Investors, like off-duty medics, face an occupational hazard. Sooner or later someone will want to pick your brains. But while the poor doctor-at-leisure might be forced to look at a bad knee or a nasty rash, it will be your view of Bitcoin or a tiny tech company that the questioner is after rather than your verdict on spots or a sore leg.
For some investors, it doesn’t end at questions. If you are the sole investor in the family, you are quite likely to end up taking on the management of other family members’ money, starting with your spouse’s/partner’s, then your children’s and finally your parents’. You may even be asked to look after other relatives’ and friends’ portfolios, and you are also more likely than any non-investors in your circle to be appointed a trustee.
After all, you have the knowledge and the experience. You know your PEGs, your ROCEs and your tracking errors and you know your way around the markets. For anyone who doesn’t know where to start, let alone where they should be going, it makes perfect sense to leave the tricky job of investing their money in your hands.