Month: May 2015

Financial plans are necessarily complicated things. They need to take into account your goals and desires in the first instance, but then also factor in your attitude to risk and the individual events that you plan on happening throughout your life.

From there, things can get even more complicated. There’s your tax position to consider, investment suitability to analyse, pension contributions, ISAs, paying off your mortgage and other financial factors to bear in mind. There are frequent reviews of your situation to complete and, of course, the unexpected will always happen, so your plans could change at any moment. Read more …

While there is an old adage in the investment world that you should never believe anyone who says this time is different, it is fair to say that nothing is truly certain. The same is equally true for the world of politics. Despite all the opinion polls predicting a result too close to call and a hung parliament as the only realistic outcome, Da- vid Cameron’s Conservatives cruised to a convinc- ing victory, even if the margin was of a size likely to keep the whips on their toes.

Market Comment 12th May 2015

Each of our retirements will be different but those of us who have a positive experience in later life are likely to have one thing in common: a well thought out plan about what we want to do. Beyond that, we’re also likely to have thought about how we’re going to pay for what we want, how our plan will last for our entire retirement and how we can pass on a legacy for the next generation. Read more …

When the polls opened at 7am on Thursday 7th May, the pundits and the pollsters were as one: the only certainty was a hung parliament. It was the most difficult-to-predict election for generations. The opinion polls had the parties running neck and neck, but the Conservatives led slightly in the predicted number of seats. A rough average from the pollsters seemed to be around 290 for the Blue team, 267 for the Reds and with the Lib Dems sinking to 25 or 26. Meanwhile, UKIP looked to be struggling to achieve its leader’s predicted “handful” and north of the Border, the SNP tsunami was gathering force. Read more …