Guide to Setting Financial & Lifestyle Goals
Financial success doesn’t happen by accident. It’s a process starting with having a goal, planning carefully and being confident of making the right decisions at the right time. It is easy to stray from basic, solid principles of finance. These remain true no matter what your age or circumstances. It’s those same principles that need to be applied to your financial affairs.
New Years Tax Savings Resolutions
With the tax year end (5 April) on the horizon, taking action now may give you the opportunity to take advantage of any remaining reliefs, allowances and exemptions. We have provided some key tax and financial planning tips to consider prior to the end of the tax year. Now is also an ideal opportunity to take a wider review of your circumstances and plan for the year ahead.
Market Update: Markets caught between hoping and dreading
The scandals seem to keep coming for Boris Johnson, with several Tory MPs openly calling for his resignation. Betting markets now have the Prime Minister odds-on to resign this year, and discussion is rife about the government’s future. But capital markets took no notice. Indeed, UK assets outperformed on the week, with both the FTSE 100 and the value of sterling finishing higher.
Visualising Your Future
Many of those who seek to change their lives and move forward find they encounter roadblocks. These roadblocks, which come in the form of unnecessary fears and worries about what might happen next, can stop us from reaching our potential and achieving happiness.
Market Update: Plan B or not Plan B? That is the question
Equity markets bounced strongly on Tuesday. The catalyst was a flip in the coronavirus narrative that went: “the new variant is as contagious as the very first, but much less damaging. It confers some immunity. Triple-boosted vaccines work well on it, at the same efficacy as on the other variants. Greater contagion will not overwhelm systems, but will help the world live with the disease.”
Market Update: The pre-Christmas ‘quiz’ that not many want to play
As the end of the investing year draws nearer, markets remain on edge, questioning everything that it thought it knew the answers to only very recently. But this week, central bank and government policy, inflation pressures from supply chain issues, and the latest developments from the virus that refuses to be defeated, threatened to leave investors in a state of puzzlement.
Change to The State Pension Triple Lock
The earnings benchmark of the State Pension triple lock will be temporarily set aside for next year. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) confirmed on 7 September that the State Pension triple lock rule will not be applied for the 2022/23 financial year over concerns of the potential costs involved.
ESG: Investing With Impact
It’s no secret that the growth of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investments in recent years has been fundamental. This has largely been fuelled by the climate emergency, leading to growing scrutiny of company practices with some governments mandating a change in companies’ and individuals’ behaviour...
Market Update: The bad kind of inflation…
We are in the middle of the biggest inflation bout in years as ubiquitous post lockdown supply issues are sending prices skyward. A recent report from the Bank of International Settlements suggests that this inflation has become self-reinforcing; Bottlenecks have caused suppliers to build buffers at multiple stages of the chain, exacerbating supply problems that drive prices...
What’s happening with inflation?
Understanding inflation is an important factor when it comes to your financial success. If you don’t factor inflation in when deciding where to put your money – whether that’s savings accounts or investing – you could find your wealth shrinks over the years.
How to Trace Multiple Old Pension Pots
Changed job? Moved house? It’s not always easy to keep track of a pension, especially if you’ve been in more than one scheme or have changed employers throughout your career. Over time, pension schemes close, merge or become renamed. So even if you remember the name of your scheme, it could now be called something else.
Market Update: Economy Hits an Air Pocket
October has carried on where September left off, with quite a bit of daily up and down for markets, but with a slight downwards trend. For UK readers, the lack of positive vibe in stock markets is probably unsurprising, with petrol this week only slowly returning to being a commodity – rather than a scarcity...
Market Update: Wall of Worry Time
The UK received worrying economic news on multiple fronts this week, with several utility companies going under and the prospect of steep rises in winter heating costs, petrol stations running out of fuel, gaps on supermarket shelves and the Bank of England signalling it may raise rates as early as December of this year.
Market Update: Paying For It
Last week, we noted the increasing importance of fiscal policy, and sure enough this week the UK kicked-off the new school year with a big fiscal bang. National Insurance contributions are on the rise, along with a further tax charge on dividends to fund the NHS and social care over the next few years.
Market Update: Fed tapering: the ‘how’ matters more than ‘when’
Questions over when and how the US Federal Reserve (Fed) would begin tapering its monthly securities purchases has been much talked about over the last few months. But ahead of Friday's keynote speech at the Jackson Hole symposium, questions have been shifting increasingly towards ‘how’ the Fed tapers, instead of ‘when’. On Friday we got an answer, of sorts.
Market Update: Markets hit a bit of to and fro
Investors would be forgiven to think that this week’s downdraft in global stock markets was in reaction to the rapid unfolding of the tragic events in Kabul, Afghanistan. However, as long-time observers of risk asset markets will attest, unless human tragedies are likely to have a discernible impact on the global economy, stock markets do not show any empathy to present or foreseeable human suffering.
Market Update: Between policy support withdrawal and bounce-back upsurge
Three weeks since the long-awaited “Freedom Day”, Britons are enjoying a pleasant, if somewhat overcast and dull, summer. The surprise drop-off in virus cases seems to have levelled off, but while the fact that numbers are not increasing is an encouraging sign, it remains to be seen whether this will be sustained.
Wealth Preservation
The rules around Capital Gains Tax (CGT) are complex and they differ depending on your financial situation. It’s a complicated tax and, as a result, some people may get confused about how much they should expect to pay. WHAT IS CAPITAL GAINS TAX? Capital Gains Tax is a tax payable on the profits (or ‘capital gains’) you make from selling certain assets. These assets include some property, items of value such as art, jewellery or collectables, company shares or other investments, and businesses or business assets.
Market Update: Don’t Look Down
Global equities have been on a pretty rapid ascent since the start of the year. This week the world’s investors had a bout of looking down, and a mild attack of vertigo. This dizzyness has been prompted by some reasonable worries. Do we have enough food (earnings growth) to carry on? Is the strong tailwind (in the form of liquidity) about to turn into a headwind? Has one of our party (China) already started slipping back down?
Market Update: Transition Uncertainties
The great British summer may have struggled to materialise so far, but the end of the first half of the year always brings an element of sunny optimism. We will comment on market and investment returns in more detail next week, when the data has settled, but after what proved a quite decent 2020 for investors, the first half of 2021 has again left investors with plenty to be positive about.