Blog entries

Diane enters Citywire Competition

Diane Weitz — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:03:50 +0100

I was asked at the end of last year whether I would be prepared to enter a competition wiht Citywire to raise awareness of Investment Trusts as an Investment. I agreed, which may be arash decision but time will tell.

Four competitors are being provided wiht £4,000 each to invest in at least four investment trusts. My other competitors are two Cardiff IFAs and a Citywire journalist who started life as a stockbroker.

Any profits that we make are to go to a charity of our chRead More...

Recession Looms as Tensions Rise in EU/ Rising price of hiring set to spur 'double recovery' in US

Diane Weitz — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:43:50 +0100

These two headlines give an indication of the contradictions that can be found in the Media. What to believe?

The first is from tne front page of The Times today 26th January 2012; the second headline from the inside pages of the Financial Times. It is clear which headline sells more papers.

So which gives the most accurate view? I am going to make a conscious effort not to listen to too much news. The Media love to dramatise but rarely give more than one side of the argumenRead More...

A Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year

Diane Weitz — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:26:36 +0100

We wish all our clients a Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

The office will be closed from 23rd December 2011 until 3rd January 2012.

Reflections on 2011

Diane Weitz — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:01:05 +0100

The year started with the Arab Spring which spread like wildfire from Tunisia to Eygpt culminating with the defeat and death of Gaddaffi in October. Syria is still in turmoil with President Bashar al-Ashad seemingly in complete denial that he has anything to do with the violence. He has signed a deal on Monday to allow a group of Arab dignatories to come into Syria to attemp to understand what is going on and to bring the violence to an end.

It is still unclear whether all the unrestRead More...

Public Sector Pensions: Don't Opt Out! This is still a great scheme

Diane Weitz — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:20:50 +0100

Following last week's strike which closed a large number of schools and upset refuse collections John Hutton whose report recommended the changes has come out to make a statement that his projections underestimated the seriousness of the drain on government resources.

Whilst not taking Jeremy Clarksons line I do think that the unions have been completely irresponsible in the way in which the have whipped up a frenzy about this.

Public Sector pensions after the changes will stillRead More...

Child Benefit

Diane Weitz — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:16:09 +0100

The government is still planning to stop child benefit for families where there is one member who is a higher rate tax payer. This penalises families where the mother or father has chosen to stay at home to look after the children. If the worker is a higher rate tax payer (earning abve £50,580) child benefit will cease in January 2013. A couple can earn up to £100,000 before the benefit is taken away provided that both stay below the higher rate threshold.

This seems unRead More...

Autumn Statement: More pain for some; good news for others

Diane Weitz — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:47:09 +0100

The main features of the Autumn Statement are listed below:

More information can be found in the Articles and Newsletters section.

State pension are to be increased in line with the CPI index which was 5.2% in September. This means an increase of £5.30 in April for the basic state pension bringing it up to £107.45 per week.

The State pension age is increasing to 67 for those born between 6th April 1960 and 6th April 1961 will have a pension agRead More...

JISA launched

Diane Weitz — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:30:49 +0100

November 1st saw the introduction of the Junior ISA or JISA as it seems to be called in the industry.

This allows parents or anyone else to put up to £3,600 a year into an ISA account for a minor child. They are available only for those children who don't have a child trust fund. Hard on those children born after August last year and before December 31st as they were given only £50 for the child trust fund reduced from the previous £250.

The government will cRead More...

Eurozone Saga Continues

Diane Weitz — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:18:19 +0100

The 17 members of the Eurozone agree a package of measures to aid Greece including a 'haircut' of Greek debt. This means that Greece will only have to pay back half of the money that has been loaned in the form of Greek bonds. More money is being provided from the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) to enable the government to continue.

This was thrown into disarray by Mr Papandreou who went home and declared that he would hold a referendum of the people on the Greek measureRead More...

Government delays increase in State Pension age for some women

Diane Weitz — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:19:10 +0100

Following lobbying from Ros Altman the government have agreed to delay the increase in State Pension age to ensure that no one has to work more than 18 months extra.

This goes someway towards meeting the requests but many people will not be satisfied as 18 months is still a long time to continue working if you has not planned for it.

