Summer Update

I hope this missive finds you well and you are looking forward to a nice break over the summer.

Markets have generally had a good year so far, despite Mr Trumps efforts to upset the apple cart (at the time of writing I see he may be having another go). Markets are happy that companies are making good profits around the world which has been a driver of the increasing valuations.

Hope for AI has also been a driver and that the automation it offers will bring even larger profits in future. Like most people I have been experimenting with AI in my business. I record all my meetings, and it has been very helpful in preparing meeting notes which I can send out quickly. I understand there are widespread applications for medical imaging and all sorts of other things.

I am very clear about what AI cannot do though and that is have any sort of hand in generating or preparing advice for my clients. Some advisers are worried about us being replaced but at this stage most of the AIs I have looked at are providing quite disturbing results which I hope will keep my job safe for some time to come.

I may have mentioned to you this year, that I recently took up Warhammer and have been having a grand time building and painting my first army. I was shocked to win a prize for the best painted army at a recent competition which was a proud moment. The reason I mention it is because I have had regular chats with AI bots over building my new army and selecting units and models to include. The information sources for this are widely available and clearly detailed on the internet, but I have been shocked at the quantity of errors AIs are including in the information they feed back to me. I know enough to see that much of what it tells me is rubbish. I am using the expensive AIs which spend several minutes thinking before answering yet the quality of the replies is often full of errors and information which it has simply made up. My impression so far is that if it is doing this with something simple like Warhammer where clear rules and data is available online from multiple verifiable sources, then relying on it to do any sort of tax calculations or financial planning would be madness.

AIs look at what is online when they come up with answers and they generally look for the fastest answer. They don’t seem to care when the information was written or where in the world it found it. Increasingly it is looking at stuff in forums or even worse, things that other AIs have generated. One of the first principles of computing I learned was Garbage In Garbage Out and this certainly seems to be the case with AI currently. I would caution you against relying on it for anything especially medical or financial related! The AIs, the markets are excited about are those operating in closed systems where the data has been verified and it has been programmed to work in a specific way, such as reading scans and xrays.

If you ever have any questions you are always welcome to message me. I emphasise particularly if you are ever unsure to please call me. I had a client in for a review a few weeks ago who was upset to report that he had put £50,000 of his cash into something a friend recommended. He started with a small amount but then added more when he was told he had doubled his money but when he asked to withdraw he was told the ‘investments’ values had dropped to zero. I was sad to say there was probably never any investment and the money he sent is probably sitting on the scammers driveway in the form of a new car.  The money lost had been planned for a house purchase and the portfolio I set up for him had actually made 24% over the last year so this was all completely unnecessary. Men are particularly bad in this area and are nearly always the ones to fall for a get rich quick scheme. My hairdresser regularly tries to dispense his ‘investment tips’ to me which are invariably nonsense.

I beg you not to engage with any online adverts for investing or take advice from ‘mates’ with great investment ideas. When you lose money there will be no way of getting it back.

If you want ideas for spare money you are always welcome to speak with me and if you do decide to open new investment accounts please do not hesitate to speak with me first so I can at least check it looks legitimate. Sadly I expect this will not be the last time I hear a story like this.

I am keeping an eye on the ongoing situation within the Government and will report back when we find out more about the new prime minister’s actual plans for Government. I expect there will be a full re-shuffle so we will have a new chancellor and a new budget sometime in October/November.  In the meantime, you know where I am if I can be of any assistance.