Investments News & Insights

At time of writing, global stockmarkets have witnessed some of the largest daily fluctuations since the financial crisis; on the back of continued concerns with the virus and how long it will last and the impact on the global economy.

For new investors this can be extremely worrying times as you will not have been used to such short-term volatility. For seasoned investors who went through the financial crisis of 2008, the technology bubble of 2000 and even black Monday in 1987, the short term pain being witnessed is often seen as a confirmation that although stockmarkets can’t always go up, over the long term, they always have done so.   With this in mind, it is important to remain calm and not change your investment time horizon. If for example you are saving for your retirement ten years from now; then maintain that timescale and don’t panic sell on the back of a matter of weeks of market downturns. The reason for this is that the coronavirus is an unforeseen event as opposed to their being any change to market fundamentals. Parallels can be drawn with the SARS outbreak in 2003. Markets fell over 14% at that time, yet the year ended up 18% higher – a swing of over 30% from bottom to top.

Increasing numbers of British expats in Spain are looking for advice and direction in relation to their Post-Brexit futures, the Guardian reports*, with many expressing their disappointment at the level of communication offered by British and Spanish officials.

This impression is supported by the findings of Karen O’Reilly, a sociology professor at Loughborough University, who recently published the results of an 18-month long research project which documents the considerable levels of “uncertainty and worry” among expats.**

Associate Director and Financial Adviser, Christina Brady talks about Blacktower Financial Management in Spain and the work she and her team carry out on a day-to-day basis.

Increasing numbers of investors are motivated to put their money into ethically and ecologically minded investments. This is undoubtedly an admirable aim, however, investors who fail to take adequate international financial advice risk becoming vulnerable to scammers looking to prey on their good intentions.

This fact has recently been underlined with the conviction and sentencing of five men for their operation of a multi-million pound fraudulent eco-investment scheme; a scheme which has been described by HM Revenue & Customs as one of the largest of its kind to be carried out in the UK.

For all but the highest net worth individuals, a pension pot will be the most valuable retirement asset in the long-term financial plan. Despite this, many retirement savers take a passive approach to pension planning and ultimately fail to realise the benefits of considering all the options and opportunities available to them.

One such opportunity is to transfer pension savings into a Self Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) and then drawdown to access your money.

But what exactly is a drawdown pension, and what should you be mindful of when considering pension drawdown options?

There is a lot I have learned over more than three decades in the financial services industry and while this period of managing client investments was made possible by my education and enthusiasm, the years have taught me that there is no substitute for experience. There is a big difference between knowing something theoretically and having first-hand, practical experience of it.

However, another side of my experience has been as a financial planning “firefighter”; learning, after the event, from the experiences of others, typically those clients who come to me a little crestfallen or embarrassed as a result of losses or stagnation caused by regrettable investment decisions.

This week we look at what the recent re-election of the Socialists in Portugal means for expats and foreign visitors.

While Prime Minister Antonio Costa may be jubilant, it is likely that he will continue to rely on the investment and economic stimulation generated by foreign citizens and expats if he is to help the country keep its spiralling debt under control.