Red Card!
Spurious correlations? We spend a lot of time looking at numbers and the relationship between different sets of data, that’s part of our job. Sadly it gets addictive and we’re always open to new interesting datasets and the curious correlations they show. For example, did you know that in the US State of Maine, there […]
Turning Japanese?
It was back in 1980 when The Vapors released Turning Japanese. This article is not to answer the question “was Kirsten Dunst’s cover of Turning Japanese better?” (work it out yourself, you’ll find both further down this page); rather it’s to consider some of the potential financial planning and economic implications of “turning Japanese”; the Japanification hypothesis. The […]
Insure to protect
No one knows what is round the corner, which is why we think protecting yourself and your family against the worst is vitally important. But they won’t pay In our article here we reveal that the most recent statistics from the Association of British Insurers state that 98.3% of claims were paid in 2019. We […]
Inheritance tax & ill-health pensions
Yesterday, 19th August, the Supreme Court handed down a judgement on case known to pension professionals as “Staveley” (HM Revenue & Customs v Parry & Orrs). It has been established practice, and HMRC’s Inheritance Tax Manual is explicit that details of any pension transfers within two years prior to death should be reported on IHT409 […]
Life Cover & COVID
Insurers paid £90m in death claims when coronavirus was at its peak, according to the latest data from the Association of British Insurers. No amount of money can replace a human life, but the bereaved having money gives them one less thing to worry about. Insurers received 7,000 life insurance claims, and paid £90 million […]
Vulnerable Persons Policy
Today, 18th August 2020, Investment & Retirement Solutions Ltd has published a slightly revised version of our Vulnerable Persons Policy. Our regulator, The Financial Conduct Authority explain vulnerability with the following statement: “A vulnerable consumer to be someone who, due to their personal circumstances, is especially susceptible to detriment, particularly when a firm is not […]
Tackling the Housing Crisis
Over recent months we’ve published a number of articles which explore different aspects of “property”, including “Nothing as safe as bricks and mortar“, “Property fund suspensions” and “The Great British Debate: House Prices“. We’ve also spent some time exploring how our consumption driven economy is heavily dependent on a functioning property market in articles such […]
VJ Day
Whilst VE Day marked the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, many thousands of Armed Forces personnel were still involved in bitter fighting in the Far East. 15 August 2020 is the 75th anniversary of VJ Day, marking both the surrender of Japan and the end of the Second World War. Fighting […]
Negative Interest Rates?
In our article of 20th May we commented about how the UK government had sold a bond (government debt) with a negative yield. We went on to explain that in practise, this means that the government is being paid to look after investors money, rather than having to pay to investors for the benefit of […]
COVID status update
We have undertaken another COVID Secure review. As part of our COVID Secure review we have noted that service levels from product & investment providers seem to be improving with many of our outstanding enquiries now being resolved. However, we understand that most of providers are only returning a skeleton staff to their office space […]
The other type of divorce
We often hear people talking about leaving the EU without acknowledging that the UK has already left the EU (31 January 2020) and that we’re currently in a transitional period which runs until 31 December 2020. Our article Remember Brexit? we considered some of the potential financial planning impacts of the end of the transitional […]
Mounting Fears Hit UK Jobs
Gilt yields continued their decline during July, driven down by concerns over the prospect of a “second wave” of coronavirus cases. The yield on the ten-year gilt fell from 0.17% to 0.11% over the month. Having contracted by 6.9% in March and 20.3% in April, the UK economy expanded by 1.8% in May as […]
The other “R” – recession
Early in July, investors were buoyed by news of progress in the development of coronavirus vaccines. However, as the month continued, optimism was tempered by a surge in infection rates in countries including the US, Australia, Spain and India. Investor sentiment was further dampened as the strained relationship between China and the US continued to […]
Reflections: Powers of Attorney
We’re huge advocates for every adult to have Lasting Powers of Attorney covering their property and finances and their health and welfare. Whilst we’re competent to discuss the need, we won’t formally advise upon them, nor prepare them for our clients, preferring instead to redirect clients to a trusted solicitor. We were delighted to note […]
The Summer Statement
On balance we think we did a pretty good job with our guesses about the content of the summer statement. Read our forecast here In a bid to stave off sweeping job losses and promote economic recovery, the Government’s Summer Economic Statement focused heavily on jobs. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak warned of “profound […]
Our review of Q2 2020
The second quarter of 2020 could not have been more different from the first. With welcome relief, the UK and the rest of the world are beginning to reopen their economies after 3 months of lockdown. While there are various challenges ahead, things seem more positive than they did 3 months ago with early signs […]
Remember BREXIT?
With the last few months, and probably much of the coming months being dominated by the coronavirus we’ve spent some time thinking about other matters. On the cusp of the New Year, we left the European Union and entered a twelve-month transitional period. The notion of the UK’s future relationship with the EU is now […]
COVID Update
As lockdown restrictions become more relaxed across the three nations we continue to review our COVID Secure status. We know several of our clients and some of our team have suffered from the coronavirus. We know several clients and a member of our team have lost someone very close to them because of the coronavirus. […]
2nd wave fears
We started 2020 predicting a ‘choppy year’ for investors as we left the EU and entered the transitional period; whilst Russia and Saudi Arabia fought a ‘war-of-words’ (the collateral damage was global oil prices); the backdrop of a Presidential twitter account having the potential to yo-yo anything, anywhere, leading up to the US election later […]
The Great British Debate: House prices
As professional independent financial planners, we’re constantly bombarded with huge quantities of research, some of which is exceptionally robust, some considerably less so. Sometimes we’ll review research on a particular subject and find diametrically opposing views. Invariably, that’s when competing forces are arguing for their self-interest. This is particularly so when it comes to house […]