As a teenager I started investing in stocks and shares in the 1980s thanks to the hugely popular and profitable raft of privatisations. I remember selling many of them within the first few days of trading for a sizable profit. Naively I thought investing was simple!
In fact, I knew nothing about investing. The stock market crash on 19th October 1987 taught me that investing wasn’t a one-way bet. I had no investment discipline, my portfolio wasn’t diversified and I had no idea what asset allocation meant.
However, stocks and shares was in my blood, so armed with my Business Studies degree I joined JPMorgan Chase (a global financial services firm and leader in asset management), who supported me through my CFA examinations, which have become the most respected and recognised investment management qualification in the world.
Today, diversification, discipline and risk management form the cornerstone of my investment philosophy, having built-up strong investment analysis and real-world portfolio management skills, over the past 20 years managing UK, European, North American, fixed income and multi-manager portfolios.
As Investment Director, I head up a team of 7 investment professionals, responsible for both the investment strategy and asset allocation of our clients’ life savings on a discretionary basis (which means we can react and adapt to changing market conditions by making instant portfolio changes to our clients’ portfolios).
Although each team member brings a different skill set and speciality, we operate on a collegial basis, working closely together and sharing research and investment ideas. This ensures our investment decisions and convictions are both consistent and informed by a wealth of experience. However, risk management is just as important to me as investment performance and returns, and the team work within a strict risk controlled and disciplined process.
Although my passion for my job and the global financial markets is all consuming (as Gordon Gekko said in Wall Street ‘money never sleeps’), my full time job starts when I am at home in Cheshire. I have been married to Tanya, an Accountant for a US provider of payment solutions, for the past 20 years and we have two fantastic children, James and Henry.