A couple of stories caught my eye today and of course there is no more goods news anywhere, it would seem.
The first, about Poor Investment Performance has had me shuddering, firstly there is that old bastion of 1950 and onwards the With Profits Bond, or should that Without Profits as they do seem to be struggling of late.
Interestingly enough there have not been enough Independent Financial Advisers to go around when these were on sale, all of them were in the line to make recommendations about using them as part of an Investment Portfolio, only not nearly quick enough to get their clients out in time for the plummet in values. This is despite the FSA making a lot of noise about these and other investments over a long period of time.
I guess that if you are suffering from Poor Investment Performance from any of your Funds you need to be considering further our Investment Seminars – which of course will wake the entire industry up more than a little bit the link to these is here >>
I suggest you watch this and then consider what your Financial Adviser is doing. We are about to launch our series of Summer Seminars which address many of the points raised.
Grab yourself a Coffee, take 5 minutes to watch this, and look forward to our Summer Financial Planning Seminars, we really are “blowing the lid on the Financial Services sector”.
For more information please use the Contact Pages or call on 0845 226 9106
Over the years I have seen a lot of providers and products coming and going. Of course this wax and wane is the normal course of a business/financial cycle.
When I worked for one of the major (but nameless here) Building Societies they pushed, big time an In House Mortgage Payment Plan (MPPI) which worked like a well known brand of Wood Varnish – yup Ronseal.
Now as products came into the market and commision started to increase these products with some gusto, and enjoyed good levels of income from them, of course the Lenders stated that this helped keep the costs of the loans down.
Now for many reasons I have never liked these products, and have never recommended them. However now that the ‘guano has hit the fan’ and the FSA have started to stamp their feet with fines etc, etc (ok to be fair they started some time ago) there is still a shocking number of Mis Sold/Inapropriately Advised plans out there, many have an appalling claims record. In all fairness they are shocking contracts, (bad that is) shockingly sold and now shockingly not paying claims.
If there was ever a reason for the FSA to get even more stroppy than they have been, surely the time is now.
The Daily Mirror (or Mirror) along with the Consumers Association are looking at these in some detail (you can search here )
I for one would love to see all of the claims paid, the clients receiving a full refund and the institutions that sold them fined heavily. The downside of course is we the Tax Payer own most of these institutions now.
Happy Days.
Richard Smith
As always if you have any queries please call me on 0845 226 9016 or use the Contact Pages.
Although there has been some positive commentary in various (usually unregulated and less uniform) publications about the outlook for property funds, we will probably not be advising clients to invest in property funds for some time yet, as;
There is a strong prospect of increased vacancies due to the
downturn in the economy affecting many more commercial tenants.
There is a strong prospect of increased vacancies due new
developments, planned and started during the boom years, coming onto the
market. This will also put downward pressure on rents.
Property fund managers are spending increased sums monitoring the
financial strength of existing and potential tenants.
Property fund managers are having to hold cash to cover
redemption’s from investors who are only now realising their investments.
Although the yield which these (usually unregulated and
uninformed) commentators are positive about is indeed in the region of 7 to
8%, the average commercial property vacancy rate is 12.9%.
The yield will come under pressure also from several of the items
mentioned above.
The best predictions from the fund managers themselves is that the
rate of decline will slow over the next few months.
Hope that helps.
As always please contact me to discuss further the options
Where are you going to turn, it seems that for most of us getting older is not fun, however for large members of our community Financial Advice is getting harder to find. Realistically it has been getting like this for a long time.
Over here at the Finance Zone we recognise that and want to help where we can, this makes good business sense in the longer and shorter term. The link to this story is here |LINK |
There is some, and more to come. Lloyds Bank or whatever it’s called now. | LINK | At least now some of our money is coming back. Should we get the flags out, not quite yet methinks.
Over the coming months we are the Financezone are planning some seminars which will cover important issues and products like this they will be held across Sussex, Surrey and Kent and will promise to make you money.
We should all be concerned about where Property Prices are heading and of course much of our economy is based around Property and Property Transactions. We should be pleased therefore that the overall Property Market is moving in the right direction.
Increased numbers of people are registering at Estate Agents and this must make some of us happy.
Average Sales Prices are also up, which of course means we should all be very happy. My concern relates to lack of supply as a driver for most of the increases, however I guess this means that the market is coming back to normal.
I am sure this will not be the last time I comment on House Prices this year, but this seems to be one of the few positive stories from this year so far, and of course is not a Political comment.
