A few days away from the screens are a salutary reminder of how others live, and maybe the “key drivers”, a description beloved of psycho-babble pundits, but not the “former energy secretary”. You might think that the Telegraph would have Energy Secretary in capitals, but no. There is not long to wait to see how this plays [...]
Fees high on your agenda…..? As an IFA, the issue of fee based remuneration, along with the treatment of renewal commissions on your clients’ fund holdings post RDR, will no doubt have been high on your agenda for some time. Clarity on the implications for IFAs’ business and income model is constantly improving as 2013 [...]
Expect the unexpected… We spend our time trying to work out the way that short term trends are going to play out, and given that the long term is made up of lots of bits of short term that have been bolted together, it is important that we get these moves right. Often, outcomes are [...]
A kangaroo court……? I suppose that it was all but inevitable that Sir Fred Goodwin would be stripped of his honour by those that have none; he may have made a mess of RBS, but he was not acting alone, and he certainly did less damage than the Right Honourable Gordon Brown. Whatever the rights [...]
Decline in Thomas Bookings…… On Monday, the FT reported a slump in bookings at Thomas Cook, the second largest UK tour operator. The year on year decline in January is thought to be 33%, three times worse than rival Tui Travel, whilst online reservations have fallen by 45%. The figures, across the whole industry are [...]
How long for low interest rates……? Earlier in the week, one of the leading forecasters predicted that the current low level of interest rates is here to stay until at least 2016, and that the economy has pretty much ground to a halt. That might prove to be optimistic if the euro zone goes through [...]
The first six months of last year saw markets coping with a range of unforeseen problems including political uprisings in the Middle East, and the Japanese earthquake. In the background, there was increasing belief that the long awaited recovery in the American economy was finally underway. It was, however, politics that came to the fore, [...]
Snow report……. Those of you who follow this blog on a regular basis will know that it includes some observations on where our “children”might be at a particular point, both career wise, and geographically. Two of them came back from Courcheval, last Sunday, where no snow has turned in to an abundance. In fact, worse. [...]
The US market ended the year just above positive, whilst all other equity markets sank. I am not going to go back over the reasons, which have been well explained here. I think. Sovereign bond markets, of those countries thought stable, did exceptionally well, even though buyers were condemning themselves to certain long term losses. [...]
Should auld acquaintance be forgot….. Resolutions, resolutions… Feedback is always good, even from a follower at 2.30 a.m. on New Years Day, but I take it on board, and will try to make these things more understandable. It is not that the audience, (who do not have to follow), are stupid. Indeed, many are experts [...]
| Ftse All-share | 3063.47 | |||||||
| Ftse 100 | 5916.55 | |||||||
| Ftse Mid 250 | 11449.23 | |||||||
| Indu | 0.00 | |||||||
| NASDAQ | 2933.17 | |||||||
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| Hang Seng Index | 21385.721 | |||||||
| Nikkei 225 | 9595.57 | |||||||
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