Investing money starts with informing yourself and learning how others do it. On Friday 19th of October, I had marked The London Investor Show in my calendar.

The London Investor Show is in its ninth year of exhibition and goes from strength to strength with over 12,000 people attending to date. The Expo offers the chance to gain leading industry knowledge and advice with the aim of securing yourself a secure financial future. The aim of this expo is to challenge our ideas on investments and to provide knowledge on leading innovations in the Industry. The Expo program had four presentation tracks making the expo fast paced and informative, running to a tight schedule that is broken up only by the exhibition stands and the opportunity to create connections across the industry.

Here is the program of The London Investor Show. The London Investor Show event guide

So with this full agenda in my hand, I had three objectives and main reasons for visiting this event.

1. Attend mainly presentations to learn how the UK investor invests his money
2. Visit the different booths of the companies, software vendors, banks, magazines, ….
3. Find out about new books, information where we can learn from…

Find below our report of the day and what did we learn?

1. Our Summary of the Presentations

Morning Markets Review – Alpesh Patel

After my registration process, I was able to catch a portion of Mr. Alpesh Patel, professional trader and financial analyst.

Alpesh has more than 220m viewers on his BBC paper review. He has written 18 books translated into 8 languages. He founded 1 asset management company, wrote 200 investment columns for Financial Times and was co-presenter for Bloomberg TV. Alpesh spoke about the US and China Debt situation and why GDP figures matters. The below interesting graph representing the wealth increase between 2010 and 2015 was shown. It represents the Rich World.

If you want to trade the markets, the worst you can do is the following 4 things : 1. Try to guess the news 2. Be in front of the screen all the time 3. Not have a Plan B second income 4. Try to get rich quick. Do it slowly which is far far less stressful and better. As a hedge fund manager, Alpesh provides trading tutorials.

If you want more information about Mr Alpesh Patel, go the following links :

• www.trading-champions.com
• www.pipspredatordaily.com

Sublime Trading – Zaheer Anwari

The next presentation was from Zaheer Anwari,  co-founder of Sublime Trading. He talks about trend trading. It is a style of trading that easily adapts around your current lifestyle and creates long term growth. His trading style of trading generated over 100% profit in 2017 and over 220,000 points to date.

According to Zaheer, the best trading techniques are simple to learn. It saves you a lot of time and disappointment. Most retail traders face the following problems :

1. High probability setups : they don’t understand what are high probability setups
2. Proven strategy : they don’t have a proven strategy
3. Understand risk management : they don’t understand risk management
4. Correct trading plan : they don’t have a correct trading plan
5. Trading psychology : they miss the correct trading mindset

Sublime Trading is a trading community and they perform 40-50 trades a year with high possible gains. They focus on trend trading and longer timeframes. Zaheer shows the stock graphs of TTWO, BSX, DLR, and others with the achieved gains. All trades are available in a audit log of the Pelican trading app.

According to Zaheer, this is not a bear market ! We need to break below 200 SMA = indicator of a BEAR Market. Price is above 200 SMA.

Fundamental trading is flawed because news is already known by institutional investors. Private traders is 100% technical. He doesn’t trade on Wo-Th-Fr. Earnings can result in a gap in your favor or against you. Exit management is the most important skill to learn. The answer : wide pull back and stop loss. Understand support and resistance. Trading stop loss is based of each support and resistance line in relation to your entry. Cut losers short and quickly. Most traders don’t know.

 If you want more information, go the following link : Sublime Trading

 

Trump’s World…Stranger than Fiction – Justin Urquhart Stewart

With an early career that spanned the vineyards of Europe, the docks of Southampton and finance in Asia, Justin went onto establish Broker Services at what became Barclays Stockbrokers. Today he is one of the most recognisable and trusted market commentators on television, radio and in the press. He is also one of the co-founders of 7IM. Together with Tom Sheridan, Justin founded 7IM (www.7im.co.uk) to deliver radical common sense in an industry where that quality is hard to find. As Head of Corporate Development, he ensures the principle of doing the right thing is as powerful today as it was at the outset. As an enthusiast of financial education and service, he is a champion of providing clients the very best, clearly expressed market news and views. Seven Investment management now manages and administers around 5.2 billion pounds on behalf of professional financial wealth managers and intermediaries.

