I do love that quote. One of my favourites, and it certainly rang true for me.

I remember my first payslip from my first full time job – being shouted at on the phonelines of Prudential/Capita – and I was quite taken aback. All that money, just for me, and no rent to pay, no bills, etc? Like winning the lottery.

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Anyway, we are back up and running on the monthly newsletter after a brief hiatus.

First off, thank you to everyone for their well-wishes following the birth of our second child, a daughter called Orla. Mum and Orla both doing great, and our first-born Finlay is adjusting brilliantly.

Not to be “that guy” that goes on about his kids – he says, fully intending to plough ahead regardless – but the first meeting between the two was ultra cute. Little Orla was only about 16 hours old, and her brother was already asking her to “play Lego with Finlay”. Lovely stuff.

Back to the numbers.

Today, amongst other bits and pieces, we’re taking a dive into the upcoming election and what it does (or doesn’t, rather) mean for our investments.

Speaking of investments, we’ll have a nosy into the futility of trying to “time the markets”.

And finally, we’ve got a short story about my positive experience on private medical. Nice to see something that just works.

The Election – Does Your Portfolio Care?

In a word, no, it doesn’t. If that’s all you’re after, you can skip to the next section and be on your merry way.

For a little more detail, let’s set the scene:

The above is courtesy of the good people at Timeline Portfolios.

If anyone can spot a discernible and predictable pattern in the above, please do give me a call. There’s a job waiting for you on this end.

The moral of the story here is that – looking at the evidence from the UK stock market anyway – that the markets don’t really care who is in power.

They want “stability”, as you will have heard a million and one times before.

The great companies of the world, I think, generally want to be left well alone by the state; free to innovate, create, and drive humanity forward.

On the election, the best analysis I’ve seen to date has been from Dan Neidle and his team at Tax Policy Associates.

Timing the Markets, or Time in the Markets

That phrase is a classic. You’ve likely heard it before.

Just like trying to predict the short-term direction of the market, “timing the market”, is generally a futile exercise. What I mean by “timing the market” is trying to judge the correct point when to come out of the market – ideally before the stock market plummets – and when to invest again, or “go back in”. There are quite a few problems with this.

My apologies to the soothsayers amongst us, but yours is a declining profession. There is simply no way to predict the future direction of the stock market accurately and consistently.

As we’ve looked at before, there are some people who can get the big calls right on occasion. Plaudits to them, but the key words in the previous sentence are the last two.

The major difficulty is in making the correct “timing” decision consistently.

For example, in the event that we have correctly divested our portfolio and are happily sitting in cash like a wise old owl, we might be watching a temporary – for they all have been to date! – decline of the stock market.

We’re unaffected on this occasion, so, happy days. Aren’t we clever?!

We can sit tight, and simply waiting for the “right time” to invest again in the market, ideally at the absolute bottom of the current decline.

We will know when that time is, of course we will.

How will we know, you ask?

Look over there, a train!

When we make this inevitable second correct timing call, we can then benefit from the irrepressible rise in stock values again, from a much lower starting point. Genius.

Rinse and repeat until we reach squillionaire status.

Joking aside, what is quite likely to happen, and what I’ve unfortunately seen in practice, is waiting, waiting, and waiting some more, and by the time we are “confident to invest again” the market has risen almost back to its previous level.

By that point, we’ve wasted a heck of a lot of time and energy.

Instead, far better to simply invest as early as we can. Because, as the evidence will show us, the longer we are invested in the stock market, the greater the chance of a positive return.

The good people at HSBC Asset Management have illustrated this well:

Source - HSBC

Private Medical Insurance

This one can divide opinion.

I personally am a fan. Reasoning simply, my view is that if I need something, the convenience is probably worth the cost.

I thought it might be useful to quickly share my experience of using my private medical policy. I required a GP appointment, and usually this would involve submitting an online request to my local practice. I’m then dependent on their significant workload as to when they get back to me. Such is life.

However, the experience via my private medical provider was a different story. The appointment was arranged via their app, and I had an appointment with a qualified GP over video call within an hour. The following morning, I had the prescription that I required.

Very efficient from start to finish.

If this is something you’d like to explore for you/your family, please get in touch and we’ll look at options.

The Optimism Prism

Your monthly dose of the good stuff:

Recommendations

For any new parents reading this – and I know there are a few (congratulations!) – this chap is superb on Instagram. Funny, and oh-so-accurate.

The Acquired podcast. An excellent breakdown of the history of some of the most famous companies in the world. I’m just finishing the Microsoft one (it is a marathon at over 4 hours), and I didn’t know 90% of what the podcast went into. A great level of detail.
Sleep. I hear it’s great, and I’m getting less and less of it (reference: children).

All the best for now, and fingers crossed for some more sunshine as we enter the business end of summer.

Thoughts, comments, and feedback are always gratefully received.

Andy

The compliance bit:

This newsletter is for information purposes and does not constitute financial advice, which should be based on your individual circumstances.
The value of investments may go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invest.
The levels and bases of taxation, and reliefs from taxation, can change at any time. The value of any tax relief depends on individual circumstances.
A pension is a long-term investment, and the value is not guaranteed. Any advice or considerations are again personal to each individual’s circumstances.