Uncommon Sense
August 2026 Newsletter
July certainly made itself memorable! For many in the UK, it was one of the driest on record, which is bad news for farmers and everyone’s lawn, and, hopefully, good news for the pubs.
August tends to be a quieter month for many in the Northern Hemisphere. Lots of people are away, the world slows down a little, and diaries suddenly have some breathing room. Whether you’ve got a holiday lined up or you’re simply enjoying a gentler pace closer to home, I hope you get the chance to switch off properly.
The rest of this month’s newsletter is packed with ideas and links that you may find interesting. As always, we’re here if you’d like to discuss how any of these ideas might apply to your unique situation.
The Stock Markets
Inflation – The Real Enemy
🍿 Watch
Why you think you’re right – even if you’re wrong
📰 Read
Why Autonomy Is the True Gift of Retirement [11 minutes]. The recovered right to be entirely in charge of your own life.
Failing is Common, Trying is Rare [5 minutes]. Fake trying is hard to see in real time.
I was obsessed with money… then I found philosophy [5 minutes]. When the tool becomes the goal.
What Are the Chances of Your Prediction Being Right? [2 minutes]. What playing cards can teach us about financial markets.
Great Expectations [3 minutes]. Adjusting an expectation is not the same as lowering your standard.
One Person’s Luxury, Another’s Necessity [3 minutes]. The thing in your budget you would defend before anything else.
🎧 Listen
Inheritance of a Story [2 minutes]. We don’t just inherit money, we inherit the stories that come with it.
😀 Rational Optimism
The media is not a friend of the disciplined and patient investor. Ignoring the key determinants of lifetime investor returns, the media focuses on short-term returns, market predictions, and negative news.
We present the following as an antidote to the onslaught of negative news:
Global Airline Safety Improved as Accident Rates Fell in 2025
Air Quality Improvements Achieved Across Europe
AI Is Helping Workers Across Jobs, but Not Replacing Them
Choosing the Right Scoreboard
“How am I doing?” is a great question to ask in life. Reflecting on our progress in any domain allows us to make course corrections and improve our chances of success.
Naturally, we strongly encourage asking this question about your financial life, and it’s what our regular planning meetings with clients are built around.
However, we’ve seen that people reach for different numbers when they ask this question, and two of them are always close at hand.
The first is the market return. It is quoted in most market reports and printed in the papers, so the figure is easy to find. The second is the people around us, and the numbers they mention when telling stories of their financial success. Both end up being used as a benchmark.
Why Neither One Fits
We don’t believe either of these numbers is the right benchmark for reviewing your progress.
A stock market index has no goals. It has no children starting university in four years, no income to draw next month, no tax position, no time horizon, and no reason to hold anything in cash for upcoming expenses. A like-for-like comparison can therefore be very difficult.
In any given year, a diversified portfolio will usually have trailed some asset class or investment product. This is the reason for being diversified. Knowing what has performed well recently is not the same as identifying it in advance.
A friend bragging about an impressive return seldom mentions the risk that was taken. The investment may have been concentrated in one thing, borrowed against, or held by someone who could afford to lose it all. You are also only hearing the stories that ended well, because the same bet going the other way never gets told.
The question is not whether your portfolio beat the market or a friend. It is whether it did what you asked of it, and whether it is likely to support the life you want to live.
What a Real Scoreboard Measures
We believe five questions are worth asking every year. Asking these, preferably with the help of a qualified financial planner, can give you a much better idea of your progress.
- Am I on track to fund the life I want?
- Is my savings rate where it needs to be?
- Will my income last for as long as I do?
- Have I avoided any permanent mistakes?
- Is the money buying a life I actually want?
The last question is one that almost never appears on a scoreboard. A financial plan can be completely on track and still be paying for a life nobody chose deliberately. Answering it means looking at what last year’s spending actually bought, and asking whether you would buy the same things again.
If the answer to any of these questions is no, there is usually something that can be done: saving more, spending less, adjusting the income you draw, or moving the timing of something planned.
The index is outside your control, so last year’s return number doesn’t change anything you can do now.
Keeping Score Together
What we measure tends to change how we behave. Someone judging the year by an index or by what a friend said may be tempted to fix a portfolio that isn’t broken.
Alternatively, if we judge a financial plan by what we can control, it usually points to something we can do.
Part of our job is to keep the right measures in front of you when we meet, and a large part of our planning meetings focuses on answering these questions. While we are happy to compare your returns to the market, we are more interested in whether you are on track and whether anything needs to change.
If these ideas raise a question about your own financial plan, we are always glad to talk it through.
Compliance disclaimers:
The value of investments and any income from them can fall as well as rise. You may not get back the full amount invested. Past performance should be used as a guide only and is not a guarantee of future performance.
🖼️ A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
Which Countries Think They’re on the Right Track?
The World’s Most Powerful Passports (2016 vs. 2026)
We hope that you enjoyed this month’s newsletter. Please let us know what you enjoyed, or write back with any of your own news.
As always, we’re here for you.
See you next month,
Halcyon Financial Planning
