Focussing on the long-term during market ups and downs

We think women need to talk more openly about money. Embarrassing or confusing. Join the conversation. We'll be discussing a whole range of topics. Hello and welcome to another AJ Bell Money Matters Podcast. The podcast where we talk all things investing and finance and try to help all of you feel better. I'm Laura, and I am joined as ever.

Danny. Hey Danny. Hi there, Laura. Hi everyone. Um, I hope you all enjoyed the sunshine while it lasted. Uh but let's be real, this is the UK and the Great British summer isn't exactly something Can rely on and storms of another variety, the market variety, is the topic that we asked our special guest to talk about this week. Yes, Charlotte Young is senior fund manager at Troy.

So she knows more than a thing or two about watching market movements. And since we got so many people getting in touch after what can be described as a bit of a market meltdown after US presentation. Trump's April press conference on the White House lawn when he drew up a chart putting huge tariffs on So we thought we would get Charlotte to talk about what happened and crucially what's happened since, and how she handles it when Mark

She also reminded me of a brilliant term that I'd not heard for a while. I know you hate jargon, Laura, but you're gonna have to forgive this one. Diversification. That's kind of part jug and part pun, so I think I'll let it. It is a play on the term diversification, which we have spoken about before and gone through. Um, making sure that your box of information

Is the perfect mix for you and your needs. But if you make changes to your investments trying to Chocolate box is full of the right mix of fruit and nuts, and then you end up with investments that aren't actually as good as the ones that you sold to make room and just aren't right for your investing strategy, then you've made things worse.

Dio worsification, not better. And that can be something that people do rush into when they see their investments fall in value during market wobbles, like the one we have just seen. And there is always so much coverage of those market wobbles and So Charlotte's chat is a great listen and it was also brilliant to get her on because she's founder of a charity called Gain, which stands for Girls Are Investors, which she set up to try and encourage more women and girls to get into the investment.

So definitely something that ties in with what we're

So do keep listening for her interview. Now though it is time for our one big thing. Uh, I'm afraid to say that this is something that I've had quite a lot of experience with over the past couple of years, being the mother of teenage daughters, one of whom wants everything now, and that is buy now pay later. She has used it a lot. I've had to keep real tabs on when she has used it for her shopping because there's always the possibility that suddenly she ends up with

10 different buy now pay later loans, and they all are due to be paid at once. And she's been really good with it. She's only used it for bigger ticket items, so she used it to buy a mobile phone, she used it to buy a tablet, and she did make sure that it was paid off.

well and truly in time so that she didn't risk any extra fees or interest or anything like that. Um have you used it? I mean you see it all the time, don't you, when you check out. It's kind of the first thing that you see in your online shopping Yeah, you're absolutely right. I feel like every online checkout I go on, which let's be honest is quite a lot, um, has BuyNow Paleta as an option, but I've never used it. I feel like I wrote quite a few stories.

as a journalist about some of the negative sides of it, you know, people being caught out or getting into accidental debt or the impact it had on their credit report. And I think it maybe scared me off you. Uh but one day I feel like maybe I should just as an experiment to see how it works on and kind of how that whole process works. But I just worry that I would forget the date that I'm meant to be paying.

It's easy to get in a muddle, but um no, I've had a uh used it a few times, not just for the eldest, but also for me as well. It's just sometimes it can be really useful if you want to spread Over three or six months. And it's just something because it's just one payment. And as long as you're aware that it's just one and you make sure that you clear it off, I think it can be quite.

And I'm sure lots of listeners out there have used it and certainly know what it is, but we thought it would be useful to kind of run through um where the market emerged from and also some recent changes that have happened. So let's start with the basics because that's how we roll here at Money Matters, covering all the basics first just in So buy now pay later or BNPL as it's often written out is that way that shoppers can purchase items but rather than paying the full amount of the purchase.

They can spread payments into smaller amounts over a shorter period of time. It's usually only over kind of weeks or months rather than years. So it sounds a bit like credit, like a credit card, I guess, or one of those old store cards that people used to have. Or even going further back, the kind of catalogue credit card.

