Blog – 2 Columns

Keeping up with the science Investment planning is now more of a science than an art. Technology, ever-increasing investment opportunities and stricter regulation have all encouraged a more scientific approach. But has your investment strategy kept up pace? Investment planning and asset allocation is a multi-stage process. The actual execution of investment transactions is virtually […]

New data shows how far UK dividends fell last year, but projections for 2021 suggest the declines are nearly over.   In January 2021, ‘Link Asset Services’ published its latest findings covering the final quarter of 2020 and the year as a whole. The headline figure was that total dividends fell by 44% over the […]

As the pandemic enters its second year, what have we learned? The World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic on 11 March 2020, coincidentally the day that Chancellor Rishi Sunak presented his first Budget. At the time, the Chancellor announced a £12bn stimulus to counter the impact of the pandemic. By November, the Office of […]

Taking some time to start planning for 2021/22 now can be worthwhile.     While there is often a focus on planning for the end of the tax year, much less attention is paid to the start of the tax year. The lack of an obvious deadline is probably one reason – deadlines tend to […]

Interest rates matter. At the personal finance end of the spectrum, they determine what you earn from bank deposits (virtually nothing at present) and what interest you pay on your mortgage (about 4.4% if you are paying the average standard variable rate (SVR), but much less for most other loans). In the investment and commercial […]

The average deposit paid by first-time home buyers jumped by £10,000 in 2020. When the pandemic took hold in the first half of last year, it looked as if the housing market was heading for a fall, if not something more dramatic. There were problems regarding viewing properties, arranging surveys, organising removals – you name […]

New warnings have been issued from Action Fraud, the City of London Police and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as reports of ‘clone firm’ investment scams increase. The ongoing financial impact of coronavirus may also make people more susceptible to these types of clone scams. Forty two percent of investors say they are currently worried […]

Is your child reaching the age of 18? If so, they could be amongst a huge swathe of teenagers set to cash in on their Child Trust Funds for the first time. Set up by the Labour government in 2002, the scheme aimed to encourage parents to save for their children’s future, with the money […]

The way that investments are taxed has changed over recent years as successive governments have chosen to handle various sources of investment income in different ways. The aim has typically been to increase tax revenues. Alongside this, the whole tax system has grown increasingly elaborate, thanks to revenue-raising tweaks such as the taxation of child […]

The world’s share markets had a rollercoaster ride in 2020.   Investors had to hold on tight as 2020 turned into a white-knuckle experience.  It began quietly enough and then in the second half of February global stock markets took on the concern at the spread of Covid-19. As infection rates increased and the economic […]

2020/21 is drawing to a close, with a Budget now scheduled for early March. Ahead of that, HMRC is easing some of the traditional deadlines in the light of the ongoing pandemic. If you’re struggling to prepare your self-assessment tax return due to the effects of the pandemic, you may get some relief. It has […]

The main state pensions will rise by 2.5% in April.   The absence of an autumn Budget in 2020 meant that there was no formal announcement of the level of state pensions from April 2021. The numbers eventually emerged on 8 December  in a press release from the Department for Work and Pensions:  The new […]