What will Rishi Sunak’s Budget mean for personal taxes? March 6, 2020 | City Talk With a commitment to leave rates for income tax, national insurance and VAT unchanged, the new Chancellor may be looking for other areas to raise tax in March’s Budget – possibly in capital gains tax and inheritance tax. In addition, the Conservative Party manifesto contained commitments to “review and reform” entrepreneurs’ relief (ER) as well [...]
Demographics predict stock and bond yields, study shows March 6, 2020 | Sponsored Investors can use demographic trends to predict both the stock and bond market yields, a new study shows. Researchers from Warwick Business School and Copenhagen Business School found US stock and government bond markets have followed surprisingly similar paths since the Second World War. Yields from both markets followed similar 20-year boom and bust cycles [...]
Women on top: Ex-JP Morgan star Tracey Reddings on how she beat the system March 5, 2020 When you have to work hard for something as opposed to being given it, it means more,” says Tracey Reddings, the former head of JP Morgan’s private banking arm in Britain. She should know. After a glittering career in which she rose from the customer service counter at Barclays bank at age 16 to the [...]
How does the stock market perform when the VIX fear gauge surges? March 3, 2020 | City Talk The spread of the coronavirus has sent shock waves through global stock markets. Alongside plummeting share prices, the VIX index, the market’s so-called fear gauge, has shot up. At the time of writing, on 28 February, it stands at over 40. This is very high compared to long-term norms. Since 1990, it has averaged 19 [...]
Coronavirus: the investment impact in seven charts February 28, 2020 | City Talk The spread of coronavirus, COVID-19, beyond China has created fresh uncertainty for the global growth outlook and sparked volatility in financial markets. Outbreaks in South Korea, Iran and Italy have raised concerns that the spread outside of China may be accelerating. We offer key facts on the spread of the virus, interspersed with views from [...]
Which VCTS and EIS I would buy today February 26, 2020 | Sponsored Tax pressure in Britain is at a 50-year high. Higher earners are feeling the squeeze as many traditional avenues of investing tax-efficiently have been blocked – from pension restrictions to the cuts to buy-to-let tax relief. What tax-efficient options are left? Two increasingly popular options for experienced investors are Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) and the [...]
The EIS-y hall of fame: Four companies that wouldn’t have existed without the Enterprise Investment Scheme February 26, 2020 While EIS and SEIS offer meaningful tax advantages to investors, it’s important to remember that their main function is to help kickstart new businesses and ventures. As the independent trade body for the EIS and SEIS industry, our core aim at the EIS Association is to help small and medium-sized enterprises obtain the funding that [...]
The chancellor could use the Budget to help both startups and investors February 26, 2020 Ahead of any Budget, there is always great speculation on what may be announced. This year, the focus thus far has been on when a Budget would happen and who will deliver it. But with the new chancellor Rishi Sunak confirming that it will go ahead on 11 March, all attention has turned to the [...]
HMRC sets up secret unit to probe inheritance tax avoidance February 22, 2020 HM Revenue & Customs has implemented a secret unit to investigate the use of family investment companies (FIC) by the very wealthy to avoid paying inheritance tax. It puts family offices with a combined total of more than $1tn in assets within its sights. The tax authority set up the team in April last year [...]
Why global cities could be more valuable than high-performing tech stocks February 21, 2020 | City Talk The most successful company strategies over the last few years all have one thing in common – a data-driven operating platform. Companies such as Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google (the so-called FANG stocks) are able to create a significant informational advantage when they use data collected from their platforms. The quantity and quality of this [...]