Readers out there, listeners out there. So it is like credit, but it's slightly different because it can be a really convenient way of spreading the cost of shopping. So with a credit card or a store card, you'll get an amount. And you can use that for very much. You pay it off either in one go to avoid paying any interest or you pay it off over time in kind of monthly.

charge for the interest on the balance. But with net buy now pay later, your agreement is just for that one purchase, so that one transaction where you're checking out. If you're close shopping, for example, that might be a number of different items. Transaction and typically the schemes allow you to pay for those items in instalments or in one.

and it's interest free. So the repayment plans normally last 12 months or less and quite often you'll see it marketed as kind of pay in three installments. Um and so it you can see. Can be useful, but it can also be quite confusing, you know, when you're trying to sort of suss out exactly what you have. Um one of the key differences with Buy Now Pay Later is that you don't get something called section 75.

Protection. Now that protection means that your bank is jointly liable if anything goes wrong with purchases over£100 up to£30. made on your credit card. So Say for example something arrives um and it's faulty or you get a delivery but you get your card saying your delivery has arrived but actually it's gone missing somewhere.

in the ether. And then you can make a section 75 claim on your credit card to your credit card provider and you can get your money back this way. Now buy now pay later schemes aren't currently covered Section 75. So if you are making larger purchases, and I know particularly things like holidays, a lot of people will choose to put on their credit cards. They've got those kind of consumer protections, it is worth thinking about.

A valuable and often quite overlooked protection that credit cards can offer. Another key difference is that by now. That some people haven't realised that firstly such an easy way to use it at the checkout and it advertises itself as interest free. People don't immediately clock that that is actually a debt. And you can end up with multiple products. So like we talked about earlier, if you have a credit card, you put your spending on

One b bill and one provider to deal with. With buy now pay later, you could end up with multiple different providers. Um so that might seem fine until all of the payments. The other thing that people don't realise is if you can't pay it off, it can affect your credit score. And if something goes wrong because they're not regulated, you can't go to the

Yeah, there's been a lot of talk, as you would imagine, about regulating the sector for years, and some consumer groups and charities have actually called it the Wild West. Saying that it doesn't protect consumers and it can lead to some people falling into debt spirals or falling into debt because they just don't realize.

And we know that its use has been increasing exponentially. So we had um the Financial Conduct Authority recently published what's called its Financial Live Survey. It kind of looks at all of our financial And one of the things it reported is that the number of people using BuyNow Pay Later had risen significantly. Climbing by 2 million just in the past three years, with 11 million people estimated to have used the facility in the past year alone. And of course, you know, we're talking about.

women and women's financial habits in particular on this Money Matters podcast. And there was a stat in that financial live survey that I wanted to to bring you because it's relevant. And it said 35% of women aged between 25 and 34 use buy now pay later products. And it kind of seems obvious because, you know, we're doing a lot of shopping online.

It's one of those great ways to spread the cost of things, particularly if you're a parent and you've been juggling the cost of living situation. But it it's great. It's so great if you use it the right way, if you'll keep track of it, if you're responsible. But you know, a lot of people use cash because they find it's easy to budget. They know when they

has gone and it's kind of the same with a credit card limit. Now if you've hit that limit, then that is that. Whereas if you've hit what should be your limit, But you're still getting buy now pay late alone on buy now pay late alone. You can find yourself at a point where you are in some trouble. You know, that sort of sleepwalking into really difficult situations.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that those figures in that Financial Live survey are really interesting because for a long time this was a boomerang. how many people used it because there's so many different providers, because it's not regulated, um, it meant that it was quite hard to get a grasp of how many people use it, how many people get into kind of bad debt.

