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Dear Reader
Welcome to August’s newsletter.
If you have been in the UK over the last month, what incredible weather!
On a personal note, we welcomed visiting family for a couple of magical weeks and that gave me the space for a true re-set, which was wonderful.
Whatever you have been doing the last month, we hope you are well.
This month, we take a look at how people measure progress in their financial life.
The rest of this month’s newsletter is packed with ideas and links that you may find interesting. As always, we’re here if you'd like to discuss how any of these ideas might apply to your unique situation.
Feel free to share - I continue to grow my business since moving firms, if you know anyone who might benefit from this content please do share, it would be really helpful.
Regular numbers update
Markets - unimportant and important numbers!
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Inflation - the real enemy
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Choosing the right scoreboard for you
"How am I doing?" is a great question to ask in life. Reflecting on our progress in any domain allows us to make course corrections and improve our chances of success.
Naturally, we strongly encourage asking this question about your financial life, and it’s what our regular planning meetings with clients are built around.
However, we’ve seen that people reach for different numbers when they ask this question, and two of them are always close at hand.
The first is the market return. It is quoted in most market reports and printed in the papers, so the figure is easy to find. The second is the people around us, and the numbers they mention when telling stories of their financial success. Both end up being used as a benchmark.
Why Neither One Fits
We don’t believe either of these numbers is the right benchmark for reviewing your progress.
A stock market index has no goals. It has no children starting university in four years, no income to draw next month, no tax position, no time horizon, and no reason to hold anything in cash for upcoming expenses. A like-for-like comparison can therefore be very difficult.
In any given year, a diversified portfolio will usually have trailed some asset class or investment product. This is the reason for being diversified. Knowing what has performed well recently is not the same as identifying it in advance.
A friend bragging about an impressive return seldom mentions the risk that was taken. The investment may have been concentrated in one thing, borrowed against, or held by someone who could afford to lose it all. You are also only hearing the stories that ended well, because the same bet going the other way never gets told.
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The question is not whether your portfolio beat the market or a friend. It is whether it did what you asked of it, and whether it is likely to support the life you want to live.
What a Real Scoreboard Measures
Before any measuring takes please, it is important that as advisers, we give clients the time and space to think through what is important to them. Just because something was a priority before, does not mean it remains a priority now.
Once that is carefully thought through, there are 5 questions worth asking every year. Asking these can give you a much better idea of your progress.
- Am I on track to fund the life I want?
- Is my savings rate where it needs to be?
- Will my income last for as long as I do?
- Have I avoided any permanent mistakes?
- Is the money buying a life I actually want?
The last question is one that almost never appears on a scoreboard. A financial plan can be completely on track and still be paying for a life nobody chose deliberately. Answering it means looking at what last year’s spending actually bought, and asking whether you would buy the same things again.
If the answer to any of these questions is no, there is usually something that can be done: saving more, spending less, adjusting the income you draw, or moving the timing of something planned.
The index is outside your control, so last year’s return number doesn’t change anything you can do now.
Keeping Score Together
What we measure tends to change how we behave. Someone judging the year by an index or by what a friend said may be tempted to fix a portfolio that isn’t broken.
Alternatively, if we judge a financial plan by what we can control, it usually points to something we can do.
Part of our job is to keep the right measures in front of you when we meet, and a large part of our planning meetings focuses on answering these questions. While we are happy to compare your returns to the market, we are more interested in whether you are on track and whether anything needs to change.
If these ideas raise a question about your own financial plan, we are always glad to talk it through.
Compliance disclaimers: what they should really say.....
The value of investments and any income from them can fall as well as rise. You may not get back the full amount invested, you may get more. Past performance should be used as a guide only and is not a guarantee of future performance.
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Reading, videos, podcasts
Some optimism
The media is not a friend of the disciplined and patient investor. Ignoring the key determinants of lifetime investor returns, the media focuses on short-term returns, market predictions, and negative news.
We present the following as an antidote to the onslaught of negative news:
Global Airline Safety Improved as Accident Rates Fell in 2025 One of the clearest indicators of progress is the global accident rate, which measures how many accidents occur per one million flight departures.
Air Quality Improvements Achieved Across Europe The overall picture remains positive, and air quality continues to improve in Europe, with emissions of key air pollutants declining across the continent as a result of long-standing air quality policies, technological improvements and cleaner industrial and transport systems.
AI Is Helping Workers Across Jobs, but Not Replacing Them Google is launching the first iteration of the AI & Economy ATLAS (Activity, Task, Landscape, and Adoption Study), an ongoing, large-scale, de-identified study of how people are using Google’s AI products and tools.
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Listen
Inheritance of a Story [2 minutes]. We don’t just inherit money, we inherit the stories that come with it.
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Great visuals
Which Countries Think They’re on the Right Track?
Public confidence in national direction varies dramatically around the world. Respondents in several Asian countries are broadly optimistic, while majorities across much of Europe and the Americas believe their countries are on the wrong track.
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The World’s Most Powerful Passports (2016 vs. 2026)
A passport’s strength is typically measured by the number of destinations its holders can visit without obtaining a visa in advance. This visualisation compares the world’s most powerful passports in 2016 and 2026, showing how the global hierarchy has changed over the past decade.
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The World By Income Groups
The World Bank has released its latest annual income classifications, grouping 218 economies into four tiers based on gross national income (GNI) per capita using its Atlas methodology. The visualisation below, created by Iswardi Ishak using data from the World Bank, shows where each economy falls in FY27. The World Bank updates its income classifications every July, adjusting GNI per capita thresholds for inflation and incorporating the latest estimates for economic output, exchange rates, and population.
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Thank you
As always, I hope you enjoy this month's updates, do let me know what you enjoyed and any ideas you might have for future newsletters.
Meanwhile, here if you need.
With best wishes, Gary
Gary Smithson - Partner, Farringdon Asset Management Singapore and Malaysia
gary-smithson-farringdon.kit.com
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