Your weekly coach report

Week to 7 September 2026. Short on purpose. Read it with a cup of tea and then get on with your day.

Three things you learned

The desk wrote 7 write-ups this week, and 0 of them had every claim checked back to the original document.
0 warnings were proved against a real filing — and 7 looked worrying but couldn't be proved, which is just as useful to know.
Doing nothing is a decision, and most weeks it is the right one.

Concentration: check the X-ray for how much sits in one company, one industry and one country.
Charges never take a week off. A 1% yearly charge quietly costs £100 on a £10,000 pot, good year or bad.
Anything urgent, secret or guaranteed is a warning sign, not an opportunity.

How far something has fallen from its highest point.

Why it matters

It is the honest measure of how bad the worst moment felt.

For example

£1,000 dropping to £700 is a 30% drawdown.

Beginner warning

Recovering hurts more than falling: a 50% fall needs a 100% rise just to get level again.

What your broker charges you each year simply for holding your investments.

Why it matters

It comes out whether you make money or not, every single year.

For example

0.25% on a £5,000 pot is about £12.50 a year.

Beginner warning

On big pots, percentage fees get expensive. Flat-fee providers can be far cheaper.

A one-off charge each time you buy or sell.

Why it matters

Frequent trading turns small fees into a big hole in a small pot.

For example

£5.95 a trade on a £100 purchase is nearly 6% gone before you start.

Beginner warning

This is why we cap practice trades. Fiddling is expensive.

Mostly to raise money to grow — and to let early owners sell some of their slices.

Buying something because it has already gone up a lot. That is a story about the past, not evidence about the future.

Write one diary note about any practice trade — even a single sentence.

Education and practice only. No predictions, no personal recommendations, and no real money anywhere in this app.