How many of those debts get passed on to debt recovery agencies? And we're still lacking quite a lot of that information. And I think some of that it would be really useful to kind of lay It can be a useful tool, but it can also be very easy to come unstuck and feel

But things are about to change because the government's now introduced legislation in Parliament to regulate So there's still the exact details that need to be worked out and consulted on, but it will include reforming the Consumer Credit Act to update it with new digital ways of borrowing because that consumer credit. nineteen

If we think about all of the different ways of how we spend and get credit of change since then, it's quite dramatic. And in that consumer credit app, there was a little gap which allowed membership

installments. So thinking of things like gym memberships, but the same gap is also how buy now, pay later allows you to buy that very expensive pair of shoes to wear to the gym without the usual rig rule that goes with applying So the new legislation will require by now pay later lenders to run affordability checks on shoppers so that they can check that you can afford Quite a basic but very valuable step that's being taken. And it should also include the requirements for providers to give clear

Because I think those buy now pay later providers have been very, very good at marketing how easy it is to use. And particularly in the early days, we're not quite so good about laying out what happens if you don't. The fines that you could ultimately incur. And that powerful section seventy-five protection that we spoke about earlier should include person.

And it will also allow users to take complaints about any providers to the financial ombudsman service. So if you make a complaint to a buy now pay later firm and you don't get anywhere with it, you've got somewhere. I think it's also worth saying that a lot of these buy now pay later firms have been involved uh in this discussion about creating regulations. So they have been very much on site.

um with this whole process. But as with everything like this, it will take time. So we are unlikely to see the regulation take effect until mid And I think in the meantime it is really important that we all take responsibility for our own

Financial lives. You know, really think about how many other purchases you have made via these buy now, pay later schemes. When do they end? When do you have to make your repayments by? And crucially, how much are those repayments? Um, I'm still really old school. I like to do pen and paper at the beginning of every month, what's going in, what's going out, just so that I can keep tabs on it. I know you much prefer a spreadsheet.

still not really got to grips with those. But of course, you know, if you don't do that, you can end up in quite tricky situations because it is debt. You do Um You know, it can be a really hard slog if you end up with high levels of buy now, pay later debt. You could be hit with late payment fees. Um, in some cases, a no or low interest term can become a much higher interest loan, and unpaid debt will probably end up being passed on to a debt.

agency. So also I think one thing is that in some cases, some of these providers will allow you to pay off your buy now pay later loan using your credit card. So you kind of just Exchanging one kind of debt for another kind of debt, and if you then get another binal pay later loan, then you're just creating this debt.

is for a small amount of credit that you took out initially to end up, like you say, Danny, spiralling and becoming this debt mountain where you're just trying to pay off the interest on it and reduce But I think the key thing for anyone who feels like they are struggling, I mean we've had a long period of price rises, of some people's wages being a bit squashed. more bill increases seemingly coming constantly. It's understandable that at this point lot

They have debt that's just gone past that kind of manageable level. So I think the first thing to say is if that you are having difficulties, then then don't ignore it. It's a a classic cliche, but bearing in But I acknowledge it does take some confidence and some courage to acknowledge the problem. I think the first thing that people should do is write.

Overdraft, whether that's buy now pay later, whether that's credit cards, all of that debt that will be costing them money and create a And then set about creating the So you could speak to Citizens Advice Bureau and then they will have debt specialists they can recommend you to, or speak to really approved and trusted debt charities. Be very wary because unfortunately. There are some very

claim to be offering you debt support, but then instead will be selling you something else or selling you other services and they're not really looking out for you. So really go to one of those approved debt charities or if in doubt go organization. And remember, just talking about your your debt and speaking to some of those providers of your debt won't impact your credit score. And then further down the line

those debt solutions after you've researched all your options, um, they may may well do. But ignoring things and hoping they'll go away is is not a great solution. And we do have other podcasts and articles that we've done over the years on the money...

talking more about debt and how to deal with it. So do take a listen, take a read of some of those. And we will keep tabs on that regulation as it goes through Parliament. So do get in touch if you've got any But right now it is time for our speech.

Interview. This week it's with Charlotte Young, who is a fund manager at Troy Asset Management. For those of you who are new to Money Matters, again, we've got articles and other pods explaining what a fund is, what a fund does. That is ajbel money matters.co.uk. You can also sign up to our newsletter there, a bit of a plug. But briefly, it is someone who oversees and manages.

