How to choose a provider for your Stocks and Shares Isa February 14, 2019 Isas are a popular way for savers to squirrel away money. And given that these savings accounts are free from both capital gains and dividend tax, the Stocks and Shares Isa is particularly appealing to investors. With all that said, not all Isas are created equal, and charges can vary wildly across providers. Platforms can usually be divided into those [...]
Investing in an Isa? Avoid these common behavioural mistakes February 14, 2019 Just before the end of the tax year, there’s the usual Isa rush where banks offer their best rates to entice you to hand over your money. Given that the returns are tax-free, it might seem like a no-brainer, and often, taking out an Isa will make sense. But it’s not necessarily always the case. [...]
Saving into a Junior Isa is a great way for new parents to invest in their children’s future February 14, 2019 Think back to when you turned 18 years old. What would you have done if, on that birthday, you were handed £40,000? Would you have splurged it all on travelling the world during a gap year, or would you have been prudent and put it towards a housing deposit? You could have used it to [...]
Turbulence and tailwinds: how savers can seek returns and save the planet February 14, 2019 Isa season is upon us. With just a few weeks left to go before the end of the 2018/19 tax year, canny savers are scrambling to use up their tax-free allowance before the 6 April deadline. The task became more of a challenge this year after the government, in a bid to bolster Britain’s savings culture, [...]
Five charts to gauge the environment for equities February 13, 2019 | City Talk Stock markets wax and wane. The period of time in which they move from a state of expansion (bull market) to one of contraction (bear market), before expanding again is known as the “market cycle”. Last year was an extremely difficult one for stock markets, prompting much commentary as to which ones had “corrected” (falls [...]
Against the tide of shareholder activism February 12, 2019 You cannot blame boardrooms today for being preoccupied, with everything from Brexit contingency planning to the prospect of a Corbyn government. Yet there is another, more pressing need for every UK listed business to be preparing for: activist investors. Shareholder activism, whereby an investor leverages their stake to put pressure on the management of a [...]
Asset managers call on index providers to drop controversial weapons firms February 11, 2019 More than 140 asset and wealth management firms have signed an open letter calling on global index providers to remove controversial weapons companies from mainstream benchmarks. Companies including Man Group, Credit Suisse and Pictet Asset Management are among those to sign up to the initiative calling for a boycott of manufacturers of weapons such as [...]
Busting the millennial myth February 11, 2019 | City Talk Last month I was invited to present at a conference in Berlin; I spent a couple of days preparing and got up at 4am to fly over. The speaker before me confidently told the audience that millennials lacked their elders’ work ethic so would drag down productivity and GDP growth. As I took to the [...]
10 shares to generate £10,000 income in 2019 February 11, 2019 | City Talk Four years ago, we asked how much an individual would need to invest in order to generate an annual income of £10,000 from corporate dividend payments. Rising yields have allowed us to reduce the amount each year and still meet the income objective, but 2018 proved a stiffer test and requires some explaining. First, big [...]
International Investing – the whys and wherefores February 11, 2019 | City Talk In 1926, engineer, inventor and philosopher Nicolas Tesla, said “”When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance… and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with [...]