Predictions and the value of financial advice

'If there is one profession that has had to become comfortable with uncertainty, it is ours'

clock • 7 min read

A Chancellor thinks in terms of the next Budget. A government thinks in terms of the next election. Financial advisers, meanwhile, are trying to construct plans that will survive both and potentially simultaneously solve short-term problems and multi-generational objectives, opines Andrew Aldridge

I have a friend who is convinced he can predict the future, and I am sure we all do. Not in a crystal-ball, lottery-numbers sort of way. He's not standing on a soap box wearing a purple cloak. He simply believes that if he reads enough newspapers, watches enough news programmes and spends sufficient time scrolling through the internet, he can work out what's going to happen next. Every year he's absolutely certain about something. It could be inflation, interest rates, house prices, the stock market, elections, tax rises, England losing another World Cup semi-final (although we could ...

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