News and Views

Do you have death in service benefit from your employer? If so, have you made a death benefit nomination?  Do you have life insurance?  If so, is it in trust? The benefits of trusts have diminished significantly in recent years, but they remain an excellent tool to...

As the title of this blog suggests the long-awaited review of Inheritance Tax is nigh.  Or is it? Forgive me for being a cynic but as far as I am concerned The Office of Tax Simplification, OTS, is an oxymoron if ever I have heard one.  There is no way a public-sector...

  The law of trusts has existed since the 12th century from the time of the crusades. When a landowner left England to fight in the Crusades he would transfer legal ownership of his lands in his absence to another person to manage on the understanding that they would...

A client of ours, Kim Stopher, has suffered from oesophagus cancer for a while and has recently been told he only has about 6 months to live. He had a final salary pension scheme with Invensys worth £374,000.  When he first realised his life expectancy may be as short...

  Invesco carried out a large survey of advised investors in 2018 to find out more about their attitudes to investment.  It produced some interesting results as follows. Investors considered themselves to be higher risk takers 71% considered themselves to be...

There is a concept known as behavioural finance which governs the way you make investment decisions.  It’s really the combination of economics, psychology and sociology which provides explanations for why people make irrational investment decisions. Fortunately, there...

Warren Buffet, the world’s most successful investor and third richest man in the world, recently said that he expected returns from shares over the next 10 years to be very modest.  When such an esteemed investor as this makes such a forecast you have to take it very...

Warren Buffet once said: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently”.  His statement is particularly pertinent in respect of Neil Woodford, the one-time top flying fund manager for...

An acquaintance of mine recently said to me that investing in shares is different today.  I quietly thought to myself: “I’ve heard that before”. Such comments are worrying, because people like this either have never experienced previous stock market dramas or haven’t...

Did you know there is a date known as Tax Freedom Day?  It is a date given, by the Adam Smith Institute, which calculates the number of days the ‘average’ person would have to work just to pay off their taxes. In 2018 every penny the ‘average’ person earned up until...

I don’t know about you but I get fed up with being offered worthless warranties, especially whenever I buy electronic items or household white goods.  I’ve always felt that the likelihood of a claim is so remote it’s not worth it. Even if an item were to need a...

At the time of writing this blog The CCM Intelligent Wealth Fund is just 13 months old.  We have already experienced a lot of changes during this time, so much so  we felt that a revamp of the fund’s 9 investment themes was overdue.  So what we have done is to...

The great Albert Einstein once said “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.  He who understands it, earns it…..he who doesn’t…..pays it.” So what is compound interest?  It is essentially earning interest on your interest which occurs when you constantly...

Most people are aware of the three rules of property investing.  Wait for it. It’s dead easy to memorise.  Location, location, location!  It’s really that simple. I’ve always loved simple rules.  In fact, I love anything that is simplified, as do our clients.  This is...

A number of clients have approached me in recent years and asked me whether or not they should continue contributing into their pension after exceeding the Lifetime Allowance.  The answer isn’t straightforward because it very much depends on each individual’s personal...

If a final salary pension scheme member claims their pension early before the scheme retirement age, the pension and lump sum (where appropriate) is actuarially reduced to pay for this early payment.  The member may have the option to buy out this reduction and take...

I have always been sceptical about state pension deferment mainly because I, like many other people, fundamentally do not trust the government.  Why would the government offer to pay you more money to defer your state pension unless it saved the government money?...

In my personal experience female investors tend to be lower risk investors than their male counterparts.  I have lost count of the number of times a husband’s attitude to investment risk has scored higher than his wife’s.  I estimate that in 9 out of 10 cases this is...