Learning never stops

When I graduated from University, I naively thought that was tests, exams and learning completed.  This week, I took and passed an exam, which nearly twenty years after graduating shows that learning never stops.  The investment management industry is a humbling career as things constantly change and you must consistently question everything. Ray Dalio, founder of one of the world’s largest hedge funds said, ‘To make money in the markets, you have to think independently and be humble’.

Of the nine employees at WKM, six of us have taken or are taking exams this year.  None of the exams need to be taken for regulatory reasons; they are being done to improve ourselves and the service we can provide.  Learning doesn’t just come from exams, one quote that we have in our welcome pack for employees is taken from the New Zealand rugby team:

From listening comes knowledge, from knowledge comes understanding.

From understanding comes wisdom, from wisdom comes well-being.

Conviction needs patience

We learn from different sources, adapt to change, and set goals to be better.  When things don’t go to plan, it is important to understand where mistakes have been made and where you need conviction to back assets that are unloved.  It’s easy to get caught up with falling asset prices and feel like you need to do something.  Conviction needs patience.  We have conviction behind some new assets that we have added to lower risk portfolios over the last couple of weeks, gilts.  For the first time in over a decade the outlook for gilts looks positive on an absolute basis and relative versus inflation.

Whilst gilts are a traditional asset, a newer investment trend and one of the ‘hottest’ this year has been Artificial Intelligence (AI).  We already had some AI exposure in portfolios, and we’re excited about the potential. We’ve also been learning how AI can help WKM as a business too.

Investment event #2

We, as a team, will continue to learn and challenge our thinking.  As part of this, we are running our second client investment event of the year on Monday 9^th October at the Leicester Space Centre.  We will divulge more information about the exciting speakers we have lined up over the next few weeks, however for now put the date in your diary and drop events@wkmwealth.co.uk an email to confirm you would like a place. We look forward to seeing you there!

Thanks for reading and enjoy the journey!