Clients looking at markets, market trends, working out what should go into a fund and what shouldn't. Yeah, so if you've got a pen. investment ISA, you'll probably have funds as part of your investments already. So they're often made up of a mix of different investments, quite often including shares. And I'm sure you don't know.

Quite a volatile and rocky period for stock markets for a whole host of reasons, but not least the introduction and then U-turning and then more U-turning and changes on tariffs by US President Dr.

up at the moment with weather on tariffs. But we thought it would be very useful to look at how our investments have been impacted. So is the volatility over and what should we be considering when we see big head As with everything on this podcast, our chat with Charlotte is not intended to be financial advice, and we always recommend talking to a financial advisor if you feel But this is her take on what's been going on and it's really useful to help you navigate your own financial journey.

Charlotte, thank you so much for talking to I we wanted to talk to you right now because we've just had something that a lot of Broadcasters, papers, headlines, websites have been talking about market wobble. There were certainly a a lot more um scary terms used, and I think a a lot of people have probably checked their investments in the lack of

few months and notice that they have gone down, which can be scary. So um, you know, what what have we experienced? Can you just explain why that's happened?

Yeah, so a few things. I mean, we had what people are calling Liberation Day, some people in the US, on the 2nd of April. And that was an announcement a one of the worst headlines I've and I've only Probably the worst single headline that I've witnessed in that time, which is that the US is going to enact tariffs of unexpected And there were 90 days in which to sort of try and try and solve it. Now, tariffs are not very good because what they

consumers, you know, they're they're maybe gonna and US companies, they're maybe gonna have to manufacture more at home. So what it does is it unwinds what has been a really great period Free trade being buy from whoever in the world is most but also life gets more expensive. Um and if you are a US consumer and you're having to pay 10, 20, 30 percent more for something, that's not very good. So all of these things, but mainly just uncertainty because this headline came out, we have no idea.

We still don't know. And markets hate uncertainty. I'll talk about markets a lot, but people investing hate uncertainty. And as a result, often it's sort of shoot now, ask questions later, and a lot of people just sold on this incredibly uncertain, potentially incredibly negative headline. Um and since then the headlines have got a little bit better. So I'm

'Cause I know certainly when we've been out and about, um, money matters listeners Generally, members of the public have come up and said, Oh, I saw my pension fall, or I had an ICER and the value of my investment fell. And What we don't talk about is when things get better, and we have seen things get better. That's it. So prices have got better. So the stock market, and I I've just looked up the MSEI world, which I know people like to invest.

for your listeners, but the MSCI world is up four percent this year. So actually if you'd kind of gone on holiday in January and come back in May, you'd be pretty happy, you know, maybe four percent. Um and it was at one point You bought in February and then sold at the worst point in April, you would have lost twenty. But actually, if you just if you had Um it'd be fine. And and the reason um that this has yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n

That's what it is. So you're buying a piece of a company. So let's let's imagine um Google. So you're buying a bit of Google. What do you think is going to happen for Google over the next few years? It's not an easy question to answer, but if you were by a bar. Google and then Microsoft and then maybe Nestlé. Uh

think they're they're good businesses, they're probably just gonna become bigger, become um more profitable as the years go on. There's no way that they're worth, you know, one one day worth this and then a few days later worth There's just no way that their value changes that much. But what changes that much is the market's perception of that value. So the market gets really excited.

Nothing can go wrong, and then it gets really depressed when Donald Trump comes out and says, you know, the world, the world. Take a sledgehammer to everything that's good about free trade. And and and and that sort of really volatile psychology is the reason.

became very bleak and now maybe have become maybe too optimistic. But over time, and if you've got to take this long term view, over time if you invest in good companies, you should if y i i and if you do this in a way that we're probably talking if you do it in a way that really does sort of think about all the risks and the things that could go wrong, i.e., don't put putting not putting all your money in a single stock. Exposure to disrupt

um then it has been shown that over time stock markets do go up. Um so your point on things getting better, um the headlines have basically got better. I'm not saying that they're gonna continue to get better. We don't know from here. Uh but if you take a very long-term view, then it's that's that's how we how we approach it. And we were actually buying, and I imagine you're gonna ask me about this as well, but we were buying when things We will bye. Who knows? But it's like

It's really interesting that you talk y about markets almost as if it's a person. So markets get depressed and then they get enthusiastic and Markets effectively are made up of people like all of us, so retail investors, people like you managing funds. And certainly AJ Bell customers, you were just saying that you bought when those shares were looking really depressed. And that's what a lot of AJ Bell customers did as well. Can you explain what's the psychology of that?