In a well structured presentation, Justin starts off with stating that President Trump has broken the complacency in the world. He imposed trade tariffs on China and other countries. He also broke the Nafta agreement for renegotiations, challenged NATO spending, quit the Iranian deal and gave another push into Korea and the Middle East. But what is the one word that runs an economy? Confidence – Global economy and global growth has been doing quite well. Although with current narratives such as a hawkish Fed, trade wars, the Italian budget and slower China data, this economic outlook is looking dangerous and nasty.

The Quantitative Easing Cure ? We just don’t know future effect yet… We still don’t know about….BREXIT

So in an environment of rising rates, are there rising fears? We know one thing : volatility has returned ! Don’t get frightened. Use the volatility to your advantage !! 2017 we had no volatility. So what has just happened ? Indiscriminate equity market sell-off 6 – 9% past week.

Are there safe places to hide ? Gold?? Gold doesn’t do anything…no yield. You can’t eat it! Let’s take a look at the different economies in the world.

America – Stormy weather

In America we have today an American Sugar Rush. Tax cuts create more issues going forward. The interest rates are rising and the FED has already pencilled 3 more rises. Employment and housing prices are a high level. Consumer confidence is there. America is stil looking alright. All you needed to do in the past years, was to buy America index tracker fund !

Europe

Europe is minus. Although the euro lead to the fact that we got rid of Belgian franc (laughter in the room), the Euro will fail…but not yet. It doesn’t have the discipline of one currency, fiscal policy,one government. It will eventually fall apart. Europe will fall apart in 10-15 years…. Germany has been doing very well. Spain and Portugal still have big unemployment rates. Europe is relative positive..some changes are overall positive. Positive reform for the banks..but will it be enough ?  There is the concern of the right wing Eastern Countries… What about the Italian Budget? Quit Italy? What will be impact of the QE unwind in Europe?

Russia

Let’s be clear. The size of the economy is less than half of the UK. The country is bust! The financial sanctions hurt… Russia is a dangerous power.

China

6,5% – economy is slowing down. In a command control economy, there are restrictions for the population. What is happening ? They are trying to engineer the slow down. Aging population, environment issue, debt issue,…are major issues. Debt can be controlled when government says the company is bust. China is a possible risky bubble. There is no proper measurement and that is a problem. Who is largest owner of US debt ? China..Trump may not know this.

China is trying to find other ways of trading. It can use the yuan currency. China is in transition phase. Did you know that the Services matter more than manufacturing and construction industry ? And they are growing faster !

India – Modi-fication

Amazing reforms. Currency reforms was astonishing. Economy is finally opening up !

Some broken BRICS

52% of world population is in emerging markets – IMPORTANT ! Follow these economies that are today punished.

UK

What about the UK economy and Brexit? Japanese are already divesting away from the UK.  UK is still 5^th biggest economy in the world. Today there are smaller + high tech + more startup companies. This can not be lost !  British economy is doing quite well.

What is the final considered view ? Don’t panic ! The good and the bad news is that the rules have changed. Corporate support and pensions are changing. Interest rates are rising. At the end it’s DOWN TO YOU ! The End Conclusion : Learn how to do financial planning ! Work out your plan !! Manage them across generations. Use the Power of compounding ! A 100 pound invested would result at the end of 71 years in a total value of 181.676 pounds !

