Informed Choice Radio Personal Finance Podcast

My guest on the podcast today is co-author of a new book called The Trust Mandate. Herman Brodie spent over a decade in investment banking roles in London, Paris and in Frankfurt. In 2000 he co-founded his first company, Cognitrend, a consultancy to advise financial institutions on the utilisation of behavioural finance research. He has pursued this goal since 2013 as Managing Director of Prospecta Limited. Herman is a co-author and lecturer of 'A Practical History of Financial Markets', a course aimed at investment professionals, developed for the Edinburgh Business School's MBA programme, and he's penned numerous articles on behavioural finance. In The Trust Mandate, Herman seeks to answer an essential question; why is it that an investment client selects, or an investment consultant recommends, one asset manager over another when the two are, on paper at least, very similar? In our conversation today, we get stuck into the science of trust. Understanding these concepts is essential for investors who want to make the best possible decisions with their money, and understand why they place their trust in some investment managers, but not others. Here's my conversation with Herman Brodie, author of The Trust Mandate, in episode 327 of Informed Choice Radio.

My guest today has written an excellent new book called You Don't Have to Drive an Uber in Retirement: How to Maintain Your Lifestyle without Getting a Job or Cutting Corners. Marc Lichtenfeld is the Chief Income Strategist of The Oxford Club. He is the Senior Editor of The Oxford Income Letter, which is based on his proprietary 10-11-12 System. He is also the Editor of Tactical Trader Alert, Lightning Trend Trader and Chairman's Circle Breakout Alert. In his new book. Marc shares little known secrets for putting the gold in your golden years. Apparently nearly 50% of Americans are forced to work in retirement to supplement their incomes. So getting this stuff right is so important - unless of course you want to drive an uber in retirement. Here's my conversation with Marc Lichtenfeld, author of You Don't Have to Drive an Uber in Retirement, in episode 326 of Informed Choice Radio.

The way in which we choose to invest our money can have a much bigger impact than we might realise. Money can be a force for good, encouraging positive change in the world, as well as being a force for evil; funding distasteful or outright damaging activities. My guest on the podcast today is Olivia Bowen, a Partner in Financial Advice at Castlefield. Olivia is a graduate of Manchester University, joining Castlefield in 1999. As a Partner in their financial advice arm, she's helped clients invest many millions of pounds into ethical investments whilst assisting them to meet their financial and personal objectives. Olivia advises on all aspects of financial planning. She has advanced qualifications in Taxation & Trusts, Investment & Risk and the Financial Planning process. She's also an award winning adviser, as winner of the Personal Finance Society’s Investment Specialist of the Year Award 2017. Olivia has appeared on Channel 4’s award winning investigative current affairs programme Dispatches, BBC’s Rip off Britain and has also been an expert guest on Radio 4’s Moneybox. In our conversation today, we take a deep dive into 'thoughtful investing'. We talk about the difference between screening investment opportunities for negative and positive factors, whether this approach towards investing money increases the level of risk involved, and how investors can get started with a more thoughtful approach. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Olivia Bowen, all about thoughtful investing, in episode 325 of Informed Choice Radio.

What's worked before won't always work in the future. In the world of investing, we often hear the risk warning that past performance is not necessarily a guide to future returns. My guest on the show today has written an excellent new book which takes a look into the future for investors, predicting six structural mega-trends that threaten passive investing. Niels Jensen has over 30 years of investment banking and investment management experience. He started his career in Copenhagen in 1984 before moving to London in 1986 to join a firm that became Lehman Brothers. Niels subsequently worked for Goldman Sachs as its co-head of US equity in Europe, then managed Oppenheimer's European business. He rejoined Lehman Brothers to head up European Wealth Management in 1999, and went on to become founder of Absolute Return Partners in 2002, where he is now Chief Investment Officer. His new book presents a different vision of the future for investors; one where index tracking strategies are poorly suited. In The End of Indexing, he identifies six structural mega-trends that are set to disrupt investors around the globe. We get into those six structural mega-trends in our conversation today, taking a deeper dive into a couple of them in particular. Neils says that as a new investment approach is called for, The End of Indexing provides investors with a guide to the challenging environment ahead and a warning about the future decline of index-tracking. Here's my conversation with Niels Jensen, author of The End of Indexing, in episode 324 of Informed Choice Radio.