So this is interesting. So I do think that in particular the last few years, people have become aware that if you do buy on weakness, the weakness hasn't lasted. So for example in Covet, I think the bear market we talk about bear Um that lasted for six weeks. So the pandemic was declared at the end of February and actually the market uh the market was going down a little bit before that, but it then trot.

hit it its low point towards the end of March, which is remarkable when you think about it. You know, the pandemic lasted for ages and ages, but the market priced it in very quickly or went too far and then you know things started Um and I think what people were doing at AJ Bell clients were probably doing were saying, well look, it paid it paid to to buy then. I'm gonna buy this this time around because I know that these The one thing I would caution against and we're kind of we

Is that that hasn't always been the case. So for example, the financial crisis, you know, you had well over a year of the market going down. You go back to the dot-com bubble and when that burst, it was a few years. So these things can last a longer time, a shorter time. But if your time horizon, you know, if I'm investing for my pension,

10 year, five to 10 year time horizon, um, then you know that allows me to say I'm I'm happy to buy on the 7th of April because frankly, I'm investing for a on a five-year view. And if it goes down more, uh we were in a position So I think that's it.

So let's assume that there's gonna be more volatility this year. Um I mean, we have Donald Trump in the White House and he's very good at sort of um throwing things up in the air and all of us have no idea quite where they're going to land. So when people see headlines about a market wobble, see the value of their investment falling, what should they do? So I can't give advice. I'm not I'm not legally allowed to give advice. Um and I will just talk about what we do. So understanding that

There will always be volatility as the first thing. So there will always be periods. you f and and it and I feel it. Just because we do this for a living doesn't mean we don't feel it. If I see a stock go down ten percent, I find that incredibly painful. I question myself, have I got this wrong? Um And then I do the work and I look at what's changed and I decide, okay, well, is the company working?

And I think that's all you can do is just really understand what you own. Um and therefore do you still, even though there's this sort of And I suppose your listeners probably, you know, might be invested in funds rather than stocks themselves, or might be invested in a very kind of diverse. Um you know, do your homework first. I you can read, there's so much you can read, and frankly, the pro.

is so interesting and I know lots of people who don't do this for a living, who do it in their free time, who find it interesting. So I'm just gonna put it out there that it's a great way to spend your evenings um reading about. But you know, for example, if you're invested in a fund um that sees the world a certain way, perhaps understands that more of the world is moving online, understands that we're going more.

Energy use, whatever it is, whatever that sort of structural trend is, and if you sort of follow that over a period of time, and then when the that moment hits where there's a blizzard of negative. Just go back to that initial homework, does that still stand up? Is is that trend gonna be intact? Is everything has everything been completely dismantled? And the answer is usually.

If you done the work properly it's usually no, but it might be yes. It might be actually, do you know what? We're not we're not gonna go into a world where let's say that we own uh Microsoft, you know that's the world is no longer gonna need business no no longer gonna use cloud computing um and AI is completely dead. If you decide that, if you make that assessment, then you shouldn't own it anymore. But

Bit of jargon you use there, ETF? Oh, apologies. Um Exchange Traded Fund. So ETFs are um ways uh they're like funds, they're a they're a way to gain access. What you said about um, you know, the the the five year time horizon and and that feeling when you see things drop, there's often a case of firstly panic. Sometimes it's the opposite, it's fear of missing out.

