magazine archive
magazine archive
Personal Finance
New labels hit the ESG investment world
Thursday 15 Aug 2024ESG investors often find selecting a fund which meets their environmental and ethical preferences involves wading through an alphabet soup of acronyms and buzz words which provide little illumination as to how their investments are going to reflect ESG criteria in their investment portfolio. In a...
The odds are stacked against most Premium Bond holders winning
Thursday 08 Aug 2024Premium bonds are the most popular product from NS&I (National Savings & Investments) with around 22.5 million people holding the accounts, but new figures show most of these holders have never won a single prize. A Freedom of Information request* obtained by AJ Bell reveals two-thirds of...
Dark days for active fund managers
Thursday 01 Aug 2024AJ Bell’s latest Manager versus Machine report paints an alarming picture for active managers, who are struggling to beat tracker funds on performance and are losing hands down when it comes to attracting investors’ money. The report looks at the performance of active funds across seven key equity...
How to manage your spending on your summer holidays
Thursday 25 Jul 2024The summer holidays are nearing, and many people will be excited to head abroad for a break – and hopefully more reliable weather. There’s no getting away from the cost of a holiday – it can often be a family’s biggest lump-sum expense each year. But you can cut the overall cost if you avoid...
What are T-bills and why they might hold appeal for investors?
Thursday 18 Jul 2024A new market is opening up for retail investors, and it may be coming to a broker near you soon. Traditionally the preserve of institutional investors, T-bills offer investors a secure way of storing money in the short term while getting a return in line with current interest rates. So what are T-...
Why people are flocking to ISAs
Thursday 11 Jul 2024Tax-efficient ISAs have never been more popular, with £4.2 billion being saved in cash ISAs in May – a record for the month. We saw £12.3 billion saved into cash ISAs in April, at the end of the tax-year end, as people rushed to use their annual limit before it was refreshed on April 6th. But this...
Can property really be your pension?
Thursday 04 Jul 2024If you’re thinking about using property to fund your retirement, you wouldn’t be the first. The post-financial crisis boom in house prices, propelled by low interest rates and government support schemes, led many budding property tycoons towards investing in buy-to-let instead of saving in a...
What to do when you’re pushed into the next tax bracket
Thursday 27 Jun 2024The freeze on income tax thresholds is dragging millions more people into higher rates of tax, as their wages rise but the tax thresholds don’t increase alongside them. The OBR estimates that by 2028-29 the deep freeze on tax thresholds will see almost four million extra taxpayers, 2.7 million more...
How to invest as you approach retirement
Thursday 20 Jun 2024When you’re building your pension up, what you’re looking for from your investments is well defined: growth. Likewise in retirement, for most people, the goal is simply to generate income. But there is a period in the lead up to retirement, when things are a little more nuanced. During the...
The real losers from frozen tax allowances
Thursday 13 Jun 2024The Conservatives fired the starting gun in the election campaign on personal tax, pledging to uprate the personal allowance for pensioners using a ‘quadruple lock’. This was quickly followed with confirmation that personal tax thresholds and allowances for working people would remain frozen until...