Money Makers

In this week’s Money Makers podcast Jonathan Davis talks to Keith Ashworth-Lord, manager of the Sanford DeLand UK Buffetology fund, about his investment philosophy and current portfolio. A former City analyst, Mr Ashworth-Lord has put in a strong performance since moving into fund management with his specialist small and mid-cap fund. Many professional investors name check Warren Buffett as an inspiration, but what exactly are the key principles that other professional investors can usefully incorporate into their methods - and how well do they translate to the UK market?

In our latest Money Makers podcast we turn our attention to venture capital trusts, specialist investment vehicles which put investors’ capital to work in higher risk, early-stage businesses. VCTs, as they are known, offer significant potential tax benefits for those prepared to risk their money in this way. This year the marketing of VCTs has started earlier than normal. Why is that – and what else do potential investors need to know about the VCT market this year? Are the tax benefits worth the rewards? Chris Hutchinson, lead manager of the £150m Unicorn AIM VCT, the largest VCT specialising in AIM-listed companies, is the man on the other side of the microphone for this in-depth discussion.

What the oil price does next is key: Fund manager Charlie Morris gives his take on where markets are heading In this week’s Money Makers podcast, one of our regular big picture market roundups, Jonathan Davis talks to Charlie Morris, Investment Director at Newscape Capital, and editor of the Fleet Street Letter, about the latest developments in the UK and global markets - and what they mean for investors' portfolios. The oil price holds the key to future developments, he argues.

In the latest Money Makers podcast Jonathan Davis returns to talk to a fund manager whose multi-cap equity fund has the distinction, according to research by FE Trustnet, of having outperformed its benchmark in every rolling five year period since 2000 - one of only two funds out of several hundred in the UK All Companies sector to have done so. The fund manager in question is Richard Hallett, whose Marlborough UK Multi-Cap Growth fund, has as its name suggests the freedom to invest across the UK market spectrum, from the Footsie 100 index all the way down to AIM. The fund has returned more than 325% since 2000, when it was originally run by Giles Hargreave, and 295% since 2005 when Richard Hallett took it over. I last caught up with this fund manager just over a year ago, before the Brexit referendum.

No need to panic over Brexit or the market In our latest Money Makers podcast Chris Sexton, Investment Director of Saunderson House, a fee-based wealth management firm, offers his perspective on the outlook for markets, cautions against reading too much into media headlines and explains why investment returns are likely to be lower from here. Saunderson House specialises in providing financial planning and portfolio management services to private clients, including many lawyers, accountants and other City professionals.

What is a fair fee to pay for the services of a wealth manager or financial adviser? There is a widespread suspicion that in many cases the answer is: less than you are paying now - if only you could get behind the figures to find out what the real all-in costs, including add-ons, actually are. Next year new regulations will force managers of other people’s money to disclose much more information about their charges. In this latest podcast Jonathan Davis asks Graham Harrison, MD of Asset Risk Consultants (ARC), the company that monitors the performance of the great majority of private client firms in the UK, to explain how he thinks investors should work out what a fair fee is - and how best to get value for money in future. If Canadian experience is any guide, he says, the results could well surprise you - this is a must listen for anyone whose money is professionally managed.

In our latest podcast the independent economist Peter Warburton explains why he thinks we are heading for a period of stagflation - a combination of slow growth and rising inflation - which will require investors to make changes in the way they allocate their investment assets.

The Investment trust sector has changed a lot over the past 20 years, as traditional buyers in wealth management firms retreat and a new generation of more sophisticated DIY investors look to exploit the advantages of closed-end funds. In the latest Money Makers podcast, Nick Greenwood, manager of Miton Global Opportunities, a specialist investment trust fund, discusses these changes with Money Makers editor Jonathan Davis and highlights the themes and special situations that have been driving his trust’s own strong recent performance.

While the UK and French elections are grabbing all the market and media attention, the most important issue most investors face is to get their medium- and long-term asset allocation right – which means getting the right side of the underlying cycles that drive market behaviour beyond the noise and excitement of immediate political events. Few market analysts are as well placed to make those judgments as Robin Griffiths, the Head of Multi-Asset Research at ECU, who has been analysing the ups and downs of financial market cycles in the City for no fewer than five decades. In this wide-ranging podcast, the latest in the Money Makers series, editor Jonathan Davis asked him for his views on how each of the major asset classes are likely to develop from here, starting with the bond market – the key to everything else.

Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election on June 8th took Westminster and the financial markets by surprise. What does it mean for the Brexit negotiations and investors? That was the question I discuss this week with three leading market commentators in a special edition of the Money Makers weekly podcast. The three expert voices you will hear are those of Mark Dampier, Head of Research at Hargreaves Lansdown, the UK’s largest online broker, Charles Morris, editor of the Fleet Street Letter, and Tim Price, the founder of Price Value Partners, and a regular commentator in Money Week and other publications.