Growing up, the words finance, savings, and portfolio made my guest's eyes glaze over, and the thought of stocks and financial statements shut down her brain.  The daughter of a successful investor and bestselling financial author, she spent most of her adult life avoiding investing - until she realized that her time-consuming career as lawyer was making her feel anything but in control of her life or her money.  Determined to regain her freedom, vote for her values with her money, and deal with her fear of the unpredictable stock market, she turned to her father, to help her take charge of her life and her future through Warren Buffett-style value investing.  Over the course of a year, my guest went from avoiding everything to do with the financial industrial complex to knowing exactly how and when to invest in wonderful companies.  Danielle Town is a corporate startup attorney with a law degree from New York University. She cohosts the InvestEd podcast with her father, Phil Town, and together now they've written Invested: How Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger Taught Me to Master My Mind, My Emotions, and My Money (with a Little Help from My Dad) Here's my conversation with Danielle Town, author of Invested, in episode 323 of Informed Choice Radio.

In her late twenties, my guest today found herself stuck in the consumerism cycle that grips so many of us: earn more, buy more, want more, rinse, repeat.  Even after she worked her way out of nearly $30,000 of consumer debt, her old habits took hold again.  When she realised that nothing she was doing or buying was making her happy, she decided to set herself a challenge: she would not shop for an entire year. My guest today is Cait Flanders, author of a new book called The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store. Cait is a self-confessed former binge consumer turned mindful consumer of everything.  Through personal stories, she writes about what happens when money, minimalism and mindfulness cross paths.  Here's my conversation with Cait Flanders, author of The Year of Less, in episode 322 of Informed Choice Radio.

One million people financially free. That's the mission of my guest on the podcast today, who joins me to share his tips on freedom from money bondage. Damion Lupo is a best selling personal finance author and host of the Transformation Nation podcast. He's owned more than 30 companies and even founded his own martial art.  Damion outrightly rejects regret and speaks to it as the ultimate life failure. He's got a unique approach to living a fulfilled life by breaking rule and making more mistakes, faster, than the competition - what he calls his key to success.  Playing by a different set of rules, he even bought his first rental house with a credit card,a move that snowballed into owning 150 rental houses in 7 states in less than 5 years. In 2008 he lost the entire $20 million but recreated his wealth and reinvented his life over 4 transformational years. Today he leads 3 global companies with one unified mission - to Free People from Money Bondage. What is money bondage? We cover that in the conversation too. Here's my conversation with Damion Lupo, freedom from money bondage, in episode 321 of Informed Choice Radio.

My guest today is Hayley Tink. Hayley is the first Chartered Financial Planner in the UK to also be a Certified Money Coach.  She's able to bring this new dimension to her financial advice work, as well as providing stand-alone money coaching sessions for those who wish to understand the psychological dimension of their own relationship to money. The concept of Money Coaching is still relatively new in Financial Planning circles and it was great to speak to Hayley for this episode to learn more. Hayley shares in this episode how family attitudes and external influences can influence our behaviours around money and these can sometimes have an unhelpful effect on making important financial decisions.  Here's my conversation with Hayley Tink, Certified Money Coach, in episode 320 of Informed Choice Radio.

Each year investors lose billions to fraudulent activity. Today on the podcast we talk about why and how people fall prey and what steps you can take to stay safe. My guest today is  William M. Francavilla. Bill is a Certified Financial Planner with more than 30 years of experience in the financial services profession. He has worked as an investment advisor and professional trainer for several Fortune 500 companies, and retired from Legg Mason as senior vice president and director of corporate wealth management.  Bill's new book is The Madoffs Among Us: Combat the Scammers, Con Artists, and Thieves Who Are Plotting to Steal Your Money. Within our conversation today we talk about how to easily identify the people who perpetrate these crimes and avoid their deceitful practices. We also cover why it is that smart people fall for these cons.  Bill and I chat about some of the most common scams today and how you can avoid becoming a victim. Here's my conversation with Bill Francavilla, author of The Madoffs Among Us, in episode 319 of Informed Choice Radio.

My guest in this episode is Dr Sarah Stanley Fallaw. Sarah is the founder and President of DataPoints LLC, a company that provides scientifically validated, automated behavioral finance tools to the financial services industry.  DataPoints created the industry's first biodata-based, predictive assessment of individual propensity to build wealth. Sarah also serves as the Director of Research for the Affluent Market Institute, founded by Dr. Thomas J. Stanley. She is co-author of an upcoming book examining the behaviors and lifestyle of affluent Americans 20 years after the publication of The Millionaire Next Door.