Our Blogs

Concerns about the Wisdom of the Collective*

Brandon Zietsman - December 5, 2018

The last couple of years haven’t been a great ad for democracy. The Brexit and Trump phenomenon is not just crazy stuff that you can shrug off. Although these are different events with somewhat overlapping aetiologies, they go straight to the heart of our identity in liberal democracies and raise lots of questions. The fact that we know WHY these...

Riding out the storms

The grey clouds of Brexit and other political storms may be directly overhead but here at...

Why IFAs should dare to outsource their Investment Management

Just recently, there’s been a spate of articles in the financial trade press highlighting the...

Composure in tough market conditions

A rough year

Smart, not hard

Putting the hours in has always been linked with success in business but these days it’s not about...

Thrills and chills at the PA 360 North event

The Professional Adviser 360 North event in Warrington (17 October) was excellent, with a packed...

Outsourced investments and fees: advisers can square the circle

‘Advisers shun DFMS to justify fees’ is the headline in a recent Portfolio Adviser article. The...

The platform debate and why it’s not wise to put the cart before the horse

I’m off to Warrington soon to attend the Professional Adviser 360 North event on 17 October. The...

Time to crack open the Champagne

We won! Having been shortlisted for three Citywire Investment Performance Awards 2018, we are...

It’s all in the planning next week

Next week will see me heading to Birmingham to attend the Financial Planning Annual Conference (1-2...

Lots to discuss at MMI Harrogate

Last week my colleague, Bruce Ely-Johnston, and I attended the Money Marketing Interactive event in...

See you in Harrogate this Thursday?

I spend a fair amount of time on the road with my job, usually visiting advisers in their offices....

Segmentation and its role in attracting the right clients

Updated: 23 March, 2020

Recommendations built on misaligned assumptions are a risky business

If you are using a third-party risk profiler to assess your clients’ risk appetites and an...

Advisers need a process for change

In a study by Platforum, as reported in Portfolio Adviser recently, it found that advisers are...

Quants and Quals in fund selection

We have our brains and our hearts, the former being a complex organ capable of learning, computing...

Free for all in the fund industry

How low can you go could be the new mantra among the behemoths of the passive fund world, now...

Summertime and the living is…slightly uneasy

In spite of the lovely warm, sunny weather, the political and economic storm clouds are definitely...

FCA acts on labelling disconnect

It’s been a bugbear for PortfolioMetrix for many years so we’re delighted the FCA has decided to...

No ‘land of the free’ for advisers

In the week that Donald Trump is due to arrive in the UK (Friday 13th!), my thoughts naturally turn...

Don’t sacrifice clients to win the compliance war

I was interested to read a Professional Adviser article where one adviser firm is considering...

Agent as Client still causing confusion

I was interested to read a recent article by Alan Hughes in Money Marketing which highlighted the...

No chance of being tee’d off at PIMS 2018

The greens looked in great shape from afar but there was no time to get the golf clubs out at this...

Adam Smith and the pin factory

I was talking with an adviser recently and recalled Adam Smith’s visit to a pin factory described...

Let’s not mention the golf…

This week I’ll be heading off for two days at a luxury hotel set in 300 acres of lush Hertfordshire...

Why it’s never wise to get caught with your hand in the fire

Do you ever remember using the excuse ‘but everyone else was doing it too’ when caught doing...

What would Mary Berry do…?

It’s Easter and my healthy eating intentions are being compromised by the aroma of hot cross buns....

Bond bombshell?

There’s no doubt that bonds are not looking particularly attractive at the moment. Whilst equities...

The Devil’s in the Detail

How is MiFID II for you? Many advisers spent the latter part of 2017 working out what they should...

Are you sitting (too) comfortably?

As I look out on a snowy landscape, delivered courtesy of the ‘beast from the east’, I’m extremely...

Bitcoin – The One-Liners

There’s a lot of buzz around cryptocurrencies and their place in the financial landscape (the...

Blame it on the KIDs

A blog by FinaMetrica, specialists in risk tolerance tools, caught my eye recently. It focuses on...

Don’t be shy about technology … even if you are retiring

I was interested to read an article by Malcolm Kerr in a recent edition of Money Marketing in which...

Special Report: The Problem with Cryptocurrencies

Society has been abuzz with a slew of new jargon such as blockchain (originally block chain),...

Avoiding the crash and burn of investing for performance

Being custodians of your clients’ money carries much responsibility and, ultimately, it is...

Is outsourcing investment management value for money?

Does outsourcing to a discretionary fund manager (DFM) or discretionary investment manager (DIM)...

The Platform Revolution

Technology has revolutionised all our lives in a very short space of time. Just look at smart...

