On 6th April 2015 a new marriage allowance came into force. This means that up to 10% of a spouse’s or civil partner’s unused personal allowance can be transferred, effectively reducing their tax bill by up to £212. You can…
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Over the first three weeks of January, we have witnessed a stock market where fear has fed fear. Markets suffered another panic attack at the beginning of last week, with further falls in oil prices being the trigger. Oil slid…
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2016 is only one week old and has already made headlines for having been one of the worst starts to a New Year in global capital markets. Some of the trends of 2015 continue with falling commodity prices, particularly oil…
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We have witnessed a remarkable period of both stock and bond market volatility throughout 2015. These events are, perhaps part of a new lesson that recovery from a great recession by way of quantitative easing and loose money policies provides…
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The Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates on hold in September prompted government bonds to rally. Whilst the gilt market benefited from the Fed’s decision, corporate bonds and high yield bonds came under pressure as the sense of delay…
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The principle target of Saudi Arabia’s high oil output policy, which has led to a global oversupply of oil, has been the US shale industry. The resultant fall in oil prices has seen the number of shale rigs halved this…
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Continued strong economic data from the US and the US interest rate rise suggests that the prospects for the US$ are very good. The backdrop of a strong US$ has historically been a challenging one for gold. Without the fear…
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Latin America was a poor performer in Q3. The combination of weak Chinese data and inaction over US interest rates unsettled markets. Falling GDP provided a negative backdrop for Latin America, but the credit downgrade of Brazil to BBB+ was…
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Since 2008, Vietnamese productivity has improved more rapidly than for any of its other Asian neighbours. Over this period modern factories and abundant cheap labour has led to dramatic productivity gains. With the wage rate a quarter of that of…
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