The unhelpful noise of short-term performance

It’s hard to resist the temptation of shiny things, says Richard Wood. But resist we must.

Investing is simple, but not easy. The important thing is to do the right thing in the right way. From the start, it’s important to have the foresight to make decisions for the long term, as well as the discipline to avoid spending all your wealth now and having to eat own-brand baked beans out of the tin in retirement.

Secondly, you need to decide how much you want, need, and are able to invest in equities, which will act as the drivers of positive above-inflation returns that will help fund your future spending goals. Getting this right is vital and is where a good adviser can be worth their weight in gold.

Next, an investor has to decide how to structure the equity and bond components of their portfolio. A good place to start is the World Equity, which defines the basic country, sector and company weights, and offers broad diversification.