Don’t let scammers get their hands on your money
THE power of the scammers. Think you can’t be scammed financially? You could be in for a shock. The power, and incredible cleverness, of their strategies is quite extraordinary. They simply work to percentage success, and if you fall into each slot along the way, they are very capable of accessing your cash, emails, passwords […]
The power of ESG investing
WHETHER I am getting old or not, is not in question. Given my date of birth, and the alternative to being old, I am glad I am 52. The ‘wear sunscreen’ song reminds us of the ‘inalienable truths’: ‘Politicians will philander… and when you get old you’ll fantasise that when you were young, politicians were […]
Could commercial property represent a good investment as we enter the Covid vaccine era?
LAST week we covered the issues with property funds having to close due to withdrawals, and a further question was raised related to whether or not property is a good idea to be invested into. In each economic cycle, different assets perform in different ways. Warehousing and offices are very different marketplaces in terms of performance […]
Property investments – beware the see-saw effect
BEFORE reading this column, remember your ISA, pension and investments are managed by ‘someone’. That someone, believe me, doesn’t always manage the money well, as the performance comparison showed last week in relation to the best and worst performer over the last 20 years for a pension pot. From the year 2000, for a pension pot […]
UK markets leading up to Brexit
IN 2016, I found it difficult to type the ‘B’ word – Brexit. Then it became the ‘C ‘word Covid and I nearly thought were going to have the ‘D’ word Donald! I would have learned Mandarin after that. It’s been four years of tap dripping psychological torture, but stock markets do not seem to […]
Is the stock market about to turn?
AS you know, there is rarely an obvious ‘good time’ to invest in the stock market, yet there is a natural desire to try and spot it. As my late father told me many years ago, ‘when everyone else starts running, I walk’. That theory makes sense in the investment world for sure, and the opposite […]
Saving private finances
IN many variations, lockdown has been here, gone and back again. Mentally this is, of course, a drain on everyone, and for business and for households, it is almost impossible to plan let alone saving private finances. The ability to plan gives us a sense of control in our lives that keeps us a bit […]
Covid and our financial and psychological solutions
ONE of the most common queries to this column where we cover debt is the reduction of the costs of debt. Regularly we might see credit cards being used where the capital is not paid off and becomes persistent i.e. stays around for a long time. You are not alone. In February, it was reported that […]
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing – the new ballot box?
THIS week let’s go through ESG investing. Say ‘climate change’ and you may have one or two reactions: ‘What’s the point, when presidents and heads of governments/states preach about it, but fly their own gold jumbo jets and helicopters?’ Or: ‘this land, its air, water and existence is there for the ages’, would be the view shared […]
One step closer to negative interest rates. Be aware!
OVER the last year, I have covered the potential of negative interest rates on a few occasions. Whilst a few people I know laughed at the beginning of the columns about the potential of negative rates, the reality is coming home to roost after the Bank of England’s comments last week. The deputy governor has […]
Apathy – financial security’s biggest enemy
THIRTY-three years ago, when I bought my first briefcase and suit and meandered into financial planning, the world was very different than it was now. Financial products were designed for maximum profit for the provider and the customer was an after-thought, if a thought at all. The many regulators since then have sought to tidy […]
What is ESG investing?
THERE’S an area of investment called ESG . . . made up of the three words Environmental, Social and Governance. Society is standing up and taking a stance on where their money is being used/invested and disinvesting from those areas that do not match their values. For many years now, it seems the large corporates […]