Brexit and house prices

On 31st December, the post-Brexit transition period ends and, with or without a free trade deal with the European Union, the UK will start life outside the EU’s single market and customs union. That will, pretty much all economists tell us, have a substantial economic...

The benefits of active funds

When allocating funds in a portfolio, one of the questions investors face is whether to use active or passive funds. Simply put, active managers try to beat their benchmark. They will try to pick the best countries, sectors or stocks, and gather them up in a portfolio...

House prices continue to rise – but for how long?

UK house price growth accelerated in September, driving average property prices in London and across the UK to a record high. House prices across the UK increased by 4.7% to £245,000 in the year to September, up from 3% growth in August. London’s average house prices...

Biden win boosts markets

Global markets have rallied in response to the recent declaration that Joe Biden has won the US election. The end of uncertainty about the race’s outcome saw London’s FTSE 100 rise 1.5% to 5,994.58 points in early trade, with similar gains seen across...

Tax investigations on the rise

The number of arrests, dawn raids or interviews carried out by HMRC in respect of corporate and high net worth individuals jumped 40% last year. Criminal actions launched by HMRC’s Offshore Corporate and Wealth (OCW) unit increased to 70 in the 2019/20 tax year, up...

Investment trusts continue to surge

In 2018, Cass Business School produced a study that took into account every issue they could think of that might distort the comparison between investment trusts and open-ended funds and still found that the trusts had outperformed by about 1.4% a year over the...