The final few months of 2018 were a dark time for the world’s stock markets, with concerns about US trade policies and the effects of Brexit uncertainty leaving many markets posting an overall loss for the year. The prospects for 2019 did not look bright, with the spectre of the US Federal Reserve continuing to …
Last month we received the excellent news that The RU Group’s application to join the Personal Finance Society’s Pension Transfer Gold Standard was successful. The Gold Standard is a voluntary code of good practice for safeguarded and defined benefit pension transfer advice, based around a set of nine key principles. It has been set up …
What is a ‘set and forget’ investment approach? Do we advocate it? In most walks of life when you employ a professional or craftsman, you expect a little bit of action for your money. Now is generally better than later, and more is generally better than less. However, this generality does not apply in some …
‘Set-and-Forget’ Investment Approach? Forget it! Read More »
The BBC’s decision to scrap universal free TV licences for the over-75s is part of the larger debate about our growing ageing population. Free TV licences for the over-75s were introduced by Gordon Brown in his 2000 Budget. It was a classic tactical Budget measure, designed to please at a relatively modest initial cost. Fast …
Senior members of The RU Group team take part in a range of events to help enterprising school students across our region improve their financial and business knowledge. Throughout the current academic year, we are proud to be supporting Young Enterprise, the UK’s largest enterprise education charity, to mentor and coach secondary school students within …
Some doctors have found their incomes disappearing as an unwelcome consequence of measures designed to limit the cost of pensions tax relief to the Treasury. We explain the impact of the pension annual allowance tapering rules. According to a recent Financial Times report some NHS consultants are being landed with tax bills of up to …
Doctors taking early retirement as pension tax rules bite Read More »
We are pleased to announce our significant investment in new client facing IT systems, Intelligent Office (iO), to improve security, communication and improve our carbon footprint. To further improve service delivery and give you more choice about how you work with us and access your information, we are upgrading our IT systems and investing significantly …
The US stock market caught a sudden chill on 22 March 2019. One of the main reasons was the red line in the graph shown below which illustrates a reverse yield curve. The graph shows a yield curve plot, which shows the return an investor would receive from buying US Treasury securities, based on their …
Key changes to be aware of following March’s Spring Statement. In March, in the midst of the ongoing Brexit drama, the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, delivered his Spring Statement on the state of the economy. Mr Hammond made clear some while ago that he wanted his Spring Statement to be a short financial briefing and he …
A Spring Statement in the Eye of the Brexit Storm Read More »
Later life mortgages and equity release – by our partners Oliver Jones Associates Limited. After the financial crash of 2007 lenders became wary when lending into retirement and other tools such as Interest Only mortgages were severely restricted. Much has changed in the last 10 years. The state pension age has increased, property values in …