Retirement Financial Advice – Charlie Nicol 

People are increasingly approaching retirement having built up a variety of different pension benefits spanning different pension rules. Building up benefits can be easy but knowing how to dismantle your nest egg to provide a retirement income over an unknown timescale can be difficult – the days when retirement was simpler and more certain are long gone. Pension freedoms have created more choice, but with more choice, comes a greater risk of getting it wrong. Charlie Nicol is Retirement Specialist at Fidelity International.

Charlie kicks off how retirement has changed. Retirement and taking your pension were one and the same thing…Three big differences have changed pensions and retirement. Most company pension plans used to be defined benefit (DB). Nowadays most are defined contribution (DC) – so outcome is uncertain. Pre April 2015 most people in the UK used their DC savings at retirement to buy an annuity.

Since 2015 people can take more or less what they want,… Most people used to stop work on a fixed date, often linked to State pension age. Nowadays many move into retirement gradually working reduced hours and working beyond age 65

The retirement age is 67 in the UK. Charlie walks us through a case study of Alex and Nicole and how the cash flow is optimized.

“COUNTDOWN TO BREXIT”: WHAT SHOULD INVESTORS BE DOING TO PREPARE?”

The next session I attended was a roundtable discussion chaired by Alpesh Patel Panel. At the table were Thierry Clarke (Investor Connected) & Toby Finden-Crofts (Research in Finance); Gavin Oldham (Share Radio), Richard Hunter (Head of Markets, Interactive Investor). With Brexit now looming large, and coming soon, everyone is following the news closely. But does Brexit have specific implications for private investors? And are there steps you can be taking now, to ensure your portfolio is “brexit-proof”? What about spreading risk? Backing UK businesses?

Alpesh starts off by asking the public how voted for “EXIT” and who for “REMAIN” and who changed his opinion in the meantime. It is clear that there are 30% of EXIT  and 70% REMAIN voters in the audience. Several people changed their opinion. After a quick introduction of the speakers, Gavin kicks off by saying it is a good thing that the UK gets out of the EU for Europe’s sake… Gavin Oldham is clearly the hardliner BREXIT-er.

Alpesh asks the panel what should investors be doing to prepare?

Gavin’s answer is “watch the currency !” But he says that there are bigger issues than Brexit. Trade wars, Italy debt crisis,..don’t get swallowed up by BREXIT. Gavin is positive about it…if currency plummets, it will be good for the export of the country. Richard says :”Prudential got access to savings culture in UK and baby market in US and large exposure to emerging markets. This could be an opportunity if you look at individual names”.

Toby :”Appetite for small companies, pharmaceutical,…Brexit may have short term impact but long term it can be a benefit. Look at it from a 5 to 10 timeframe and horizon. Look through the noise.”

Thierry :”Volatility offers opportunity. Invest also in Dollar assets as a hedge. Concerns of Brexit is an increasing inflation. Cost of imports will go up. Inflation hedges will become more important. Inflation protection is worth having in your portfolio. Diversify further outside of the UK. Emerging markets look expensive.”

The chairman Alpesh asks the public whether they are worried about Brexit impact? More than 65% of the attendees raise their hands. More concerns about the politicians and how they deal with it. Nobody was thinking in the voting cabin, right? jokes Alpesh Patil. The next question is “Is there something we should invest for coming 5 years?”.

Cryptocurrencies? There is a difference between speculating and investing, says Thierry Clarke. Investing is 5 and beyond years. As an investor you need to look at ALL asset classes and assess the risks involved.

If you take it as 10 year period, you have to find the businesses that bring technology and make a change in the world. Frontier markets such as Vietnam, Philippines … can be a possibility. Look at the power houses and economies of the future. Angel investments, P2P lending,… Toby says : “Biotech, Vietnam fund, .. Young people will no longer have an pension going forward. So you will have to learn how to invest.”

Gavin (Share Radio) thinks that we are at start of another industrial revolution. Assess the companies that keep pace with that revolution. Search for the companies that can scale up and have the ability to exploit the markets.