MiFID II reporting and the 10 per cent rule

Navigating investment markets is tricky, and this is particularly true of the eerily quiet markets...

Is the DIY investment model holding your business back?

Platforum, the research and insights company that works with UK platform providers, fund managers,...

Keep talking

A recent email I received had a link to the findings of a survey conducted with 1400 advisers in...

Discretionary permissions: big win or small window of opportunity?

According to a recent article in Money Marketing, more advisers are looking to bring investments...

Riding the winds of change - Central Investment Propositions and why your business needs one

Leading advisers are always looking for ways to future-proof their businesses, improve their...

Value in Europe

Developed European equities have had a pretty good run recently, with the MSCI Europe in euros up...

Everyone loves an ice-cream

During my working days, I get to speak to a lot of financial advisers and most are grappling with...

Eurozone Investing - Cautious Optimism

Things are looking up for the eurozone economy, no doubt aided by market-friendly election results,...

Home cooked or half baked?

A few weeks ago, an email from Platforum landed in my inbox which featured a list of stats about...

Health warning for adviser DFM/DIM contracts

Last week an article in FP Today, the daily news website for financial planners, paraplanners and...

Real value of advice is in planning, not sales

Financial advisers – or financial planners as many prefer to be called – belong to a profession...

The Pitfalls of Commercial Property Funds

Commercial property has been marketed as an asset class with an attractive yield, low volatility...

Read the small print or risk a fine

Last week the Personal Finance Society (PFS) announced an addendum to their Good Practice Guide...

Trump as an antidote for Trumpism

People who choose not to follow the news, domestically and globally, are missing out on the finest...

Not all about the money

Jam today but what about tomorrow?

Interesting headline in last week’s Citywire Wealth Manager: Trusting the unknown: 91% of people...

D2C and the model portfolio dilemma

Vanguard’s recent launch of an online investment platform for UK mass-market investors at a lower...

Income alone not always best for outcome

Income investing, the practice of constructing portfolios to target a specific yield, is popular,...

All at sea when it comes to change

So, I survived the marathon that was the PIMS conference last weekend, onboard the good ship...

Thoughts from a parallel universe

The demands of daily business can be brutal: task-driven and a whirl of meetings and follow-ups....

Elephants and the need to change

This week we held the first The Mix Forum, which brought together advisers and a specialist panel...

A tax break for the smaller investor

PortfolioMetrix recently launched a new process that harvests Capital Gains in a portfolio to make...

The best possible mix-up

HOSTED BY PORTFOLIOMETRIX & PRAEMIUM Tuesday, 25 April 2017 from 08:30 to 13:30 (BST) London,...

Problem Number One and End-game Optionality

Political developments over the last several days have us riveted and this will be true of your...

Stick to the road…

Last week PortfolioMetrix announced the launch of the Select range of model portfolios. Why is this...

And the winner is...

It’s the start of a new week but the team at PortfolioMetrix UK is still basking in the glow of...

Too risky?

Keep calm and carry on. Never has this well used retro phrase seemed more appropriate bearing in...

Economic fallout of “Trumpism” and portfolio positioning

We don’t really know what’ Trumpism’ means in any practical sense. The utterances of this...

Green light for ethical investing

After months of work we’ve launched our Ethical Emphasis investment range, for use alongside our...

Charity begins at home

This week we announced that we’ve reduced our fee in the UK by over 40% for registered charities....

A little less conversation, please

As I’ve documented in my last couple of blogs, I’ve made some changes to my lifestyle to help me...

No gain without pain

Almost three weeks into ‘dry’ January and the strategy of no alcohol and eating healthily is paying...

Just call me Parker m'lady

After the excesses of the festive period I’m having a dry January and February. This has pleased my...

Secret agents with no licence to thrill

I’ve just unwrapped my office Secret Santa present and I’m disappointed. It was beautifully...

Grassing on the competition

Two articles caught my eye last week. The first was an interview in Professional Adviser with the...

PortfolioMetrix Special Report - Trump, Brexit and the Demise of Openness

The Trump victory has left educated people around the world dumbfounded and markets have swooned....

Seeing red for all the wrong reasons

The past couple of weeks have found me knee deep in paint cans at home and it’s left me slightly...

Don't expect your GP to perform heart surgery

Full steam ahead on platforms

The latest news from PortfolioMetrix is that Aegon has added us to their platform, joining...

How to wave goodbye to insistent clients

How would you react if someone grabbed your smartphone and ran off with it? Would you give chase,...

Of Quants and Quals

We have our brains and our hearts, the former being a complex organ capable of learning, computing...

Pass the pyjamas

If you’ve taken a look at our new website, you’ll have noticed we’ve got quite a few videos...

