PM Gordon Brown close to bottom of the league!
June 30, 2008
Gordon Brown has become very close to being in the bottom five prime ministers for stock market returns in his first year as a leader since David Lloyd took on the role in 1916. Since he took over, the LSE has dropped by 15.4% excluding dividends, Fidelity exposed. This was only slightly worse than the first years under Margaret Thatcher, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill - twice - and Mr Lloyd George. Read more
Sharp fall in property transactions according to DTZ
June 30, 2008
Global real estate adviser DTZ have stated that global property transactions are expected to fall by 30% in 2008. DTZ have said that despite a surge in real estate investment in 2007, which saw the level of transactions grow 18% to $730bn (£365bn), it expected strong falls for the rest of 2008 with transactions dropping to around $500bn Read more
Domain TLD’s Open Up
June 27, 2008
Internet domain names or TLD’s (Top Level Domains) have been given the go-ahead for expansion. This is a huge shake up for domain owners. Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) held a vote in Paris yesterday and the majority vote was passed to allow and domain extension, e.g. ebay could have .ebay as opposed to .com and anyone could register .anything.
It’s not all roses for domain buyers though, in the past anyone could register a domain or register hundreds if not thousands of domains with the idea that someone will want to purchase it for an inflated price at sometime in the future. The cost of the new extensions as greatly increased, first of all Icann are stating the you will need a “business plan and technical capacity” to register plus the cost is likely to be in the low range of a 6 figure dollar amount.
Economic Outlook
June 26, 2008
Last week there was an exchange of letters between the Gov and the chancellor which could be viewed as being great comedy if it were not so depressing. The Gov has abrogated responsibility for both causing and treating inflation. It is very strange but the chancellor has agreed with everything that the Gov has said, this means that both our central bank and the Gov deny having anything to do with rising prices but they both also admit that there is nothing they can do about it, that is what i call honesty. Read more
Will your children help you in your retirement?
June 26, 2008
The Mutual insurer Engage have produced research which shows that due to longevity and rising costs nearly a tenth (1.7m) of British adults have had to help their parents fund retirement. Out of the 2084 people who participated in the research 22% have given money to their parents to help them make ends meet on a day to day basis. 22% are paying towards their parents care and 33% have taken their parents into their or a relatives home in order to reduce their cost of living and care. Read more
Facebook and Visa Business Offer
June 26, 2008
Visa have teamed up with Facebook in order to make use of pool of 80,000 businesses that have profiles on the social network.
If you are a small business then you can take advantage of Visas new offer by downloading their online service via Facebook. You will then receive $100 or £50 worth of advertsing credits to promote your business on the social network. Based on a pay per click model you will be able to specify the demographic you wish to target, for example target people who are: UK based, aged between 20 - 30, their likes and dislikes etc. You create an ad (usually 3 lines of ad text) and that ad will be displayed to those people. Everytime a person clicks on the ad and lands on your website a credit is used up.
Debt increases 20% for pensioners
June 24, 2008
Britain has witnessed a 20% increase in the average secured debt for those in, or nearing retirement, according to the latest figures from Key Retirement Solutions. Britons over age 60 now have the highest debt levels of any demographic. The average single pensioner has mortgage outgoings of £218pm; those aged over 70 seem to be most vulnerable, with average mortgage debt as high as £45,493. 250,000 pensioners are destined to join the 2.25m struggling with fuel poverty by the end of the year according to the poll.
Cheaper Protection from AXA!!
June 24, 2008
AXA have reviewed their rates on a range of life protection products, this has had the effect of a reduction in premiums for around 37% of policies, with an average fall of 6%. However the remaining 63% of policy premiums will either remain static or increase. The areas that have been effected are level and decreasing guaranteed life or earlier critical illness cover.
Retail Spending Surge Could Lead to Rate Rise
June 24, 2008
Despite the doom & gloom sales retail sales rose by 3.5% in May - the strongest monthly growth since 1986. Totally out of sync with other government predictions the policymakers are dumbfounded, the rise is thought to have been brought about by some summer weather with consumer spending on salads and BBQ food and clothing for new summer outfits. All this shows no downturn in consumer confidence but some have warned this ’shop till you drop’ attitude will have serious consequences and will sow the seeds of the economies own demise.
If you are planning on putting yourself at risk financially you may want to wait, as despite the boosts in spending it looks like interest rates are going to increase and we may still be in for that downturn as the government tries to get inflation back down to the 2% target.
How to purchase an annuity
June 23, 2008
A former government pensions adviser has warned that hundreds of thousands of people who have invested in private pension funds have lost out!!!
Many thousands of people have received much lower incomes from their annuities because they have been unaware of the options available to them. One of the options is to be able to purchase an annuity on the open market, people do not have to take their retirement income from the company that they have saved with. Read more