When the public starts asking questions, the validity of Gavin’s hardline Brexit opinion is being questioned. Gavin argues that a single currency without single government DOES NOT WORK. Yes…20 years …nothing happened. But Europe will collapse and then London as safe financial center and the UK will be ready to embrace the investors. A hard brexit will lead to a drop in the pound currency and that is good for the export. A deal and soft brexit will lead to a short relief rally. In both scenarios, he is bullish on the UK economy.

When the public asks which sectors (or companies) to invest in, we get a wide range of answers.  Financial services are still interesting. Facebook and other FAANG stocks can easily move in the banking industry. There will a shift in the banking industry. That is where the surprises will be in the future.

According to Richard, another sector to monitor is the house builders companies. Look at the share price performance…they are worth to watch at. Examples : Pearson, … Toby thinks that healthcare and biotech are sectors to watch. Be careful of property investment. What about cryptocurrencies?

Compared to last year, cryptocurrencies hype has passed. Less talk about it. It is driven by momentum. You can only trade on short term basis. Who remembers “MySpace”? Who still has a MySpace page? First movers have an advantage but can be surpassed quickly.

The next frontier of investing : Why non-listed assets are on the up – Thierry Clarke

More than ever before, investors are inundated with resources and information about investing in traditional asset classes such as funds, listed equities and bonds. But with the development of new technologies, investors now have unprecedented access to a range of investments in non-listed assets which have the potential to offer fantastic returns. With all the excitement about these asset classes, some investors often forget about the risks involved. Thierry Clarke is CEO and founder of InvestorConnect.Thierry states that a typical portfolio is composed of cash, alternatives, fixed income and equities. The secret behind investing is INFORMATION. How can you turn information into insights. It can be on a short- and long-term basis.

Today the approach to investing has evolved. Fund managers were gathering information and news about companies in order to have an advantage. Diversification leads to reduced risk. There is a correlation matrix. Find things that perform well and find things that perform over time. The world is changing. Managing risk is fantastic. There are many options today. Technology is changing the landscape and giving more choice. Angel networks, crowdfunding, p2P lending platforms, Crypto-currencies,…are some choices.

As investors you need to do more homework. Entrepreneurs use their business plans and financial forecasts to tell a STORY. They are taking you on a journey from today…to future. Assess the story

What are 3 key questions for investing in a small company?

1. Goal : what is their goal ? What problem are they trying to solve?
   1. Market opportunity : is this business scalable ? What is the target market?
   2. Competitor : What is competitive landscape ? What is unique selling point? What is intellectual selling point?
2. Strategy : their strategy
   1. Business model : recurring subscription model. Is the price valid ? What are the costs? Understand Unit economics
   2. Sales and Marketing strategy : What channels will they use ?
   3. Team : How many people do they need to execute their strategy ? Individuals driving the strategy… expertise.
3. Resources :
   1. Supplies needed : Do they need authorization / licenses ? Do they need any advice of consultation from professionals (or investors)?Any barriers..
   2. Funding : how much costs to execute the strategy? How much is their business worth? Do they need more capital in the future?

You also need to do a financial analysis ? How? Historical accounts, statistical analysis, forecasts…disconnect between what financials say and what the business plan suggests.

Thierry suggests looking at four different areas : momentum, profitability, safety and liquidity.

• Momentum : how quickly it is growing,…(Revenue, Cost growth, contribution)
• Profitability : Break even analysis, profit margin evolution, ROE, Return on Sales
• Safety : Debt to equity, Leverage, Asset coverage, Probability of default
• Liquidity: FCF, Current ratio, interest coverage. Biggest killer of small companies is cash flow.

If you invest in a small company, take a fundamental approach. Each company has its own dynamics and has its own story.

Build a Smarter Investment portfolio – Kyle Caldwell (Money Observer)

Kyle is a financial journalist for eight years now, specialized in investments such as funds, investment trusts, ETFs and Shares. He works for the magazine The Money Observer. The magazine has 13.000 readers each month and the website has just over 100k unique users each month.

