The current COVID-19 crisis has wiped billions from the world’s financial markets. In the world of investing, such markets where share prices are falling are known as bear markets. Beating a bear isn’t easy, but you’ll be pleased to read that in all 10 prior occasions, the FTSE All-Share has completely made up the ground […]
Financial independence can seem like the holy grail. We may be striving towards it but feel bombarded by lots of conflicting messages on how best to attain it. These five points give an interesting perspective: Income is not the same thing as wealth Having a high salary can help you accumulate wealth but that’s no […]
Introduction In March, the coronavirus outbreak seemed to steal all the headlines, giving us almost hourly updates as it transformed our lives, and made the word ‘unprecedented’ feel like an understatement. Inevitably, there has been a serious impact on world stock markets, which have suffered their worst quarter since 1987. The figures that follow will […]
Introduction So was it the Coronavirus Budget, or the Infrastructure Budget? Or was it, as the Chancellor declared at the end of his speech, the ‘people’s Budget from a people’s government?’ It was certainly a Budget that was high on spending commitments and one that the Chancellor declared would ‘get things done.’ Now where have […]
We spend so much of our lives online that protecting our digital selves is now as important as protecting any other asset. Cybercriminals continue to find more devious and more sophisticated ways to access passwords, bank accounts, and personal identification data. And large-scale hacks like the 2017 Equifax breach underscore just how vulnerable our data […]
Financial planning… Isn’t that based on cold, hard facts and scientific reasoning? Surely feelings and emotions don’t have much to do with investing? We think they do. And here’s why. A little thing called human behaviour gets involved, you see. Only it’s not so little. Human beings are highly complex systems, motivated by many different […]
The tax year will end on April 5th. Are you confident that you have made appropriate preparations and maximised your tax allowances? Here are some of the allowances that you should consider: The Marriage Allowance You can transfer £1,250 of your Personal Allowance to your spouse or civil partner if they earn more than you […]
China grabbed the headlines again in January, but this time not for trade. On 31st December, the Chinese authorities had notified the World Health Organisation of an outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan City, Hubei Province. Today the country is in lockdown, the death toll is rising fast, the number of infected is rising faster. The […]
The end of the decade saw the US/China trade dispute continue to make plenty of headlines. However with Donald Trump signing a long-awaited ‘phase one’ agreement on 15th January, it appears 2020 could see tensions ease. Trump is currently due to travel to China later in the year, where ‘phase two’ of the deal will […]
Do you know where your will is? Even more importantly, do the people who will act as your executors, in the event of your death, know where your will is stored? The recent discovery at Lloyds Banking Group that 9,000 wills had been left in storage and not passed on to customers serves as a […]