FINANCIAL GURU GETS IT WRONG

Sometimes it’s hard not to feel like a complete fool when viewing life from hindsight. Why O why didn’t we see this coming – how differently life would have turned out. Well, console yourself with the thought that it wasn’t just you!

This seems to be the intention as The Sunday Times again this week forages among the debris to showcase some of our illustrious peers who got it really badly wrong.

This time it is Eddie Hobbs’ turn. The former presenter of Show Me the Money and whose face adorned a personal finance magazine every month for years before it ceased print publication recently, says he no longer wants to be referred to as “a financial guru”.

“I hate being called a financial guru, because I’ve made mistakes,” he said. “I’m not going to put an exact figure on it, but my income went through the floor last year and my earnings fell across the board. More of my assets plummeted. As regards property, luckily my portfolio is diversified but some foreign property of mine fell in value and I had one complete wipe-out”.

Others who feature in the piece include the actor Frank Kelly who, aged 71, is taking a role in the UK soap Emmerdale because of a “slide” in his retirement fund and Mike Soden, the former Bank of Ireland boss, who admits to losing €3m in bank shares before recovering 60-70% of it in the market over the past couple of years.

The ubiquitous Soden is publicising his book but perhaps its greatest selling point would be advising people on how exactly anyone manages to recover up to 70% of initial losses in these markets.

Now, that’s something I would like to read!