The goal of investing is to make informed financial decisions. When you pick a fund, you have a choice between Investment trusts, Active Funds, Passive Funds and ETFs. Kyle states that investment trusts should be at the heart of a private investor’s portfolio. But why do people buy funds ? Here are some reasons

• Diversification : Your money is pool money within a large portfolio of stock
• Time : monitoring large portfolios of stocks is time consuming
• Access : some overseas and emerging markets are difficult to access as DIY investor
• Asset allocation : spreading your risk across different asset classes
• Performance : some active fund managers really do outperform the market
• Cost : Index funds and ETF are very cheap to buy a portfolio. Some are expensive tough and have 1% fees and that is not cheap

Kyle says that the retail investor should invest in an investment trust. Why ? An investment trust has dividend reserves, a fixed pool of assets, the ability to gear and they have an independent board of directors with a focus on the shareholder interest.  Investment trusts outbeat major sectors and have superior performance.

An investment trust does trade on a discount or premium. Despite structural advantages…Investment trusts are at 990 million pounds. A 49% increase compared to 2016. What are the most common mistakes a fund and investment trust investor makes :

• Investors buy too many funds. There’s no perfect number, but anymore than 15/20 and you risk replicating the market across your portfolio
• Do not be lured by high yields. This could be ‘yield trap’
• Your circumstances will change – so should your portfolio
• Don’t just buy funds from familiar firms
• Share classes – just buy the cheapest one

So how should a balanced portfolio look like ?

• Equities – 60%
• Bonds – 30% – Look at strategic bond funds.
• Commercial property (5%)
• Gold (5%)
• What is missing is… Infrastructure.

If you are interested in more information, visit the website of the Money Observer : https://www.moneyobserver.com/

2. Our visit to the exhibit booths

Exhibition stands offer the chance to interact with leading companies such as Fidelity Investors and Harrimans House. There were around 20 exhibit stands. The biggest sponsor of the event was Fidelity International. Fidelity provides 2800 investment options within their platform. They have their own managed funds. At the booth of Harriman House, I received a free book about Investment Trusts. Harriman House is one of the UK’s leading independent publishers of financial and business books, Ebooks, apps and websites.

 Other sources of information were the Investors Chronicle, the UK Investor Magazine, SIGnet, and Share Radio.

SIGnet for example offers investors the unique opportunity of meeting similar spirits locally.  Investors who do not want to rely on advisors, financial journalists and brokers benefit from sharing their strategies, experiences and sources of information with their peers.  The conclusions of the most useful debates are made available to all through the website and the Serious Investor magazine.

The objective is to improve individual investors performance. SIGnet has developed the Signet Index to minimise the domination of the FTSE100 shares in the FTSE All Share Index.  This is calculated daily by the software ShareScope.

Besides the sources of information, there were also booths of software vendors and brokers. I list them out :

1. XTB : XTB is a multi-award winning leader in FX & CFD trading. With more than 14 years’ experience as a group, they are one of the largest stock-exchange listed FX & CFD brokers in the world. They have offices in over 11 countries including the UK, Poland, Germany and France , offering traders around the world instant access to over 1,500 markets including FX, indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies, equity CFDs and ETFs. Winner of Best Cryptocurrency Broker 2017 by FinTech Awards and Best Trading Platform 2016 by Online Personal Wealth Awards.
2. City Index : City Index is a global leader in Spread Betting, CFD Trading and Forex. They provide trading opportunities on over 12,000 financial markets worldwide including FX, Indices, Commodities, Equities and Bitcoin.
3. VectorVest : VectorVest has been providing the highest quality investment research to investors for 28 years. The company’s comprehensive approach to investing combines the insight of fundamental valuation with the power of technical analysis in an easy-to-use stock analysis software package designed for all types of investors. VectorVest provides a buy, sell, or hold rating for over 19,000 stocks each day based on its proprietary value, safety, and timing system. The demand for its indicators and market-timing information has prompted worldwide expansion. VectorVest analyzes markets in the US, Canada, Europe, UK, Singapore, Australia, and Hong Kong. Visit www.vectorvest.co.uk
4. ShareScope : ShareScope is the UK’s #1 investment software company – providing professional-quality investment tools to private investors. Its ShareScope service has been voted the UK’s Best Investment Software for 13 years running by readers of Investors Chronicle and Shares magazine. SharePad, its new web-based service, makes this functionality accessible to tablet, Mac and Windows users. An integral part of their service is free investor education and a long-established reputation for outstanding customer support. URL : ShareScope

