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One plan for pensions, policies and accounts across countries. Cross-border wealth management.

26/10/2026

Your UK inheritance tax can move abroad with you.

If you lived in the UK for 10 of the last 20 tax years, it can follow you for 3 to 10 years after you leave.

And from 6 April 2027, your unused pension counts too.

Count your UK tax years. Follow for one of these every week.

Education, not advice.

26/10/2026

Your pension fund back home might not track the country you think it tracks.

Germany makes 28% fewer cars than in 2015.

Its top stock index more than doubled in the same time.

Check how much of your biggest fund sits in your home market.

Follow for more. Education, not advice.

25/10/2026

Stocks have averaged 10.3% a year since the 1930s. Gold's averaged 5.6%. Bonds 4.3%. Cash 3.3%. This week gold finally moved again, up over 7%, its first real rally in five weeks, on rate-cut odds rather than fear.

Clients ask me constantly which asset actually protects them. The honest answer, looking at nine decades of data, is that no single asset wins every decade. Gold was up 28.6% in the 1970s and down 3.1% in the 1990s. Stocks lost money in the 2000s and gained nearly 20% in the 1990s.

This is the entire case for holding uncorrelated things instead of chasing whatever performed best last year. The 2020s so far show stocks at 11.9% and bonds at negative 2.4%. A decade from now this table gets a new row, and it'll surprise someone all over again.

25/10/2026

Since 1989, money invested into the S&P 500 on a new all-time high has gone on to return more than money invested on any random day. 13.6% versus 12.0% one year out. 82% versus 74% five years out. The S&P just closed at a record 7,757 this week, its strongest week since April.

The question I get every time markets hit a new high is some version of "isn't it too late to invest now." I understand the instinct. A record high feels like the top. But records aren't tops, they're just what a growing market looks like over time.

Waiting for a pullback that might not come has its own cost. The data says a new high has never been a reason to sit on cash. It's usually been a reason to stay invested.

24/10/2026

During tough economic times, focus on essential spending. Prioritize necessities like utilities, electricity, and garbage collection. Even if you skip the latest gadgets, these will always be needs.

24/10/2026

A UK passport gets you visa-free access to 184 of 226 destinations. Malaysia, where most of my clients now call home, isn't far behind at 183.

The question I get most from European expats setting up in KL isn't about tax rates, it's about optionality: can I still move if I need to. Passport strength is part of the answer, but it's not the whole answer. A German client with money trapped inside a home-country pension structure isn't actually mobile, whatever door his passport opens.

This ranking shows who can go anywhere. It says nothing about who can take their money with them.

Freedom to travel and freedom to relocate your wealth are two different documents.

23/10/2026

Britain held 23.1% of world GDP at the height of empire. Today the UK's share, at purchasing power parity, is 1.9%.

When I sit with British clients in KL, most still frame their financial plan around the UK as the default center of gravity: sterling assets, a UK pension, an assumption their money 'belongs' there. The chart tells a different story. China now holds 21.8% of world GDP, the US 14.7%, and the whole of the European Union sits at 12.3% combined, barely above where Germany or France stood alone a century ago.

This is the picture behind why I don't build portfolios around a single country's fortunes. A QROPS or SIPP anchored entirely to one shrinking slice of the world map isn't a plan, it's a bet on the last two hundred years repeating.

Empires end. Diversification doesn't need to.

23/10/2026

The UK's new salary-sacrifice pension National Insurance cap becomes law in 2029, and clients keep asking me if it changes what they should hold inside their pension. It doesn't touch this number: S&P 500 companies are growing sales 15% year-on-year right now, the fastest pace since the end of 2021, with 88% of results already reported.

The question I get most from German and Belgian clients watching headlines about a slowing US economy is whether the stock market still reflects real business performance or just sentiment. This chart is the answer. Revenue growth, not multiple expansion, not a Fed rate call, is what's actually accelerating underneath the index.

It also explains something July's US payrolls report doesn't: a labour market that just posted its first outright job loss of the cycle, and record corporate revenue growth, can be true at the same time. Different parts of the same economy, moving on different clocks.

Fundamentals don't need a headline to keep compounding.

22/10/2026

Many IPO charts look identical, luring retail investors into emotional decisions. While rational investors see potential drops, the hype can lead to significant losses. Don't get caught in the frenzy.

22/10/2026

A Norwegian pays 43% more for the same iPhone than an American does. A Hungarian pays 55% more. Move to Kuala Lumpur and that number drops to just 14%.

Clients ask me why cost-of-living conversations always come back to currency, not prices. This is why. VAT, import duty and a weaker local currency stack on top of each other across Europe in a way they simply don't across most of Southeast Asia. The same phone, the same components, a completely different bill depending on which side of a border you're standing on.

None of this is really about phones. It's about what happens to a euro or a pound once it crosses into a different tax and currency system, and that's the same question that decides where a pension should sit.

Prices don't lie about a currency's strength. They just don't always get asked.

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