Month: July 2024

Placing Assets Into A Trust
Trusts are a powerful tool for estate planning, providing flexibility and control over asset distribution. Properly structured, they can address various scenarios and requirements, ensuring that your legacy is managed according to your wishes long into the future.

Market Update: Don’t fear the rebalance
Investors moving capital from Mag7 for smaller companies makes for bumpy markets, but a shift towards general bearishness is misplaced.

Market Update: Shock, rotation, growth?
Amid shocking global events, the market rotation from large to small cap stocks continues. Will the positive effects for small caps be enough to outweigh the wealth losses for the tech giants?

Market Update: Lower inflation, less profits?
Last week was an interesting week in capital markets. Global stocks are a nudge above where they were last Friday in aggregate, but this hides a great deal of variation. There was a steady climb early in the week, led once again by large US mega-caps, but this completely flipped into the latter days. Smaller stocks suddenly dramatically outperformed, while the so-called ‘Magnificent Seven’ (Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla) sold off sharply.

Market Update: New government, same economy
Keir Starmer was not wrong when he called this an historic victory. It is the Labour party’s first election win since 2005, ending 14 years of Conservative rule and handing the latter party its worst ever defeat. The results were emphatic, but full of contradictions. Labour won one of the largest parliamentary majorities in history with the lowest ever winning vote share. Britain’s right-wing party collapsed, but the Reform party outflanking it, surged. The new government crushed the old by emphasising the need for change, but its policy agenda emphasises stability and continuity. And the contradiction most relevant to us...

Transfers Exempt From Inheritance Tax
When contemplating estate planning, it's pivotal to grasp the nuances of lifetime transfers and the significant impact of the 7-year rule. Gifts made during one's lifetime are classified either as Potentially Exempt Transfers (PETs) or Chargeable Lifetime Transfers (CLTs), based on the nature of the gift and its recipient, unless the gift falls under an exemption. This distinction is crucial for anyone aiming to navigate the complexities of Inheritance Tax efficiently.

Market Update: The business of politics, politics without policy
This Friday marks the end of the second quarter and the day after the first, and for Biden disastrous, televised debate of the 2024 US Presidential election - yet markets have been reasonably calm. Large institutional investors are in the midst of their calendar driven portfolio rebalances without causing big price moves between asset classes, but there is still time before US markets close for significant intraday moves like the ones we saw on 31st May.