Worldwide Financial Planning

When financial resolutions go wrong, it tends to boil down to a handful of common psychological and practical mis‑steps and, just between us, deciding to set goals in February can relieve a surprising amount of pressure.

With two notable exceptions, all the tech companies delivering stock market updates this week have exceeded already ambitious revenue growth forecasts. This has been true not only among mega‑cap names such as Apple and Meta, but also across many second‑tier US tech firms.

You can tell a lot about a person by how they carry their purse. My grandmothers' was worn, always clean, contained enough cash for the day (and an emergency), a few boiled sweets, and a steel clasp which shut with purpose. That purse taught me more about money than any financial seminar ever could.

This week Donald Trump’s belligerent attitude towards Greenland rattled equity and bond markets and sent the dollar lower before his U-turn on
using military force saw markets reverse course.

For 38 years, I’ve advised people to fill the holes in their leaky buckets instead of rushing around trying to keep filling the bucket full of water, the metaphor being money and banks.

Trump’s short-term agenda raises clear risks for the US. Recent Chinese trade data show the potential for unintended long term consequences. China’s trade surplus widened in 2025 not despite US trade restrictions, but because of them, as it sought alternative markets.