Should you invest in P2P lending through your ISA? February 8, 2021 Cash and stocks and shares aren’t the only choices when it comes to using your ISA allowance. You can also back British business and individuals through peer-to-peer lending using an Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA). An IFISA lets investors earn interest from peer-to-peer loans tax-free. You can use part of your £20,000 ISA allowance but can [...]
What are VCTs and EIS? A quick guide February 8, 2021 For investors willing to take a chance on smaller and less well-established companies, venture capital trusts (VCTs) and enterprise investment schemes (EIS) offer the opportunity to support up-and-coming businesses. EIS and VCTs can complement other long-term investments like ISAs and pensions, and can be used as an overspill for extra cash once those annual allowances [...]
GameStop and the ethics of short sellers February 5, 2021 | City Talk The global media has recently been entranced by a battle between retail traders and hedge funds over the US computer game store, GameStop. It has also shone a light on a practice that makes many people feel uneasy: “short selling”. So much so that lots of members of the Reddit community which spearheaded the attack [...]
GIP joins forces with Blackstone and Cascade in $4.7bn Signature Aviation bid February 5, 2021 The former owner of Gatwick Airport has teamed up with Blackstone and Cascade to bid for private jet firm Signature Aviation. The offer values the London-based aviation company at $4.7bn, the parties said on Friday. It emerged that Signature was up for sale in December, prompting a bidding war between several investors. Commenting on the [...]
An optimistic outlook for global markets February 3, 2021 | Sponsored Alex Crooke, Fund Manager for The Bankers Investment Trust, discusses recent performance of the Trust and highlights which stocks in particular are driving this performance. Alex also looks at the year ahead and explains why he is largely optimistic on the outlook for global markets and highlights which regions and sectors he and his team [...]
When will the fun and GameStop? February 3, 2021 | City Talk Retail and day traders dealing in shares and other assets that Wall Street funds bet against may not be new; Wallstreetbets, the Reddit group at the centre of the story, itself has been in existence since 2012. However, with retail investors buying in such numbers as recently, the group has captured worldwide attention. Perhaps the [...]
The truthiness of ESG criticism February 2, 2021 | City Talk There are two often-repeated critiques of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing that I really can’t stand. They have the quality of truthiness about them and are what academics sometimes call “as if” arguments. For my younger readers, the term truthiness is defined by Wikipedia as follows: “Truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement [...]
First-time investors push profits higher at Hargreaves Lansdown February 1, 2021 A surge in younger investors investing for the first time have helped push up profits at the UK’s largest investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown. Hargreaves Lansdown reported a 10 per cent increase in pre-tax profit in the six months to December, to £188.4m, compared with the same period a year earlier. Net new business was up [...]
The changing face of markets February 1, 2021 | Sponsored I see myself as a ‘global’ citizen that, through my work over the last 20+ years, has developed a deep experience of capital markets and exchanges. At the beginning of this century I was part of the creation of Euronext that resulted a few years later in leading its European cash market from Paris before [...]
What next for Biden’s climate and social agenda? January 29, 2021 | City Talk Joe Biden ran on one of the most progressive platforms the US has ever seen, with climate ambition at its heart. His victory will result in a sea-change in US climate ambition. That said, the narrow margin of victory will pose challenges for the more ambitious elements of his agenda. Below we assess the policy [...]