Nine Investing Mistakes

*Ken Fisher, Chairman of
Fisher Investments UK*

Do you manage your own investments? Are you completely satisfied with their current performance? Or, have you struggled consistently to meet your investment goals over time? The chances are you feel some level of improvement is possible.
For many, however, this is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve as we are inundated with an increasing amount of information and faced with ever more investment alternatives. The investment landscape has become more complex, to say the least.

Ken Fisher, Chairman of Fisher Investments UK, looks at nine of the most common investment errors and advises on how to avoid them.

1. Underestimating the time horizon for your assets

How long do you think you'll live? How long do you think your spouse will live? Usually, investors are far too conservative in estimating the length of their lives, and that can be a problem when planning their financial futures.

Breakthroughs in medicine occur frequently. As the effectiveness of medical treatment, nutrition and standards of living improve, most people now live longer than they imagine they will. A the population ages and lifespan increases, the costs of healthcare and living longer also rise.

Many people underestimate their lifespans. As a result, they fail to plan financially for a longer life. They run the risk of depleting their funds long before their lives are over. It is important to have a sound financial strategy that will provide financial stability and meet income needs throughout one's life. Sound financial planning is equally important for those whose goals are to grow their assets so they can pass an inheritance on to loved ones and family members who survive them. If this is the case, then their investing time horizon should be considered also; this may be substantially longer than their own. In either case, a realistic life expectancy time horizon is vitally important.