tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-199489732008-04-22T13:12:09.071+01:00Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comBlogger130125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-10241134003691587142008-04-22T12:52:00.003+01:002008-04-22T13:06:06.869+01:00

Yesterday the Bank of England announced it would give UK banks £50 billion in exchange for mortgage backed securities. It was a move designed to put more money into the financial markets. However it is somewhat of a u-turn for the Bank of England & its governor Mervyn King who denied it would not do anything liek this a few moths ago. The bank has basically bought assets that nobody else wanted

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-50354453472941324112008-04-11T14:19:00.004+01:002008-04-11T14:39:54.385+01:00

The Bank of England yesterday lowered interest rates to 5%. Will this mean lower mortgage interest rates? Hmmm...it depends 1 Lenders had priced in the likely decrease into new tracker/discounted mortgages. it's like when supermarkets put up drink prices in November to claim a massive drop just before Christmas 2 Some organisations are not passing on the full 0.25% drop, with Nationwide you

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-37116966000568137172008-04-09T14:51:00.007+01:002008-04-09T15:02:52.179+01:00

Abbey became the final large lender to withdraw 100% mortgages this week. Prior to the credit crunch, borrowers were able to borrow up to 125% of the property value. Like other riskier types of borrowings such as sub-prime mortgages, product providers have removed these loans from their books. it will casuse probelems for 2 types of lenders 1 First time buyers who don't have a deposit. 2

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-20156458983727071782008-03-26T11:06:00.004Z2008-03-26T11:22:10.483Z

Bear Stearns was the 5th largest US Investment Bank. It encountered difficulties and had to be bailed out by the US Federal reserve the equivalent to the Bank of England) and is the subject of merger at a ridiculously cheap price by rival JP Morgan. How did all this occur? The company had exposure to bad (sub-rime) mortgages in America. The mortgages were sold on using quite complicated

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-25059707841718978152008-03-25T15:32:00.004Z2008-03-25T16:20:38.830Z

Investment Banks have been widely discussed recently. Bear Stearns is one, as is Lehman Brothers. It begs the question, "what is an investment bank?" Investment Banks don't offer services to normal retail customers like you or me nor do they have branches on the high street. Basically they operate in 2 ways, Helping companies and governments raise money by issuing and selling shares in the

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-9641345447851199862008-02-25T15:28:00.002Z2008-02-25T15:36:58.547Z

There are lots of stories circulating about Sovereign Wealth Funds. So what are they? They are government funds from counties like the oil rich Arab countries & emerging markets like Singapore & China. The Chinese one is worth $1.46 trillion! ($1 460,000,000,000 ) The money is generated by the export of natural resources such as oil and gas in the case of the Gulf States and Russia and

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-86286483207700797362008-02-25T15:00:00.004Z2008-02-25T15:23:54.846Z

It has come to light, that the tax authorities (HMRC) have paid £100 000 for information about bank accounts in Liechtenstein. They aim to potentially get back £100 million in tax avoidance from UK residents who have stashed money there to avoid UK tax. They bought the disk with stolen data from a disgruntled former employee of the Liechtenstein Global Trust (LGT). The German tax authorities

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-15732182051826226402008-02-20T16:22:00.004Z2008-02-21T12:10:53.947Z

Every year Bestinvest name & shame the worst performing (dog) investment funds ; those underperforming the benchmark in each of the last three years and down on the benchmark by 10% over the same period. Scottish Widows were quoted as ‘gone to the dogs’, with over half the group’s funds underperforming. The worst culprits in different categories were UK – £13m Marlborough UK Equity

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-14319843321097133962008-02-20T16:08:00.002Z2008-02-20T16:15:21.436Z

One area the Sunday newspapers love is share picking, it is also beloved of sites like the Motley Fool. The problems include: Newspaper journalists are not investment professionals. There is no comeback on their “advice”They don’t consider attitude to risk or things like the need for emergency funds.Do you have the investment knowledge? Is the share a cheap because they company is a basket

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-82800635769418680102008-02-18T16:34:00.004Z2008-02-18T16:50:50.118Z

After 5 months, the government has finally taken action over Northern Rock. It will be nationalised after £51 billion has already committed to the ailing bank in loans & guarantees to savers. Nationalisation become inevitable after the one potential bidder after another was rejected. When the crisis arose, there were a number of alternatives 1 Let the bank go bust. 2 Let a high street bank

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-51491211380255576152008-02-15T14:50:00.004Z2008-02-15T15:07:14.355Z

Norwich Union have not been slow in trumpeting a £3 billion distribution of money to With Profits policy holders. Is it a good deal for the consumer? They actually have over £5 billion left over from fund re-organisation. This is actually customers' money. They are being coy why they can't distribute the other £2 billion ot customers 90% of the money distributed is going to policy holders with

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-78952941385795626142008-02-14T11:53:00.003Z2008-02-14T12:09:28.107Z

New Star are one of well known fund providers, they advertise heavily in the money sections of the broadsheet newspapers always launching a "new, exciting opportunity". They have a distinctive psychedelic multi-coloured logo, which apparently looks that way because the printers forgot to add any black to the printing proof. They were founded by George Duffield, who previously built up Jupiter.