Riding it out on a mattress full of cash

I was interested to read a recent article on FTAdviser.com (Brexit sees surge in insistent clients...

Long Roads, high hopes and Bob Marley

Long roads, high hopes and Bob Marley

Conviction - Blessing or Curse (or both)?

I found myself pondering why “high-conviction” appears so prominently as a virtue in the marketing...

Getting Lucky*

Fancy performance statistics should carry a health warning when it comes to picking a fund manager....

EU Referendum

In March I wrote a piece about Brexit for Ftadviser.com (Brexit: a leap in the dark, 10 March 2016)...

Marathon Man - Dave Chessell reports on his time at PIMS

I feel like Eddie Izzard. Well, not exactly. While Eddie recently completed 27 marathons in 27 days...

Bad Timing

Recent Investment Association fund flow data make for interesting reading. According to the IA, net...

Kick the tyres of the tyre kickers

An article featuring the results of a survey that asked advisers about their attitudes to...

A dose of your own medicine

Following on from my blog last week [Kick the tyres of the tyre kickers] which referenced the fact...

Going for an eyebrow lift

It’s interesting that some excellent independent advisers are selling up to large insurance...

Partners with no interest make the best relationships

I’m pleased to say we have great relationships with the financial advisers who choose to use our...

The Balanced Funds that short-change Investors

Here at PortfolioMetrix our investment philosophy is fundamentally risk-based because we believe...

Enjoying a sunset or under a cloud?

There’s just three months before the sun finally sets on platform rebates thus ending trail...

Change: As good as a rest?

Received wisdom is that nobody likes change. Is that really true? Surely change is what keeps life...

I didn't order spaghetti!

Barely a day goes by without an article appearing in the UK financial adviser trade press flagging...

ROBO-Advice: should you be worried?

Does talk of ROBO-advice give you an Orwellian moment or are you sanguine about the impact it will...

I'm interested in

Concerns about the Wisdom of the Collective*

Riding out the storms

Why IFAs should dare to outsource their Investment Management

Composure in tough market conditions

Smart, not hard

Thrills and chills at the PA 360 North event

Outsourced investments and fees: advisers can square the circle

The platform debate and why it’s not wise to put the cart before the horse

Time to crack open the Champagne

It’s all in the planning next week

Lots to discuss at MMI Harrogate

See you in Harrogate this Thursday?

Segmentation and its role in attracting the right clients

Recommendations built on misaligned assumptions are a risky business

Advisers need a process for change

Quants and Quals in fund selection

Free for all in the fund industry

Summertime and the living is…slightly uneasy

FCA acts on labelling disconnect

No ‘land of the free’ for advisers

Don’t sacrifice clients to win the compliance war

Agent as Client still causing confusion

No chance of being tee’d off at PIMS 2018

Adam Smith and the pin factory

Let’s not mention the golf…

Why it’s never wise to get caught with your hand in the fire

What would Mary Berry do…?

Bond bombshell?

The Devil’s in the Detail

Are you sitting (too) comfortably?

Bitcoin – The One-Liners

Blame it on the KIDs

Don’t be shy about technology … even if you are retiring

Special Report: The Problem with Cryptocurrencies

Avoiding the crash and burn of investing for performance

Is outsourcing investment management value for money?

The Platform Revolution

MiFID II reporting and the 10 per cent rule

Is the DIY investment model holding your business back?

Keep talking

Discretionary permissions: big win or small window of opportunity?

Riding the winds of change - Central Investment Propositions and why your business needs one

Value in Europe

Everyone loves an ice-cream

Eurozone Investing - Cautious Optimism

Home cooked or half baked?

Health warning for adviser DFM/DIM contracts

Real value of advice is in planning, not sales

The Pitfalls of Commercial Property Funds

Read the small print or risk a fine

Trump as an antidote for Trumpism

Not all about the money

Jam today but what about tomorrow?

D2C and the model portfolio dilemma

Income alone not always best for outcome

All at sea when it comes to change

Thoughts from a parallel universe

Elephants and the need to change

A tax break for the smaller investor

The best possible mix-up

Problem Number One and End-game Optionality

Stick to the road…

And the winner is...

Too risky?

Economic fallout of “Trumpism” and portfolio positioning

Green light for ethical investing

Charity begins at home

A little less conversation, please

No gain without pain

Just call me Parker m'lady

Secret agents with no licence to thrill

Grassing on the competition

PortfolioMetrix Special Report - Trump, Brexit and the Demise of Openness

Seeing red for all the wrong reasons

Don't expect your GP to perform heart surgery

Full steam ahead on platforms

How to wave goodbye to insistent clients

Of Quants and Quals