All guides
These guides cover the decisions that matter most before you invest: getting your finances ready, understanding risk, spreading your money, checking what you'll pay and confirming who you're dealing with. Start with the checklist if you're new, or go straight to the topic you're unsure about.
What is a managed portfolio and how does it work?
Log Test explains how a managed portfolio works: who picks the investments, what you pay, how rebalancing works and the risks to weigh before you start.
How investment fees work, and how much they really cost over time
Log Test shows how platform fees, fund charges and trading costs add up, with a worked table of what 0.5% to 2% a year costs over 10, 20 and 30 years.
How to work out how much investment risk you can take
Log Test explains how to judge your risk tolerance: time horizon, capacity for loss, how a fall would feel in cash, and how risk questionnaires work.
How to check an investment firm is genuine and authorised (and spot clone firms)
Log Test shows how to check an investment firm on your regulator's public register and warning list, spot clone firms and cold calls, and what to do next.
Seven things to sort out before you invest
Log Test's pre-investing checklist: emergency savings, debt, goals, time horizon, pensions and tax-advantaged accounts, fees and risk, with examples.
Diversification explained: why spreading your money matters
Log Test explains diversification: how spreading money across companies, countries and asset types limits losses, what it can't do, and how to check it.
Investing glossary: common terms explained
Investment documents use a lot of shorthand. This glossary explains fifteen terms you'll meet in fee tables, risk questionnaires and fund factsheets, in one or two sentences each. If a term isn't here, the guides above explain most of them in more depth, with worked examples.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Asset allocation | How your money is split between types of investment, such as shares, bonds and cash. It's the biggest single driver of how much a portfolio rises and falls. |
| Bond | A loan to a government or company that pays interest and returns the amount borrowed on a set date. Bond prices still move, especially when interest rates change. |
| Compound growth | Growth on your growth. If returns stay invested, next year's return is earned on a bigger sum. It works in reverse for fees, which compound too. |
| Diversification | Spreading money across many investments, sectors and countries so one bad result does less damage. It lowers risk but doesn't remove it. See our guide. |
| Drawdown | The fall from a portfolio's highest value to its lowest point before it recovers, shown as a percentage. In pensions, the same word also means taking income from an invested pot. |
| Equity | Another word for a share: part-ownership of a company. Equities have historically grown more than bonds or cash over long periods but fall harder in bad years. |
| ETF (exchange-traded fund) | A fund that trades on a stock exchange like a share. Most ETFs track an index, such as a basket of large global companies, and charge low fees. |
| Inflation | The rate at which prices rise. Money that grows more slowly than inflation buys less each year, even if the number in your account goes up. |
| Investor compensation scheme | A scheme, found in many countries, that may pay out up to a limit if an authorised investment firm fails and can't return clients' money or investments. Coverage and limits vary from country to country. It never covers ordinary investment losses. |
| Ongoing charges | The yearly cost of running a fund, shown as a percentage (often called the OCF). It's taken from inside the fund, so you won't see it as a separate bill. |
| Platform fee | What the provider charges each year to hold and administer your investments, usually a percentage of your balance. It sits on top of fund charges. See our fees guide. |
| Rebalancing | Selling some of what has grown and buying more of what has lagged, to bring a portfolio back to its target mix. Managed portfolios do this for you. |
| Risk profile | A label, often a number or a word like 'cautious' or 'adventurous', that sums up how much ups and downs suit you. It decides which portfolio you're offered. |
| Suitability assessment | The questions an investment firm asks about your goals, finances, knowledge and tolerance for loss before it manages money for you or recommends an investment. Many countries require it. |
| Volatility | How much and how quickly an investment's price moves up and down. Higher volatility means a wider range of outcomes over short periods, in both directions. |
Definitions are general and simplified. Product documents from the provider take precedence.