Savings warning: The one action ‘guaranteed to lose you money’ as inflation soars

Inflation this week hit nine percent, and experts expect it to rise to double digits by the end of the year. Amid this challenging financial time, Express.co.uk spoke exclusively to James Norton, head of financial planners at Vanguard UK, who provided insight.

He said: “There is no doubt this year has been quite difficult for everyone.

“At the moment, global equities are down almost nine percent and unusually bonds are down as well – by eight percent.

“Coupled with that, return expectations are low, but they are positive and that is really important.”

Market volatility has increased within recent weeks and months, Mr Norton highlighted.

READ MORE: State pensioners to be £13,000 worse off as UK inflation soars

Mr Norton said: “Investors, when they sell, can panic as they want to preserve what they have left, but they do often miss out on the subsequent bounce.

“So our message is to stay the course – as difficult as it may be, because discipline is hard.

“When our emotions kick in, we start making irrational decisions that feel rational at the time.

“If you know your goals and have structured them in a low-cost arrangement, doing nothing is the best course of action – or rather rebalancing your portfolio.

“We’re trained to think that if something looks broken we fix it – so we sell. In all other areas of life it can be good, but not in this one.”

Mr Norton stressed that when markets fall, a person’s future expected return will go up.

He concluded: “One of the greatest and most important predictors of the future direction and returns of share prices is their current value.

“If they fall by 10 or 20 percent, what that means is the expected return in the future is higher.”