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-66445418851783966262008-02-12T13:33:00.000Z2008-02-12T13:47:05.974Z

For the last 50 years, the price of food has come down due to intensive modern farming techniques. Why then has the price of bread increased quite significantly over the last year? Production of wheat worldwide hasn't increased much recently, what has increased is demand from India & China with a combined population of 2 billion. This has caused much of the food inflation we have seen recently.

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-4930518541513555992008-02-07T13:27:00.000Z2008-02-07T13:57:27.695Z

As widely predicted the Bank of England reduced interest rates by a quarter of a percent to 5.25%. It is a bid to stimulate the economy by putting more money in people's pockets. Is this a good thing? Not if it encourages people to borrow more money, as that it partly why economic problems possibly loom. Interestingly the reason why the Bank of England put up rates several times last year

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-78468648121682249762008-01-25T10:38:00.000Z2008-01-25T10:49:51.808Z

You will have read about Jerome Kervie. His deals lost French bank Societe Generale £3.71 billion, it seems he was able to counteract risk management measures due to his previous job in administration. What made the problem worse for Societe Generale, was they sold the bad deals this week when the markets were headed downwards. The Chief Executive has offered to resign.

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-12722992598124326982008-01-23T11:41:00.001Z2008-01-23T11:51:37.292Z

Interesting question posed on Radio 5 Live's "Wake up to Money" programme. How can we personally do to avoid a recession? 1 Pay off your debts 2 Spend money to help the economy? Not if it's on a credit card!

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-58036680968396235862007-12-19T10:52:00.000Z2007-12-19T11:07:25.846Z

Are mortgage best buy tables you see in newspapers misleading? Possibly The biggest problem is Lenders know how to manipulate them, the biggest snare is usually the ones at the top have large arrangement fees. Lenders use the arrangement fee as part of the cost of the deal rather than reflecting their administration costs There are a number of problems with mortgage best buy tables. They don't

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-82248782061777504922007-12-18T16:17:00.000Z2007-12-18T16:42:38.187Z

Sonja Schemmann of Schroder made a very simple but highly truthful statement recently. "Greed drives markets higher, fear drives them lower" Until this summer the markets were driven by greed, the global economy was was expanding, companies were buying other companies. Investors were putting their money into new areas without understanding the risks. Result: markets reach new highs Then this

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-37019434309560589542007-12-07T12:17:00.000Z2007-12-07T12:31:17.807Z

Leading fund manger Neil Woodford believes the UK may be in recession by the end of next year. he states fears that the a downturn in the housing market may affect consumer confidence in other areas of the economy. He runs £20 billion worth of money in various funds. In the last 5 years £1000 invested in Woodford's High Income Fund has returned £2610 compared the the FTSE 100 which would have

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-59502862499317566822007-12-05T14:15:00.000Z2007-12-05T14:26:31.424Z

Lawrence Gosling positively trashed Richard Branson & virgin Money with his comments in the previous post. Would I, a Swindon based Financial adviser recommend Virgin products to my clients? Well let's look at one. The Virgin FTSE 100 is an investment fund which tracks the movements of the 100 biggest UK companies. This is not so great for a number of reasons. The FTSE 100 still contains

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-9507009772589115782007-12-05T14:05:00.000Z2007-12-05T14:15:20.134Z

“Would you rather give your pension, to get you through retirement, to a number of Scottish financial institutions that have been around for a few hundred years and are financially secure” “Or rather give it to a group by someone who made his name selling records and has since dabbled in gyms, trains, mobiles and more recently financial services?” “Buying a pension or life assurance is not

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-66678636870270603942007-10-05T15:45:00.000+01:002007-10-05T15:58:59.790+01:00

A report by Consumer group Which? has slammed financial advisers tied to banks & building societies. 2/3rd of advisers failed to pass its benchmarks for giving good advice Neil Fowler, editor of Which? concluded "For more complex financial products such as investments, mortgages and pensions, you should really see an adviser. On the whole, you'll get better advice from an Independent Financial

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-8885895616800725452007-09-11T12:35:00.000+01:002007-09-11T12:47:42.589+01:00

There have been 2 instances reported in the Financial Press of consumer watchdog the Financial Services Authority (FSA) wasting tax payers’ money. Firstly New Model Adviser reported outgoing Chief Executive John Tiner has had 2 leaving parties costing £13 000, not bad for a man on £650 000 a year. Secondly Money Marketing noted the FSA pays more than £13 million to external consultants.

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-81948430866489404512007-08-30T17:57:00.000+01:002007-08-30T18:14:48.768+01:00

Nationwide has stopped selling payment protection insurance after it admitted uncovering problems in mystery shopper exercises. They are now retraining their staff, a large percentage based in Swindon. Payment Protection Insurance covers you against missed payments due to unemployment and other reasons on credit cards They have advised customers to contact IFAs (Independent Financial Advisers)

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19948973.post-61433988350943867822007-08-29T17:09:00.000+01:002007-08-29T17:31:10.456+01:00

I've written abut the US Sub prime mortgage crisis previously and more generally about sub prime mortgages. Now as the current financial correction is being blamed on it, it is time to revisit it. What happened? US banks lent money when interest rates were very low to people who would maybe not normally get mortgages. Some sections of the press have dubbed them "trailer trash" hinting that the

Sean Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16002416138594312179noreply@blogger.com