Serenity

January Market Commentary

January 05, 2015 by TIna

Category: Market commentary & Uncategorized

Traditionally, December is a ‘slow news’ month. Like August, the great and the good spend a large part of the month on holiday and world events supposedly move slowly, if at all.

Not so in 2014 – There was the Autumn Statement in the UK, the tumbling world oil price, the gloom over the Eurozone, the snap presidential election in Greece, rapid growth in the US economy, rapid growth in the Chinese stock market, much less than rapid growth in Japan as the economy contracted and there were the first signs of recession in Russia.

New ‘Pensioner Bonds’ ready for January launch

January 04, 2015 by TIna

Category: retirement & savings & Uncategorized

Originally announced during The Chancellor’s Budget speech in March 2014, January 2015 will finally see the launch of the new so-called ‘pensioner bonds’. The rates for the bonds, announced only recently, will see them leading the bond marketplace, with the one-year bond offering 2.80% gross/AER and the three-year bond promising 4.00% gross/AER.

The top ten economic risks for investors in 2015, according to HSBC

January 03, 2015 by TIna

Category: Investments & Uncategorized

Acknowledging that the forecasting consensus has missed many of the big stories of recent years, a team of analysts at HSBC has attempted to outline the biggest potential risks for investors in 2015. The team stressed that forecasts have been notoriously unreliable since the crash, particularly concerning regional growth. Nonetheless, they argue that downside growth risk and central bank policy risk, alongside the strong dollar and general illiquidity, could present real challenges for markets and investors in 2015.

Gender gap in pension savings narrow, as women benefit from Workplace Pension changes

January 03, 2015 by TIna

Category: retirement & Uncategorized

The number of women saving adequately for retirement has shifted from a record low to a four-year high in the last 12 months, according to Scottish Widows’ annual Women and Retirement Report. Half of the UK female population is now preparing adequately – the first increase recorded since 2011 – a leap of 10 percentage points from 40 to 50 in the past year following the significant changes in pensions regulations such as the introduction of automatic enrolment.

The Regulation of Work-Based Pensions Schemes

December 10, 2014 by TIna

Category: pensions & Uncategorized

The Pensions Regulator is the regulator of work-based pension schemes in the UK, with objectives to: protect members’ benefits; reduce the risk of calls on the Pension Protection Fund (PPF); to promote and to improve understanding of the good administration of work-based pension schemes; to maximise employer compliance with automatic enrolment duties; and to minimise any adverse impact on the employer’s plans for sustainable growth.

Keeping one eye on a 2015 interest rate rise

December 10, 2014 by TIna

Category: Economy & Uncategorized

It is now six years since emergency measures were put in place to protect the global financial markets from imploding when the banking crisis spiked in 2008. To stave off a liquidity disaster, many global policy makers decided to cut interest rates to record low levels.

At that juncture most experts, commentators and the investment community assumed this would be a short term effort; an emergency measure, maybe lasting months, if not months then just a year or two. Virtually no one could see interest rates remaining so low for so long.

Our insights

January Market Commentary

New ‘Pensioner Bonds’ ready for January launch

The top ten economic risks for investors in 2015, according to HSBC

Gender gap in pension savings narrow, as women benefit from Workplace Pension changes

The Regulation of Work-Based Pensions Schemes

Keeping one eye on a 2015 interest rate rise

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