And the fact that so much of our investment life is now online, we can look every minute of the day if we want to at how our investments are performing in a way that, you know ten years ago we'd probably get a statement once a year through from our pension provider saying, you know, your investment has gone up by X or whatever. Now it's almost too much information. I honestly think there's a way to set yourself up so that you have a behavio

I think you've hit the nail on the head, it's actually limit that the frequency with which you can look at it. I think if you'll be because investing is about self-discipline. So if you can construct a framework whereby you actually only you only look Or you know, you you get an alert when something maybe get an alert when something is falling.

And then you know if you want to buy more at that point, but you're not c you're not obsessing about it. Because if you obsess about it, you become very short-term. And that's the enemy. That short-term is sort of the enemy of having that behavioural advantage of being able to step back. I don't care about headlines, I'm five years, I'm ten years. people are investing regularly, so setting up a direct debit that goes out once a month into um maybe an ICE, a lifetime ICE, or just, you know

Buying shares for a dealing account or like with a a workplace pension, there's a certain amount that goes out of your salary, your employer's salary every month. What's the benefit of that? Yeah, so this is called pan cost averaging if you if you put money in regularly on a sort of period. And what that means is you will the average um number of or the average price that you pay will be lower than

Bear with me. So let's say we start the year, the market's 100. Um, we end the year, market's 110, and you say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna invest one pound every

When the market goes from a hundred to ninety, then this is en route to being a hundred and ten. So I'm just giving you like you look at it's it's a nice year, make we're making money, but the market will have volatility uh in When it goes to ninety, and you're putting in a pound you're gonna butt be able to buy more than when it goes to one hundred and twenty.

on the way to 110. So actually you end up buying more when the market's cheap versus when it's expensive because you're putting the same pound amount in. And that's amazing. It's called pound cost averaging. And it and it's great because A it just sort of takes away the decision. But it means for example as well in that let's say your April subscription.

You don't have to say, Oh, I don't know whether to buy or not because I'm really scared like everyone else. You've got that automatic, again, it's putting these structures in place to stop. What did Donald Trump call them panicans? I think he got the he couldn't think of the word for panickers, so he there's a new So, if you don't want to be a panican. And therefore, just having that structure in place sort of almost forces you when you least want to. And there's this phrase in a

When you should be buying, you won't want to. And it's true, you won't feel like it because the world will feel like it's ending. March 2020, the world felt like it was ending. That was the best time to be buying. So if you've got something automated that forces you to do it, I I think behaviour That's absolutely fascinating. And I love panicams. The other one that I love from Donald Trump was Yippee.

Oh I missed that what was yippee. Yippee. So you've got the yips, but instead of saying they've got the yips, he said the markets were getting yippy and I was like, Yippee I don't think so. He's got it wrong. He's got it wrong. As as often. Um So you were talking um earlier about diversification. um about having lots of different things in people's investment baskets. If we were to use the jargon we'd call it a portfolio. So why is that important? So again we kinda spoke about okay.

If you get the stock right, that's that's fine. But if you look over time, and I don't have the numbers at at the tips of my fingers here, but it's some i I know that it's the vast majority, and whether it's sort of ninety percent disruption the world changes even just going back and thinking about Nokia or you think about companies that you might have owned when we were the Internet era um and companies that actually didn't survive

Like Enron, where there's an accounting scandal. There's all there are all these companies which, oh, you think that's you know, pretty large, pretty diversified, I'm gonna be fine. Even the best analysts, the professionals, They get it wrong all the time because the world's uncertain. So you really shouldn't, um, and again I can't give advice, but we we think about it from our professional standpoint, we really shouldn't.

um and therefore owning a number of good ideas, of which at least we think the majority and over time the majority have uh been successful ideas is all you need to be a good investor. You you won't win. Um, and that's the inherent uncertainty of it. So there is, yeah, there's definitely something to be said, and and there's sort of data. empirical research behind this, um but you want an amount of diversification.

variety in your portfolio. There's also arguments which are completely right as well that you don't want to over-diversify or diversify Um and that's kind of oh well I should just buy more or different types of

frankly are less good for the sake of it. No, actually you can dilute your best ideas by doing that as well. Um so look, I yeah, again I kinda wanna come back to thinking about your the standpoint of your listeners, which is probably Other people like, and I don't know, but I I would assume a lot of them will be thinking of like that i.e., invest in a managed fund, something. Same if you were to buy the exchange traded fund, the ETF, that's usually a basket of companies.

