Investments - Latest Articles

Financial well-being

The investment basics If you are considering investing in equities, you first need to ensure that you have sufficient money in cash for any emergencies and everyday needs. If you don't, you could be forced to encash your longer-term investments

Financial well-being

The investment basics If you are considering investing in equities, you first need to ensure that you have sufficient money in cash for any emergencies and everyday needs. If you don't, you could be forced to encash your longer-term investments

ISA countdown

Don’t lose your 2007/08 ISA allowance With the arrival of the New Year comes the countdown to the Individual Savings Account (ISA) deadline on 5 April. If you haven’t already used your 2007/08 ISA allowance, now is the time to talk to us and consider your options.

Emerging Markets

Investment markets can go down as well as up, but looking at last year’s relative performance round the world, it would be all too easy to assume that some markets will always do well.

New year Investment Review

However trite comment about New Year Resolutions may sound, for families with children in the independent education system, the post Christmas lull can be a good time to consider how to allocate your investments for the future.

“With profit” investment; have they a future?

Annual reviews by leading financial journal Money Marketing have for many years shown the maturity value of “with profit” investments falling due to poor investment returns. This has led many people to consider whether or not they should abandon this form of investment

The importance of balancing assets

While the past is certainly no guide to the future, anyone looking at the FTSE100 since the mid 1980s will see that there has been a long term rise in market values and that the large fall during the first third of this decade was actually

Investing for the long haul

Parents should be aware that recent government figures reveal a rapid aging in the UK’s population. As each one of us reaches another birthday, there are fewer and fewer young people coming in to replace us. This makes educating the next generation even more important

A fall in Savings?

According to the Investment Managers’ Association, the amount of money being invested in Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs) during the first half of this year (after allowing for encashments) has fallen by 16.8%. The fall for June was 43%. Does this mean that ISAs are losing their popularity?

Enjoy higher interest rates

July brought with it the fifth interest rate rise since August 2006. While this might sound alarm bells for borrowers, it has quite the opposite effect on savers. And, perversely, some people with offset mortgages.

New investment freedoms

Investors gain access to unquoted shares
Growing numbers of self-invested personal pension (SIPP) providers have opened their books to unquoted shares, giving investors access to a fringe asset many consider too risky to hold in a retirement fund.

Hedges Funds

New proposals would give private investors wider access
Hedge funds, traditionally known for their secrecy and complexity could be set to become more widely accessible to private investors under proposals announced recently by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

Why invest?

Sometimes it is a good idea to take a step back and ask ourselves fundamental questions.
For example, why do we invest, rather than spending all our money immediately? And given that we will invest for the future, what strategies should be adopted?

Falling Market Investment

The sudden fall affecting so many stock markets
during late February were seen by many people as being a threat to the ISA season – after all, why would people want to invest on a falling market?

Forgotten funds add up!

If you have moved house or have failed to keep track of Information on your financial dealings, you could be one of the thousands of people who have money languishing in forgotten accounts.

Investment trust savings schemes

Recent stock market corrections have left many investors thinking
about their future strategies, but, you make this volatility work for you with regular payments into a unit or investment trust savings scheme.

Older Borrowers

We’re all living longer and many of us will have to work extra years
We take our pensions later, to accommodate rising life expectancy. But unfortunately for those looking to move up or even get on to the property ladder later in life, most mortgage lenders are failing to keep up.

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