (RDR), as it's a key part of the Financial Services Authority's (FSA) consumer protection strategy.

The Retail Distribution Review aims to establish a resilient, effective and attractive retail investment market. This means that you'll be able to have more confidence and trust in the retirement & investment planning advice you receive.

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%.