Sounds a bit investment/tech/nerdy, I know. The ’60/40’ portfolio is what we call ‘Balanced’, with 60% in shares, 40% in fixed interest bonds, loans to companies and governments. The theory is that when shares go down, the money goes into bonds and they go up and balance the fall. Now if I had a fiver (would have said a £ before inflation hit again) for every time I’ve heard a new fund manager on the block say this is a thing of the past, I’d invest it all in a balanced fund. No, it doesn’t always work; but then nothing does, otherwise we’d all be millionaires and it would be easy. The thing is, it works more often than it doesn’t, which means that if you hang on in there, you will do OK and it will balance in the end. And if it’s not OK, it’s not, of course, the end yet…
“Record year for annuity sales driven by advisers”
I was asked this week whether annuities are now ‘a good investment’. They’ve been recommended very rarely in recent years, since ‘pension freedoms’ allowed pretty much unlimited drawdown on pension funds and anything left to be passed on to beneficiaries free of Inheritance Tax.