How am I doing financially?

Sometimes I find myself reviewing my objectives and achievements. When it happens, I think it can be difficult to determine a proper benchmark to use as a term of comparison, to understand if my performance is either good or bad for example.

In this article I will try to address this issue and offer several methodologies which may help answering the critical question: how I am doing financially?

GDP per capita (2016)

First, let me offer a look at the world's GDP per capita chart.

GDP per capita in the World (2016 data)

As you may know from my 'About' page, I currently live in the UK.
The GDP per capita in this country is $42,105 for 2016.
Also, let's have a look at the evolution of GDP per capita in the UK over time:

Strategy revision ahead of Brexit vote - end of June 2016

For those who started following me in my exciting journey, you will know that I always have a plan for the future. Recently I had the opportunity to explain my thoughts on Brexit and how this historical decision may affect my personal finances.

The conclusions of my analysis is that it is wise to adopt a conservative approach given the great uncertainty surrounding the future months. It would be better to hold on to the money right now and see what will happen next. After all, the referendum is just few weeks away and it does not make any sense to rush through investments for the moment. It is exactly in these conditions that one may be led to make big mistakes which may become a regret in the future.

Black Tuesday (29.10.1929). Are we heading in that direction?

My plan is to slow down until September, which is not a random month...indeed September is generally considered a bearish month, as you can read in this article from Investopedia.

So, when we take into account the high level of uncertainty surrounding the future, plus the need to reinforce my cash position due to the recent investments and the fact that we have a nice bearish month coming in the near future, I think my new contingency plan will be quite effective!
By end of August-September I should be in a much better position to exploit any opportunity on the horizon.

September is generally considered a bearish month for investors.

In my review for the end of the month I will update my net worth and take a look at how this contingency plan will affect my overall wealth distribution.

Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

Few words on Brexit

Right now there is a lot of debate on Brexit, as you can imagine.
It is not my intention to express a political view with this post, I am not going to talk about immigration (I feel I can't really have a say on that one), nor will I talk about what is best for the UK economy.

I'll simply try to be as objective as it is possible for an Italian investor living in the UK and try to understand what the impact might be on my portfolio.

Before we start, please allow me to say that I am undeniably a bit scared by the outcome of all of this. As a European citizen living in Great Britain, my future is at stake and I won't even get a chance to officially express my idea through my vote.

But let's get started with the analysis. As an investor, I realise that this event will be the main catalyst of change for years to come and, possibly, great opportunities. There are clearly two main scenarios depending on the vote result.


Scenario 1. The UK ends up voting to leave the EU. 

Uncertainty about the financial future of the nation and about foreign investments - which may be blocked as a result of the vote - will cause the GBP (£) to take the hit, dropping to all time low against the Euro. Forecast is in fact it will get close to parity with the Euro, or even lower.