An investment to hold when volatility strikes? March 7, 2018 | City Talk Funds in the Targeted Absolute Return sector aim to produce positive returns in a variety of market conditions through using sophisticated investment techniques such as short selling (profiting when prices fall). They generally aim to make modest yet consistent gains with smoother performance than traditional funds; admirable objectives that resonate with many investors, but there [...]
Six reasons to use your ISA allowance March 6, 2018 | City Talk 1. Excellent tax benefits ISAs are one of the simplest and most effective ways to save tax. If your investments are in an ISA you don’t have to pay tax on income from them, and there is no capital gains tax to pay on any profits. Even if keeping your money outside the clutches of [...]
Saving for school fees March 6, 2018 | City Talk A good education can be predictably expensive. Parents can now expect to pay upwards of £200,000 in order to secure their children a private education, from nursery to upper sixth. The onset of autumn is synonymous with the start of the new school year and parents of young children, or prospective parents, might be looking [...]
How doing nothing can increase your investment returns March 6, 2018 | City Talk “It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting…. My sitting tight!” – attributed to Jesse Livermore in Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (1923) by Edwin Lefèvre. There are plenty of worries in the world to scare investors at present. Can economies stand increasing US interest rates? [...]
Revealed: February’s most widely bought and sold funds on Charles Stanley Direct March 5, 2018 | City Talk Neil Woodford’s Woodford Equity Income continued to be widely sold by Charles Stanley Direct customers. The well-known manager endured a difficult time for much of 2017 with positions in tobacco firms and top ten holding Provident Financial among the factors weighing on performance. However, shares in the latter recently soared on news of a stabilising [...]
Investors ignore disruptive weather at their peril March 5, 2018 | City Talk The "Beast from the East" closed schools, kept trains in their sidings and hit Britain's productivity. But can inclement weather move the stock market by affecting investors' minds? Findings of a research project published in the Journal of Accounting Research in 2015 concluded that financial analysts respond more slowly to the implications of earnings announcements [...]
Access Denied: The fight against cyber criminals March 5, 2018 | City Talk Cyber-attacks defy borders and jurisdictions and are recognised as a Tier One threat to national security by the UK government. As the world becomes more connected, the attacks are becoming stronger, more frequent and more sophisticated. Nearly half of UK businesses identified at least one cyber security attack in 2016, according to UK government data, [...]
RIT Capital’s ‘preservation mode’ lags strong market March 5, 2018 | City Talk RIT Capital is an investment trust with a broad portfolio of assets. By owning a diverse range the overall aim is to beat inflation while limiting the ups and downs usually associated with investing in the stock market. Shares make up the core, represented by managed funds and some individual stocks, and this is supplemented [...]
Six market charts that matter: Italy’s problems, Greek bonds, the Vix spike March 2, 2018 | City Talk Each month, the investment writing team at Schroders highlight the most significant charts to cross their desk. Italian election: the country's most pressing business problems Elections (not to mention referendums) have been a major source of market uncertainty and volatility in recent times. The latest comes this weekend in arguably the most important election in [...]
February’s top and bottom performing funds March 2, 2018 | City Talk Concerns about rising interest rates in the US resulted in a nerve-jangling start of February for share investors. Data released showed that US wages are rising while unemployment is at a 17-year low. Higher wages imply higher inflation, which makes a steeper path of interest-rate rises more likely, and this impacts the cost of borrowing [...]