The Bullion Brief is a new literary venture by Bullion…
The Bullion Brief is a new literary venture by Bullion House, where I try to offer raw, unfiltered commentary on important events that may affect your pockets but will certainly make for an interesting read nonetheless.
As a new member of the team at Bullion House, I have been told to tell all prospective and existing clients to:
BUY GOLD NOW! DON’T THINK! JUST BUY! BUY! BUY!
I’m only joking but they have (perhaps regrettably now) given me free reign to write how I’d like and say what I’d like. I have, however, been tasked to write about the incredibly interesting topic of savings and ISAs.
This will be an easy topic, I think to myself, who doesn’t love reading about savings and ISAs??? Right??
The new fiscal year is coming up (year end April 5th). If you haven’t already, it’s time to think about how much of those tax allowances in ISAs we can use up and do some rejigging of the personal finances.
The most popular ISA is the cash ISA.
The cash Isa allows you to deposit £20,000 per tax year and earn an interest totally tax free. With £300bn in cash ISAs, it’s easy to see why.
BUT, with Rachel from accounts’ Spring Statement, we are potentially looking at an overhaul of Isas as she desperately tries to find money to fuel growth. Some of your favourite household names such as BlackRock and Aberdeen have tried lobbying Reeves to scrap or reduce the cash Isa tax free limit to £4000.
You’re probably wondering why on earth investment management firms have a vested interest in our beloved cash Isas?
Well, it’s all to do with this notion of boosting investing culture in the UK and buying British stocks, which doesn’t sound all that bad but if BlackRock and Aberdeen are rooting for this, it will likely make them hell of a lot more money than they’d care for you to lose.
However, they miss the point that everyone is different.
Not all of us have an appetite for risk that accompany stocks and shares and not all of us have the same time horizons to deploy our money.
A younger person may wish to allocate more money into equity markets to ride out several peaks and troughs but someone in their 60s may be thinking of inheritance or perhaps buying their dream car?
Some may wish to put their money in art, collectibles, and even gold (there’s my plug for the day).
Why and how we allocate our money is perhaps a level of self awareness we should all possess.
The answer, maybe, is not to inject our money from savings in an Isa to equity markets, but to clearly identify what it is we’re saving for and our own appetites for risk.
I, for example, winced at the US stock market’s recent decline after Trump announced his various tariffs on several nations and as a result sold my entire portfolio, an eye watering sum of £600, from the S&P 500 index.
I once heard someone say that “predicting the future is a fool’s game” so I therefore won’t embarrass myself and try that here. But, it won’t stop me thinking about it.
The Spring Statement on Wednesday is clear about one thing. The government is cash strapped. Reeves announced day to day departmental cuts (I hope a tech businessman wasn’t behind this one) as well as a cut to overseas aid to fund the increase in defence spending. To add fuel to the fire, trade uncertainty and slowing global growth will worsen Rachel Reeves’ fiscal position. To put things into perspective, Citi analysts estimate that a 0.1 per cent deviation from the OBR’s productivity growth forecast would carve a £7-£8bn hole in the public finances. It, therefore, potentially paves the way for increased taxation in the next budget and it has been confirmed that an overhaul to ISA’s is on the cards.
It’s like asking your parents for money to go out when you were a kid but instead of the usual £10 it’s been cut to £5 and they’ve told you to get a job.
There’s Trump (enough said), there’s the downturn in equity markets, and there’s Rachel Reeves and black holes. It’s incredibly human to TRY and make sense of the world around us but the best we can do is to simplify it and think what does this mean for me?
There’s a quote I quite like from Benjamin Graham, author of “The Intelligent Investor”, which is highly praised by the likes of Warren Buffet. The quote goes:
“If the reason people invest is to make money, then in seeking advice they are asking others to tell them how to make money. That idea has some element of naïveté. Businessmen seek professional advice on various elements of their business, but they do not expect to be told how to make a profit.”
Thus, there is an element of entrepreneurship in the way we manage our money. It is unique to all of us and how we navigate the future is, in large part, down to us.
Written by,
Brandon Chiu
[email protected]
Discover all there is to know about buying gold for investment:
Need Assistance? Our expert team is ready to answer any questions you may
have about investing in gold and silver.
Give us a call at 0207 117 2889 or book an appointment to see us in person in our London Showroom.
Read More
“You should think of gold as being a fundamental money that you should own at least some of. Most investors don’t own any.” Says Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates. Ray earned a living seeking an uncorrelated return across different asset classes and it led to his hedge
Read More
The Best Gold Investors Do These 5 Things So, here we are. Gold at £3000. Fancy seeing you here. Gold is up, uncertainty is up and government debt is up. In the meantime, the real purchasing power of cash and paper money is getting lower and lower as interest rates
Read More
On Wednesday morning, gold hit a new all-time record high of £3000 ($4000) as a wider range of investors see the appeal of the precious metal in an investment portfolio. For a while now, there has been a feeling of worry amongst households and gold has been the best way
Read More
Last week, the investment bank Goldman Sachs issued a note predicting gold could hit $5000 (£3700) if the Federal Reserve bank continued to be undermined and if 1% of privately-owned Treasuries moved to gold. How, then, realistic is this price target? In the note, Goldman analysts wrote that “gold remains
[email protected]
020 7117 2889
BH International Ltd – Company number: 14315961
111 Baker Street, Marylebone, London, W1U 6SG
