According to Eurostat, life expectancy at birth in the EU increased by 2 years for women and 2.9 years for men between 2002 and 2021. As people continue to live longer, the way your life will look after the age of 50 is likely to be very different to…

It’s a good time of year to be writing about Happiness, but it is something that should perhaps take more priority all year round. This post is inspired by one of our favourite podcasts, The Happiness Lab, by Dr Laurie Santos.

We post articles each week on various aspects of life as an international or expat in Europe in relation to managing your investment, pensions and your money in general. We provide this information because as expats ourselves we have…

Financial education for many people is one of those things that is important but never urgent and there is always something better to do, even if that is the housework! For some it is downright boring. We know we are exceptions that actually find…

Since FATCA (The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act ) came into force in 2010, it has impacted Americans and US connected persons living abroad significantly. FATCA requires all US Citizens and US connected individuals…

This post covers a concept that we speak about a lot with our clients and is one that can have a major impact on achieving your goals and creating a better financial life. Life can be busy, hectic and we often find ourselves moving from one…

For expats and internationals living in Europe that own or aspire to own property in the UK, there are lots of reasons to remain positive about property in the UK. Falling property prices driven by political and economic uncertainty mean that there is value in the market.

The idea of retirement is changing and they way we will live into our senior years is undergoing a substantial social shift, right now, and right in front of us. The traditional model is that we work our adult lives, for 40 to 50 years…

There are a number of factors to take into account whether you are planning and managing your investments yourself or getting professional advice. We consider five key factors when undertaking investment analysis for our clients.

We have written about a number of aspects of risk and volatility in financial and investment management recently, including: managing unexpected events; how to act after something goes wrong; the impact of behavioural economics…

Slipped up? Wish the advice arrived sooner? We have written recently here about how to prepare for the unexpected and how to protect yourself from future upsets, but what if you are too late? What if the upset has already happened?

Sometimes, very rarely, everything goes exactly according to plan. Far more often, there are shocks to the system. Whether you find yourself away on holiday with the family and suddenly unable to fly home, your employer is suddenly forced to…

Coworkers analyzing charts and graphs at the meeting, view from above With the summer holiday period officially finished, schools are back, working life has resumed and we are seeing a lot of requests for help as people get their financial lives in order.

We recently wrote about risk profiling and how we align our clients’ goals to the dynamics of the markets and their assessed risk profile. You can read more about it here. Everything we discussed in that article concerned logical, quantifiable…

One of the first things we do with new clients, after discussing their needs, goals and what they want to achieve, is to do a risk profile assessment. It is an important tool that is often overlooked or misunderstood however is fundamental in…

Companies are increasingly realising that investing in the wellbeing of their staff is not just a good and right thing to do but that it can also have positive returns for businesses. Wellbeing typically covers three main aspects…

Of all the confusing acronyms regarding tax issues for US-connected investors that are thrown about these days, PFIC is probably the most misunderstood. Even once you expand the abbreviation to its full meaning, ‘Passive Foreign Investment Company’ can seem just as ambiguous.

“Why the Black Swan?” It’s a question we are frequently asked. In this article we explain why we are named after it, or more accurately the Black Swan theory, how it reflects the way we operate and how it shapes our client service philosophy.

One of the great pleasures we have at Black Swan Capital is seeing the improvements in our clients’ lives from the application of good investment and financial advice. Whether our client is a newly arrived expat or they have been abroad for half a lifetime…

Accidental American. The term itself sounds a little comical, conjuring up images of slipping on a banana skin and somehow waking up wearing a Stetson and cowboy boots. The reality, however, is that millions of people around the world…