Blog

The long freeze on student tuition fees in England has come to an end. Do you know what the RPIX is? You might guess it’s related to inflation given that RPI is the Retail Prices Index. But what does the X mark? X stands for RPI excluding mortgage interest. RPIX was used as the Bank […]

A recent survey has raised questions about retirement readiness. One of the world’s largest investment managers, BlackRock, recently published its latest review of the UK’s retirement landscape. The work was based on a survey of 1,000 savers in defined contribution (DC) pension arrangements. This is the type which now dominates private sector retirement provision, mainly […]

Those using the platform Booking.com to book their holidays or accommodation are being warned they could be targeted with emails or messages requesting payments from hotels who have had their account taken over by fraudsters. Between June 2023 and September 2024, Action Fraud received 532 reports from individuals, with a total of £370,000 lost. Insight […]

What can financial planning do for you? Financial planning isn’t just reserved for the especially wealthy. Whether we’re aware of it or not, all of us are on a financial planning journey and nearly all of us will want to make the most of our money and that includes putting it to good use by […]

Man has the hardest job of all, the job of making decisions on incomplete data. Henry Kuttner When market returns are kind, as they have been in recent times, it can be too easy to forget that bad times in investing will come along at some stage, leading to large and/or protracted falls in value. […]

Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ first Budget was a significant one in all senses. “…this Budget delivers a large, sustained increase in spending, taxation, and borrowing.”  So said the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in the first paragraph of its overview of the Autumn Budget. The numbers are indeed large: spending is up by almost £70 billion […]