Ladies who don’t lunch: Sue Round talks fund management, sentimentality and being broke March 26, 2015 Buongiorno signora!” bellows the exuberant waiter at Bolton’s, an Italian tucked away in an unassuming corner near Leadenhall Market. “Hello, hellooo” comes the response. I know Sue Round has arrived, even before I see her. She greets me warmly, as if we’ve known each other for years. In fact, I’ve met Sue only once before [...]
Your Isa checklist: How you can make the most of your Isa in heightened volatility March 26, 2015 With just two weeks to go before the end of the tax year, and given the big tax advantages the Isa wrapper can offer investors, there is no shortage of advice on why you should make full use of your £15,000 allowance before 5 April. But filling up your Isa is only half the battle. [...]
The case for cash: Should you save in a cash Isa March 26, 2015 Cash hardly looks hot at the moment. It has lost almost 30 per cent of its real value in the past 10 years because of inflation, points out BlackRock’s Alex Hoctor-Duncan. “Worryingly, 68 per cent of Isa holders looking to retire in the next decade (55 to 64 yearolds) only save into cash Isas. Even [...]
Coining it? The case for gold bullion coins March 26, 2015 Gold has had a torrid few years and 2015 is unlikely to be any better. Respected analysts at Brazilian bank Itau Unibanco have forecast that the precious metal will post its third straight annual drop in price in 2015. Having plunged from highs of around $1,900 per troy ounce in 2011, the gold price now [...]
Ros Altmann: The savers’ champion talks pension reform, QE, and the pension annuities bombshell March 26, 2015 "I was gobsmacked.” Ros Altmann summarises her reaction to the Budget last year, when the chancellor first outlined his dramatic plans to bring pension freedoms to all. On the afternoon of that Budget day, Altmann, a pensions expert and campaigner, adviser to successive governments, and investment manager and economist, could barely contain her excitement when [...]
Banks are back: How the UK’s banking sector got its mojo back as dividend payments rise March 26, 2015 The UK’s banks are back on form and could be the best place to invest for good and growing dividends. British banks such as Lloyds, HSBC and Barclays were once the best places to invest for solid dividends. Ten years ago, banks provided a quarter of all dividends in the UK market, according to figures [...]
Budget, oil rig count and Nigerian GDP: Here’s our world view March 26, 2015 Rising debt, capital outflows and falling commodity prices – we highlight the numbers that matter from around the globe NORTH AMERICA 268 the number of rigs drilling for shale gas in the week ending 6 March 2015, down from 1,606 in the summer of 2008. And yet US gas production has continued to rise. Baker [...]
Premier League clubs score a £190m record profit March 25, 2015 England’s leading football clubs have left their loss-making ways behind and entered a new era of profitability after mustering record-breaking pre-tax profits last season. Premier League teams registered a combined pre-tax profit in 2013-14 for the first time in 15 years, with the £190m figure almost four times the previous record of £49m, set during [...]
Heinz proceeds to check out US food giant Kraft March 25, 2015 US BILLIONAIRE investor Warren Buffet and 3G Capital have gobbled up Kraft Foods and are to merge it with Heinz, creating the fifth largest food and drink company in the world with a value of around $100bn (£67bn). Under the terms of the deal, announced yesterday, Kraft shareholders will receive 49 per cent of the [...]
Chelsea kick Heron Tower police raid firm into touch March 25, 2015 CHELSEA Football Club has ripped up its partnership agreement with a firm that was raided by the police’s fraud squad earlier this month, City A.M. understands. CWM FX became the Premier League club’s official online forex trading partner at the start of the year, as part of a sequence of glamorous marketing deals directed at [...]