Um so I I suppose um thinking about from that standpoint, you know, you probably don't want to just have one fund. Say you will put all your money in the Trojan Ethical Fund or the Trojan Fund, which I run. If I get it wrong, then I'll feel terrible. But also, we would never advise. You know, that person at a point in time may get it wrong and may get it wrong over a number of years. So you kind of want to manage.

Yeah, really make sure that you diversify your manager risk as well. So putting all your eggs in into someone's basket.

It's fascinating that you used um a Nokia there as an example of a a company that I mean, for a while it was absolutely all the rage, wasn't it? That Nokia phone. And you know, you would Just text with a couple of thumbs and and now the world has moved on and you know the computer in the palm of your hand looks entirely different, but you could never have imagined that that was going to be the case.

No, no exactly. And something seems so entrenched, so established, and then boom, you just can't predict you've got to look back over the last twenty-five years. You know, the iPhone was only launched in two thousand and seven. We didn't have app economy didn't exist. So all these the all the time new business models are forming, are gaining traction. There are just really they're gonna be unforeseen ways of of living that you just you just can't predict

Um so you gotta you gotta be really alive to that as an opportunity but also a risk. It's been brilliant talking to you, Charlotte. Thank you so much.

That was Charlotte Young from Troy Asset Management. And as we said earlier, she's also co founder of the charity Gain, which stands for Girls Are Investors, which she set up to try and encourage more women. industry, something that we are obviously a hundred percent in favor of. Breaking into those still male-dominated industries is definitely a good thing. And one thing I'm

Danny, did Charlotte share one with us? She did, and you probably won't be surprised by this one'cause it echoes what so many of the women who work in financial services often say about their own finances. Before I let you go, we ask everyone a question at the end of our podcast, which is we ask them for either a financial dilemma or a financial confession. I think I think mine is. I will often be underinvested in my own portfolio, so I will often just um

which is probably what people wanna hear. But it's not really what my family wanna hear. So I'll um I'll just and I do I mess a lot of uh as a proportion of of my own portfolio into That is and that's really boring. I wish I'd blown it all on a trip to Disneyland. That sounds way better. Um But um that's my that's my confession. I suppose now that I've got two sons, so um and subscribing to I an ice.

Yes, I think what's the old saying? It's like doctors make the worst patients. I think that is also a similar vibe here, isn't it? And I think it's there's an element where if you're doing it every day, you're talking about investing. Probably the last thing you want to do when you get home, you've got the kids to bed, you've had dinner, you've done the earning is sit down. So I can relate to this one, but sh her children will probably thank her if she does sort out.

Yes, it's one of those sort of issues I think a lot of people get. I would imagine it would be a bit know, you get home and your mum or your sister turns up after you've been on your feet for ten hours and said, Can you just do me a quick colour? Yeah, you probably um would be a bit like, actually We go. That is it for this episode of the pod. Our next episode, we've got a brilliant.

best-selling author and Jungian money coach Linda Davies. She's had an incredible life. So I'm really looking forward to hearing all about her and how our psychology affects our financial lives. I'm And I love that topic. We had uh Laura and Moore on a previous podcast, didn't we, talking about how your kind of childhood and your family affects your approach to money. So that's definitely a good warm-up But until then, do get in touch with us via email. We're on hello at AJ Bell Money Matters.

or via our social media. You can find us on all the usual places LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and X, where we are at AJ Bell Money Matters. And until next time, thanks for listening. Before you go, please remember this podcast. And the views expressed don't necessarily reflect those. Bell. The podcast isn't telling you if a certain investment is super. Don't forget that the value of investments can change.

and you can lose money as well as make it. It's also important to remember that how you're taxed will depend on your individual circumstances and rules can change. The way an investment is how it behaves in the future. If you want help, go see a qualified financial advisor.