Pension Lifetime Allowance Under a Different Name?
The pension lifetime allowance (LTA) recovery tax charge was reduced to 0% for 2023/24 and is due to be abolished from April 2024. Announced in the Chancellor’s Spring Budget, this seemingly simple statement is proving complicated to put into practice. In July, 41 pages of draft legislation were published setting out HMRC’s initial attempt at […]
Climbing the Wall of Worry
A Timeline of Negative World Events and Subsequent Market Responses ‘The stock market is a device to transfer money from the impatient to the patient.’ Warren Buffett From the period beginning February 1988 to the end of 2022, global markets returned 1,598.30% with dividends reinvested, whereas inflation increased consumer spending by only 162.81% over the […]
Market Overview & Outlook Quarter 3 2023 (1 July – 30 September 2023) – ‘Higher for Longer’
Equity Markets August and September are notoriously poor performing months, having been the two worst-performing months for over 50 years. Following suit, the bullish sentiment that pulled stocks out of the fire, that is a bear market, has begun to show signs of slowing down. Evidence of a sell-off across the markets was present during […]
Market Overview & Outlook Quarter 2 2023 (1 April – 30 June 2023) – Developed Market Equities Prosper
Equity Markets Following on from the turmoil within the US banking sector, the stress continued in Q2 as JP Morgan acquired First Republic Bank in May to avoid yet another bank collapse. Despite these concerns, the S&P500 is +5.63% over the quarter which has largely been driven by a narrow band of technology stocks as […]
Market Overview & Outlook Quarter 1 2023 (1 January – 31 March 2023) – Markets Make a Good Start to the Year
Equity Markets Following a particularly weak 2022, global equity markets experienced a positive start to the year, with most major indices posting gains throughout the first quarter. The FTSE 100 reached a new all-time high in January, whilst we witnessed strong rallies particularly in those indices which performed poorly in 2022, such as the ‘Tech-heavy’ […]
Silicon Valley Bank Collapse – Market Impact
Markets have been volatile this week following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in the US. SVB lent money to many small technology businesses in the US, as well as their entrepreneurial owners. The US Federal Reserve stepped in quickly to secure customers’ deposits and reassure markets. In the UK, HSBC bought up […]
Budget – March 2023 – Pension and Personal Finance Impact
Pension Changes The Chancellor announced that the Lifetime Allowance (LTA) will effectively be removed from 6 April 2023, so it will mark the end of the possibility of a recovery tax charge for a large pension fund. The LTA tax charge will be set at 0% from 6 April 2023 and the LTA abolished […]
Investment Review of 2022 and Better Times Ahead – Investment Outlook for 2023
Investors will be glad to see the back of 2022. The year can be summed up by the Collins dictionary’s word of the year, ‘permacrisis’, which is defined as an extended period of instability and in security, especially one resulting from a series of catastrophic events. Permacrisis reflects the feeling of an ongoing state of […]
Market Overview & Outlook Quarter 3 2022 (1 July – 30 September 2022) – Investment Volatility Continues
Equities rose strongly at the start of the third quarter of 2022 mirroring the hot summer witnessed in many parts of the world as thermostats registered record temperatures. The rebound in equity prices in July and August can be attributed to the fact that markets had become oversold at the end of June, as well […]
Market Overview & Outlook Quarter 2 2022 (1 April – 30 June 2022) – Markets Retreat as Inflation Bites
After the relative calm of May, June witnessed a brutal sell off in markets around the world, and this time the UK equity market was not immune, as the FTSE 100 declined by -3.80% over the quarter whilst the MSCI World suffered a loss of -9.43% in GBP terms. Whilst persistently high inflation remained an […]