Roy Walker IFA - Financial Adviser In Dubai

Introduction To some degree, currency risk is embedded in the portfolios of every international investor. So it’s surprising that such an important topic is often ignored, mismanaged, or misunderstood from both outside and inside the financial planning industry. Given that global currency movements are prominent in the headlines right now, it seems like good timing to have a quick review of currency risk, and safety-check that the currency exposure of our personal investment portfolio is in line with our objectives. What Is Currency Risk and Where Does It Come From? Most people who live and work internationally have experienced first-hand the impact of positive or negative currency movements; this is currency risk (also called exchange rate risk). Maybe you’re sending money home each month to pay your mortgage, and payments are easier than before because you get paid in a stronger currency. Or maybe your child wants to attend university in a country whose currency has appreciated again...

After a nervous start to 2017 for investors, growth continued and the year ended on a higher note than most expected.  As we enter 2018, it’s a good time to survey the global economy and decide if our asset allocation is still appropriate. In this article I aim to address these straightforward questions: Will there be a recession in 2018? How cautious should I be in my investment approach? Where are the investment opportunities for the year ahead? What asset classes should I overweight or underweight in my portfolio? I will also reveal why an ox weight-guessing competition, held in 1906 at the West of England Fat Stock and Poultry Exhibition, helps us derive more useful information than individual leading economists do about the risk of imminent recession. This is good stuff, you really should read on! Please share this article! >> Review of Key Economic Reports Remembering the First Law of Economists , it’s a good idea to conduct a broad survey of what ...

A private investor, paying attention to the debates of the last twenty-five or so years, would have found himself enjoying moments of seeming clarity and enlightenment from the research and academic papers, only to be confounded by their misinterpretation in much of the material targeted to retail markets. What follows in this article is not a rigorous analysis, but a short overview of some of the academic discussion on portfolio construction. Markowitz 1952 In 1952, Harry Markowitz published a paper entitled “Portfolio Selection” .  Universally accepted as groundbreaking thought, Markowitz’s paper essentially took the common wisdom ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ and looked at the mathematics and theory behind optimising an investment portfolio. Markowitz characterised risk as variance of returns (‘V’), the extent to which price volatility introduces uncertainty into anticipated returns (‘E’).  Diversification helps reduce portfolio variance, but the returns from secu...