Making Suitable Plans
Inheritance Tax can cost families thousands of pounds but there are various ways to legally avoid paying this tax. Without making suitable plans, your loved ones could face a tax bill of 40% on the value of everything you own above a certain threshold.
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.
Portfolio Diversification
By maintaining proper portfolio diversification and avoiding the pitfalls of market timing, you’ll have the foundation needed to help manage your overall exposure to market volatility. Historically, the stock market has been up more than down.
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.
Changing Tax Landscape
Tax planning should enable you to arrange your affairs in ways that postpone or legally avoid taxes. No one likes to pay tax on their hard-earned money, so by employing effective tax planning strategies you could have more money to save and invest or more money to spend. Or both. Your choice.
Market Update: Climbing the wall of worry – again
August continues to be what one would expect from the middle of the summer: quiet. Yet for investors, it is also pleasing that stock markets around the world are gradually nudging upwards, allowing them to remain relaxed wherever they have retreated to in these travel restricted times.
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.
August Team News
The summer is in full swing with beautiful rays of sunshine (as well as unexpected streaks of heavy rain?!). The team at Vizion Wealth are making the most of our summer days and have had a fun-filled few months, as well as working hard in the office of course! The partners decided to treat the team to day out at Edgbaston Cricket Ground watching the England vs. Pakistan match – we were extremely lucky with the weather and England’s performance was spectacular...
Market Update: Summer lull as markets go through the motions
We wrote last week, that fortunes could be changing on the COVID front, with UK case numbers showing a decline from their (possibly temporary) peak. Since then, the 7-day average for daily cases has fallen for the first time since Britain started reopening. It is far too early to say whether this marks a sustained turn for the better, but it has certainly brought some much-needed optimism. The good mood has spread to markets too, with UK assets outperforming global peers and sterling gaining against other currencies.
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: Markets wake up to living with the virus
It has been a week of ups and downs. Monday saw sunshine and relaxation as so-called ‘Freedom Day’ COVID restrictions were lifted in England. Investors did not join in the party, though, as major equity indices sold off around the world. Markets recovered most of those losses later into the week, but the episode marked an unwelcome return of volatility. Unfortunately, that market volatility has been matched by uncertainty in the underlying economy, as the spread of the virus continues to pose a threat to global activity.
Market Update: How negative are yields?
Investors chase returns. That statement may seem too obvious to be interesting, but over the last decade it has had a special significance. For a year and a half now, central banks around the world have pinned interest rates down and poured historic amounts of liquidity into the global financial system. But the era of loose monetary policy long predates the pandemic
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?
The Retirement Clinic
If you are approaching retirement age, it’s important to know your pension is going to finance your plans. Pension legislation is extremely complex and it’s not realistic to expect everyone to understand it completely. But, since we all hope to retire one day, it is important to get to grips with some of the basics.
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.
Market Update: Moderating Expectations…
The seemingly never-ending pandemic-induced restrictions and uncertainty is making the forward planning of summer activities quite precarious and frustrating at times. That capital markets have recently borne fewer surprises than the planning of our summer holidays is a rare event and should be cherished – assuming it is not simply the calm before the next storm.
Six Principles of Investing
Whatever stage of life you’ve reached and whatever plans you may have for the future, you want your money to earn the best return possible without taking undue risk. That’s why it’s important to invest in a way that’s right for you and that will meet your goals. Creating and maintaining the right investment strategy plays a vital role in securing your financial future. How much control do you want over your investments? Investing can seem daunting but you don’t have to do it all on your own.
Market Update: Investors try to make sense of the Fed’s ‘dot-plot’
The biggest event of the week took place on Wednesday, as the US Federal Reserve (Fed) concluded its two-day Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) meeting, where it discussed economy policy and its latest projections on inflation and interest rates. Leading up to Wednesday, we were asking ourselves the question “what will the Fed change?”. In essence the choices were “nothing”, “a bit”, or “more than a bit”. All of us were somewhere between “nothing” and “a bit”. The Fed delivered “a bit”.
Succession Planning
The operational demands of running a family business or other closely held enterprise can be all- consuming, but it’s vital that business leaders take the time needed to assess their organisation’s business succession planning.
Market Update: Hazy as Carbis Bay
The G7 meeting in St. Ives’ Carbis Bay was rightly the centre of attention in the UK this week and looks to centre on Europe’s leaders cosying up to a much more loveable US administration, at the same time as trying not to mention Brexit too much.