Another investment option is property. Here the House Crowd kickstarted the property crowdfunding movement in the UK. Utilising the collective power of crowdfunding and peer to peer secured lending, The House Crowd has enabled investors to achieve rates of returns previously reserved for the likes of High Net Worth and institutional investors. The House Crowd offers straightforward, easy to understand, investment opportunities; namely peer to peer bridging and development loans secured by registered legal charges.  Their investment ethos is to provide a predictable consistent income for investors without the volatility of the stock market and with the underlying security of real bricks and mortar should things not go as forecast.  With the launch of an IF ISA in 2018 paying investors highly attractive, tax- free returns, the company has also recently made available the option to invest via a SSAS pension. With over £85M invested to date from retail investors, the company is growing rapidly as its reputation grows.

If you want to invest in precious metals, you could use EBLN DMCC. EBLN DMCC is a global commodity trading house regulated and licensed by the DMCC At EBLN DMCC they provide trading access to the global precious metal markets. The clients receive weekly exclusive research and market insights. Clients have the opportunity to trade deferred unallocated spot metal, allocated spot metal and make use of physical delivery services within Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium markets at competitive market spreads. EBLN DMCC is also able to provide access to Liquid SPOT Crypto currency trading, along with competitive Fixed Income Investment opportunities. URL : www.eblndmcc.com/

I end with The Zero To A Million Club. This education company was founded by Sylvia Marshall to help other like-minded women achieve trading success. With more than thirty years’ experience of helping those in the financial sector be the best they can be, Sylvia is a proven and highly respected trainer/mentor in her field, receiving a lifetime achievement award for her work in 2007. A course starts at 10k pound.

3. Final Words

Reflecting back to this event, I definitely learned several things. The 2018 Investment Trusts Handbook that I received, will be a great book to read and learn whether this is worth a portion of my investment portfolio. The list of Investment trusts will come in handy to evaluate the % asset allocation going forward. I learned also there is great concern amongst the UK investor about the Brexit. Although some analysts are bullish about the final economic outcome, some don’t realize what they are giving up in return. Some investors clearly don’t realize that they will lose some EU free trade advantages. Companies will adjust after the Brexit and some companies are already divesting outside the UK. Some financial services are already moving to Frankfurt and Paris. It was clear that the hardline Brexiters were the loudest during the debate…lol.

The macro outlook presentation of Justin Urquhart Stewart was most informative of the day in conjunction with the information provided with Alpesh Patel. Other investment possibilities such as EBLN DMCC , the House Crowd and Wealth Simple are interesting investment options to explore and investigate further.

I learned about additional media sources to inform myself more as an investor and learned about more software packages on the market. VectorVest is also a software I have seen at Belgian Investor events. On my way home, I read in the Evening Standard Newspaper, that a protest walk was organized against the BREXIT. Today we know that more than 600.000 people participated in this People’s Vote. Will the politicians listen? I doubt it…politicians have an expiry date, the mess and uncertainty is their gift for the population. This concludes my blogpost and summary of the interesting day at London.

Are you learning about other investment strategies ? Don’t hesitate to leave your comments and feedback. Let us know what you think.

Good luck with your personal finance strategy! Thanks for following us on Twitter and Facebook and reading this blog post. As always we end with a quote.