Worldwide Financial Planning

There is significant difference in the returns that funds are actually returning. Consider a study of 60 with-profit funds by Barnett Waddingham, a Pension Consultancy which highlights the vast differences in with-profits.

Tangible signs of progress in the relationship between the US and North Korea were enough to ease market nerves after some worrying but predictable geopolitical news earlier in the week.

This week Elon Musk's refusal to answer "boring" questions about Tesla's finances cost the company $2bn in market value.

The busiest week of earnings season has been an up-and-down, or rather a down-then-up, one for global equity markets.

One of the most glaring points was that made by the Financial Ombudsman Service who state, regarding with-profits in a section on their website titled ‘with-profits bonds’, that a “with-profits bond may not have been a suitable recommendation for a consumer who needed access to their capital at a fixed point in the future” – a pretty powerful statement which I fully comprehend given the complete lack of nakedness of this arrangement.

A with profits fund is simply where your capital is invested across a wide range of assets like cash, UK and International equities, property, government and corporate bonds (exactly like a managed fund does). The objective is to spread your risk.