Just like back on 23 June, we have woken up to an electoral outcome few commentators thought possible. Donald Trump has won one of the most acrimonious presidential elections battles in recent US history. He will become the most powerful man on the planet and the leader of the world’s largest economy. Asian stock markets […]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently published its ‘World Economic Outlook’ report which suggests that whilst global growth in 2016 has been substandard, this is set to improve somewhat during 2017. The IMF’s report states that stifled global growth this year has been caused largely by the Brexit vote and the economic slowdown in the […]
We left you last month having reported on September as a month where ‘nothing much happened’ on the world’s stock markets. For many of the major markets October was much the same: only three of the twelve markets we cover were down in the month, but most managed only small gains. As you’ll see below, […]
Research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) surrounding wealth in the UK has been making headlines in recent months. The study has found that people born during the 1980s are now half as wealthy as those born in the 1970s were at the same stage in their lives. This makes children born during the […]
The latest figures surrounding the pensions lifetime allowance (LTA), which governs how much your pensions can be worth without triggering an extra tax charge, suggest that a considerable number of middle-income earners are being hit by the lower threshold. The amount collected from pensions exceeding the LTA by HMRC during the 2015-16 tax year came to […]
Introduction September was the month when nothing much happened on the world’s stock markets. Three of the 11 major markets on which we report were up, three were unchanged and five were down – but none of them by very much. The UK led the way, albeit only up 2%, while Japan and China were […]
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, gang aft agley”. So said Robert Burns in his poem ‘To a Mouse’, lyrically summing up the idea that no matter how well we prepare, there are always factors beyond our control that can cause our ‘best laid’ plans to unravel. Whilst the same can be said […]
If your annual income is above £150,000, then your pension allowance has been subject to tapering since April this year. For every £2 of income over £150,000, your £40,000 annual allowance is reduced by £1, with the reduction rounded down to the nearest whole pound if necessary. Reductions are capped at £30,000, meaning that those […]
Following the Bank of England’s decision to cut interest rates to a record low of 0.25% at the beginning of August and the initial reaction to that from within the financial sector, the resultant effects continue to be felt over a month later. Cash savings accounts have been hit the hardest, with some banks making […]
A recent study analysing the income statistics for pensioners has found that more people aged over 65 are continuing to work after they officially retire. Figures suggest that the amount of pensioners doing so is around 13%, an increase from just 8% over the past ten years. That figure might sound small, but it equates […]