By Matthew Kneller
At this time of year we are often bombarded with articles in the press about making New Year’s resolutions especially where our investments are concerned.
However, there is just one New Year’s resolution that people need to make with regard to their investments and that is to hire a Chartered Financial Planner.
A Chartered Financial Planner has the appropriate skills to help you review and analyse your current investment portfolio; to help you identify your investment goals and objectives and to design and implement a suitable investment strategy to help you achieve these.
Investment Strategy
The financial press will provide tips and predictions for the next hot investment fund for 2014, which is just noise to distract us from our financial planning goals. Having a coherent investment strategy in place is so much more important than trying to identify a single investment fund that you hope will out-perform.
It is very easy to be distracted by all of the noise in the media and a good Chartered Financial Planner will help you steer the correct course, focused on achieving your goals and objectives, while taking into account your risk profile and investment time horizon.
Tax Efficiency
A Chartered Financial Planner will also ensure that your investment portfolio is structured as tax efficiently as possible. Many people pay too much tax because they fail to use their ISA allowances each year, don’t make use of their annual Capital Gains Tax exemption each year, or fail to invest family assets in the name of the lowest rate tax payer.
Regular Reviews
It is important to review an existing investment portfolio, especially if it hasn’t been looked at for a long time. Over time, investment portfolios can become skewed to a particular asset class, or may become disconnected from your risk profile. Also, the portfolio may contain under-performing investment funds that it would make sense to replace.
Going forwards an investment portfolio should be reviewed regularly – at least every year – to ensure that you are on track to achieve your goals and objectives.
So if you are going to make one resolution this year my advice is to hire yourself a Chartered Financial Planner.
To discuss your investment portfolio with one of our Chartered Financial Planners, please do give us a call on 01249 700404 or email matthew.kneller@fp-fp.co.uk
Disclaimer
This article contains the current opinions of the author and does not represent a personal recommendation. Information contained herein has been obtained from reliable sources but cannot be guaranteed. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission from Fresh Perspective Financial Planning Ltd.