Introduction Where did we leave the soap opera that is British politics? At the end of September, Liz Truss was the Prime Minister, and Kwasi Kwarteng was her Chancellor. As we reported last month, Kwarteng presented his ‘fiscal statement’ on Friday 23rd September. Three weeks later, he was gone and Liz Truss had to endure the […]
Latest News from Radcliffe Cooper
This section is regularly updated to bring you news of important developments in financial planning matters.
Overall Market Backdrop, September Developed markets struggled throughout the month as they continue to battle against high inflation, monetary tightening and lower growth expectations. The US 10-Year Treasury yields saw a huge uplift and ended at 3.80%, 67 basis points higher than the start of the month. Minimum Volatility was the best performing factor for […]
You can’t have failed to notice the fallout of the recent Mini Budget, a £45 billion tax cutting package, paid for by increased public borrowing. Since the Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng delivered his statement, we’ve seen the pound crashing to its lowest level against the dollar in 37 years, the Bank of England buying £65 billion […]
Many of our older clients will remember Access and Barclaycard, the first credit cards in the UK. Access was launched by Lloyds, NatWest and Midland Bank (now HSBC) in October 1972. It was marketed as ‘your flexible friend’ – and had another advertising slogan as well: Access ‘takes the waiting out of wanting.’ Credit, tick, […]
As the writer Mark Twain supposedly said, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Could 2022 be the year that cash says the same thing? Many clients reading this will remember the traditional method of budgeting used by their parents or grandparents: a pot for gas, a pot for electricity, one for food, another for […]
Introduction Speaking to journalists at a lobby briefing in 1964 – when the sterling crisis was raging – Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously said “a week is a long time in politics”. What, then, is a month? Especially a month like September 2022 when enough happened to fill a year’s worth of Bulletins. In the […]
Introduction August started with US Speaker Nancy Pelosi visiting Taiwan. We comment on China’s reaction below – and we also describe the environmental and economic challenges facing the country. With domestic crises brewing at home, some commentators have noted the convenience of an external crisis for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). “The position of the […]
Overall Market Backdrop, August Developed markets struggled in August as they continue to battle against high inflation, monetary tightening and lower growth expectations. The US 10-Year Treasury yields saw a change in trend and dropped by 33 basis points, ending at 2.64%. Momentum was the best performing factor for August, returning 1.91%. In the UK we […]
At the beginning of July, an article appeared in City AM, stating: ‘UK business bosses most pessimistic since the start of the pandemic’. It started by describing business leaders as ‘disheartened’, saying that ‘soaring inflation and Brexit pains’ had ‘crippled confidence’. (In the interests of balance and fairness, we should point out here that City AM has consistently […]
Despite the current economic pressure the UK Private Medical Insurance (PMI) market continues to see strong growth as many households prioritise the longer term protection of their health. This growth is being driven by the ongoing deterioration of the NHS after many consecutive years of underfunding and the compounded pressure of the Covid-19 related treatment delays. Unfortunately, […]