This unspoken message is based on the premise that they have vast resources at their disposal, access to information you don’t and are experienced professional investors who know a lot more about stockmarkets than you do.

Not only is this plausible but its what most of us want to hear, because its so much easier than having to do it for ourselves.

The truth is that so-called ‘Managed Funds’ don’t actually manage your money in a meaningful way and with-profits funds are a licence for Insurance Companies under the guise of so-called ‘smoothing’ to pay out what they want without any means of verifying whether or not you have been given your fair share.

Because fund managers adapt a ‘buy and hold’ investment strategy it means for 2/3rd of the time it looks as though they are doing a good job.

But when we have a prolonged bear market they are almost guaranteed to lose you money. This is the ‘ride it out’ (grin and bear it) stage referred to earlier.