Investment Comment: Taking Aim with your Isa investments August 6, 2013 AT THE beginning of this week, the government removed an unpopular restriction on Individual Savings Accounts (Isas). Now, for the first time, investors with the confidence to select individual shares for their stocks and shares Isa are able to invest in companies listed on the junior Alternative Investment Market (Aim). Preventing investors from putting Aim [...]
What the analysts are saying about July’s public sector deficit August 21, 2013 This morning, the Office for National Statistics said the UK government posted a £62m deficit in July – down from an £823m surplus the year before (full story here). Here's what analysts are saying about the figures. Martin Beck, UK economist at Capital Economics: Despite signs of life in the economy, July’s public finances data [...]
BP 2013 profits plummet on selloff programme February 4, 2014 Following rival oil company Shell’s predictably disappointing results last week, BP has confirmed market expectations that its profits took a hit in 2013. The oil giant saw underlying replacement cost profit – a measurement that excludes gains or losses on the value of inventories – fall to $2.8bn (£1.7bn) in the fourth quarter from the [...]
Last-minute themes to boost your Isa portfolio April 1, 2014 THE ISA deadline is just days away, and the chancellor’s recent decision to enhance the tax wrapper’s flexibility (as well as increasing the annual allowance to £15,000 from 1 July) has heightened its attractiveness as a vehicle for long-term capital growth. We ask the experts for some last minute ideas – and funds – to [...]
Phoney war between the generations masks worrying lack of reform July 24, 2013 THE battle of the generations is raging. Did the Baby Boomers have an easier life? Or are the cosseted members of Generation Y – the demographic cohort born from the early 1980s onwards – just engaging in self-pity? The truth is not “somewhere in between”, and this debate is actively damaging. Differences between the generations [...]
Tesco’s 2013 pre-tax profit drops to £3.05bn April 16, 2014 Tesco, the world's third-largest supermarket, has announced a 6.9 per cent drop in full-year underlying profit before tax, to £3.05bn. Over the next three years, it's hoping to stake a claim as the multichannel, middle-market store. But the question is how easy that'll be in a climate of booming discounters and high-end stores, where consumers [...]
Europe has reached a turning point – we now need to rescue it from the EU February 17, 2014 THE COMING European Parliament elections could be a turning point: our moment to save Europe from the EU. But for that to happen, Europeans must realise the real future they face under the current system, and the risks involved in underestimating Brussels. I have been interested in politics since I was a kid, and that [...]
Emerging markets have had a shock – but confusing it with a trend could cost you February 4, 2014 Emerging market equities have dropped 11 per cent since October’s peak and are down 7.5 per cent so far this year. But Saxo Bank's head of equity strategy Peter Garnry is keen to stress that temporary shocks should never be confused with a new trend. The underlying trend is still there Despite tapering and [...]
Switzerland’s shock migration vote has dealt the EU a huge blow February 10, 2014 THERE are two kinds of Eurosceptics. There is the pro-market, classical liberal variety: believers in the Four Freedoms – the free movement of goods, services, capital and people – across the countries of the European Union, but who oppose everything else, including political integration, the undemocratic nature of the European construct, the EU’s myriad subsidies, [...]
Switzerland’s shock migration vote has dealt the EU a huge blow February 10, 2014 THERE are two kinds of Eurosceptics. There is the pro-market, classical liberal variety: believers in the Four Freedoms – the free movement of goods, services, capital and people – across the countries of the European Union, but who oppose everything else, including political integration, the undemocratic nature of the European construct, the EU’s myriad subsidies, [...]