So I said someone else would do this week’s Update, but here I am in a hotel room doing it anyway. It’s early on Wednesday, and time is on my mind. This is partly because I can hear the bells of St Paul’s ringing – thanks, bells of St Paul’s – and also partly because I need to make this a pretty quick Update because I have to see a man about a dog shortly. But duration isn’t the same thing as quality, as the bishop said to etc etc and you’d be amazed what you can achieve in an hour or so. 

Time is also on my mind because we’ve picked the finalists for the AdviceTech Catwalk on 5 June. Not only don’t this Furious Five have much time until the event, they also have very little time onstage to punt their wares – just five minutes or so each. When they’re out of time they will hear Thunderous Organ Music (for we are in a church) and the lights will go red around them and if they keep talking we’ll cut their mic and if they STILL keep talking there will be Divine Thunderbolts. For we are in a church. 

Anyway, the finalists are: 

• Lyfegard – a digital vault using open finance 

• Otto – a full-stack AI adviser practice assistant 

• Tikker – a way to make running portfolios across platforms easier 

• Wealthspace – AI for advisers but with added privacy controls 

• Etcho – a way of aligning portfolios to investor values 

Those are my summaries, not those of the companies themselves, and I don’t doubt they’ll be grumpy about them but that doesn’t matter because it’s me that’s typing this not them, and also if they moan they’ll find their time onstage MAGICALLY SHRINKING. 

Now you know the finalists, I hope you’ll pick yourself up a ticket if you haven’t already; we ain’t sold out yet but we did last year. Not free but not far off, and tickets are available here.  

Time as it pertains to the end of an era will also be on the mind of those who follow Warren Buffett, as he retires at the age of 94. Apparently someone did a cashflow model for him and it’s only this year that the wee red bars turned green so he reckoned it was safe to pick up his baw and take it hame. 

I’ve always been intrigued when advisers try to recruit Buffett into their discourse with clients; not least because he famously shuns the trappings of success, driving a 10-year old Cadillac which he bought because it had cosmetic damage from a hailstorm and so was cheaper. I think of that whenever an adviser turns up in a nice BMW or Porsche or – yes – Tesla and starts sounding off. 

Anyway, there will be acres of cant vomited up onto adviser newsletters and articles and – I’m not immune to irony – Updates. It’s probably good to remember that a) he was and is a stockpicker, b) he was happy to sit on piles of cash when he couldn’t find stocks he liked  and c) instructed that what money he didn’t give away be invested in a 90/10 index fund / treasury bond split after his death. Unless your investment approach aligns pretty closely to those three things, you might tread carefully when recruiting the sage of Omaha into discussions. 

But still, what a life and what a legacy. Maybe he can treat himself to a pizza oven now.

And your music choice – well, seems like as good a week as any to give you one of my favourite songs from another legend. Please enjoy Time by Tom Waits – this is the version from, fittingly, Big Time.