Your Future.
Your Way.
Insightful, cost effective advice tailored to you
Your Future.
Your Way.
Insightful, cost effective advice tailored to you
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What to know about ISAsThe Spring budget on 6 March was a bit of a non-event for many clients.There was an important cut in Class 1 national insurance contributions from 10 to 8 per cent for those who are employees. High earners with children were given a boost, thanks to changes that were introduced to
Posted by: Jon Lawson
The Innovative Finance ISA is the newest of the several ‘flavours’ of Individual Savings Account that have been tagged on to the original ISA in recent years. Investors are attracted by headline rates of return of 6-10%, but we think these schemes are much, much riskier than they look and that most investors should avoid them.
Writing in the Financial Times (17th February) the boss of fund management group Fundsmith, Terry Smith, asks why investors are pouring money into funds that track emerging stock market indices. These tracker funds invest in shares according to their market capitalisation, so they invest most in the big companies, which in emerging markets are often inefficient and partly state-owned. Mr Smith says the ten largest emerging market companies earn well below-average returns for their shareholders, so they are not shares that quality-conscious investors like him want to buy.
With Donald Trump in the White House, it’s unlikely that a week will pass without generating some new anxiety for investors. On top of the fears of armed conflict (even nuclear war) with North Korea, we have the possibility of a US trade war with China, and a potential close-down of the US government if Congress refuses to approve the Mexico border wall. By next week there may be more worries.
Mrs May’s decision to call a snap election in the expectation of returning with a big Conservative majority failed in spectacular fashion. With no overall majority, the Tories now need the support of Northern Ireland’s DUP to command a majority in the House of Commons.
Philip Hammond’s U-turn on a proposed rise in National Insurance contributions for the self-employed is one of the biggest blunders ever by a Chancellor of the Exchequer. He promised to add £2 billion to government funding for crisis-hit social care, and thought he could get away with an NI rise to cover part of that cost because his predecessor George Osborne had said that a promise in the Conservative election manifesto from 2015 not to raise NI only applied to the main employer and employee rates. But the manifesto didn’t say that. Both the Tory Press and Conservative back-bench MP’s pilloried Hammond for attacking ‘strivers’ and Westminster gossip says Theresa May demanded he cancel the proposal.
Thursday 2nd November is a historic date: the Bank of England raised its key interest rate from 0.25% to 0.5%. This is the first time for ten years that the Bank has raised interest rates. Its last move was to cut the rate from 0.5% to 0.25% after the referendum vote to leave the EU in June 2016
