The Scottish Budget arrived towards the end of a busy week for economic news and the Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, set out “four important factors” in arriving at the measures announced in the 2023/24 Scottish Budget. Subject to these major constraints, Mr Swinney set out three priorities for “a different path” from that taken…
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The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement came against the background of a Spring Statement and a September ‘mini-Budget’ (which has now been substantially reversed). The overall context is a European recession and high inflation in the wake of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The Autumn Statement was presented as a difficult and necessary…
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‘The stock market is designed to transfer money from the active to the patient’ – Warren Buffett With headlines providing a steady stream of less than good news, we are writing to provide some illustrations which we hope will ease any concerns you have, and hopefully frame current volatility in the context of long-term…
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Kwasi Kwarteng’s first set piece as Chancellor of the Exchequer was never going to be easy, even before the 0.5% increase in interest rates the day before. The new Prime Minister Liz Truss revealed much of what we might expect before Mr Kwarteng spoke a word, so we already knew that there would be: a…
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We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Her Majesty The Queen, and our thoughts and condolences are with the Royal Family at this time.
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The FCA desires all firms to put their clients at the heart of their business by offering products and services that are fit for purpose and represent fair value. The FCA intends to do this by introducing the Consumer Duty, their new principle to ensure that “good outcomes” are the industry standard. The Consumer Duty…
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This article first appeared in the Dundee & Angus Chamber of Commerce website, 8th August 2022, click here to view the article. Monday 25th July First day back from two weeks in Portugal. Wow, that’s a lot of emails! Working from home actually helped me plough through them. Fortunately the team had picked up…
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This article was first published by Citywire today (11th July) and can be found here. We have long been concerned about inflation but the events in Ukraine have resulted in levels higher than we had expected. As a result, at the start of the year, we significantly reduced the exposure to Fixed Interest within…
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Just before Christmas, the Chancellor asked the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to produce an economic and fiscal forecast for 23 March. The timing and brief nature of the accompanying Treasury announcement reflected Mr Sunak’s wish to keep the Spring Statement a low-profile event. This was not meant to be a March mini-Budget, despite what…
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Savers and investors have just under a month to use the £20,000 they can put into their tax-efficient Individual Savings Account (ISA) before the end of the financial year on 5 April. The current tax year started on 6 April 2021 and ends on 5 April 2022. ISAs enable you to minimise the amount of…
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