Bank holds interest rates and provides more QE

Diane Weitz — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:28:32 +0100

The bank of England has kept rates at 0.5% and introduced further quatitative easing worth about £75billion has been announced.

It was expected that any further QE would not be announced until November but the European Crisis has brought this forward.

Stockmarkets have reacted favourably to the news.

Will the Bank of England reduce rates to 0.25% on Thursday?

Diane Weitz — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:24:37 +0100

Poor employment and sales figures in the last week have increased speculation that the Monetary Policy Committee will reduce interest rates to 0.25% to stimulate growth.

The Governor of the Bank of England is also expected to introduce another round of quantitative easing in the near future.

Some Good News : Ireland shows signs of Recovery

Diane Weitz — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:07:37 +0100

Ireland is showing signs of recovery. Irish bond yields have fallen sharply and the IMF report states that it expects Ireland to meet its budget defecit target for next year.

In June they produced a record trade surplus, the low corporation tax rate has encouraged foreign investment.

Not out of the woods yet but at least moving in the right direction

Something lighter for the weekend

Diane Weitz — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:32:29 +0100

A British tourist in Spain had a diamond pendant worth £10,000 stolen. The thief swallowed it but it was discovered by x-raying him.

Adam Fleming, a company director's marriage has hit the rocks. His wife reaped revenge by sinking his £90,000 yacht by drilling two holes in it.

£500,000 is the sum required to preserve Roald Dahl's shed where he wrote all his books.

Bleak Economic News sends Global Markets Spiralling Downwards

Diane Weitz — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:41:43 +0100

Yesterday the FTSE100 dropped 4.7% its biggest one day fall since March 2009. This followed a 3% fall on Wall Street as the markets reacted to the 'Twist' movements by the Fed to try to manipulate the yield curve on Treasuries. This involved the selling of short dated stock and the purchase of longer dated stock. This accompanied by a gloomy statement on economic prospects sent the Dow Jones into freefall. Other markets followed.

The news from Europe was equally gloomy with stockmaRead More...

America and Europe: Where do we go from here?

Diane Weitz — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:08:24 +0100

Today is the day that Ben Bernake makes his speech to the Jackson Hole meeting of central bankers, and economists are divided on whether he will introduce QE3 to stimulate the flagging economy. Other people are asking the question of whether this would actually help the economy. Interest rates are already low, consumers are not in the mood for spending. What is really needed is something to encourage the banking system to start offering credit to companies that might be able to produce grRead More...

Cameron and Clegg cut short their holidays

Diane Weitz — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:09:37 +0100

It is not the financial crisis which has caused the leaders to return to the UK but the spate of rioting on the streets of Tottenham Enfield and Walthamstow and Hackney. Birmingham also saw riots last night.

These have been sparked by the killing on Thursday last week of Mark Duggan.

The rioting brings to the fore the gang culture that now prevails in these areas. These mean that the safety of those people outside the area of their 'gang' is under threat.

&Read More...

Dow Jones down more that 600 points

Diane Weitz — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:36:39 +0100

Yesterday the dow showed the worst falls since December 2008 as the market took in the news of the downgrading of the US by Standard and Poors to AA+ from AAA for the first time in its history. What is evident is that the S&P who were ridiculed for getting their fiscal sums wrong, are placing a great emphasis on the political situation. The largest fall on the markets occured after Obama made his speech in which he tried to dismiss the importance of the S&P rating.

Markets aroRead More...

US Jobs Data is the first good news of the week

Diane Weitz — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 18:00:23 +0100

The long awaited 'non-farm' payroll data from the US came in today with better than expected figures.

The figures at 117,000 were much better than expected. The markets have rallied strongly with the FTSE100 index only down minus 42, having started the day at minus 160.

The news is tempered by the increase in the number of unemployed people that was released on Thursday.

What a falling off there was!

Diane Weitz — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 12:56:56 +0100

This quotation from Shakespeare acurately describes the markets yesterday. Silvia Berlusconi, currently facing charges of tax evasion, corruption and paying an underage prostitute has avoided talking to parliament for almost a month. He broke his silence on Wednesday, but despite reassurances that Italy's banks could ride out the storm he failed to calm the markets. The FTSE 100 index saw its worst fall since March 2009 crashing through the former support level of 5500. Lloyds TSB's shareRead More...