Worldwide Financial Planning

A passive fund operates where your pensions/ISAs etc are simply placed into a fund that effectively tracks an index such as the FTSE All-Share, NASDAQ etc.

As it rises, your money rises with it, and vice versa. Tracker funds and Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) are the two most popular passive funds.

A few months ago, we noted that there were signs the British economy was starting to weaken, and this week brought the most worrying data yet: retail spending, the engine of recent growth, is looking decidedly ropey.

Faced now with a coalition, minority government or a new election, markets will not be happy.

Naturally sterling will plummet immediately because of the uncertainty of the government and the FTSE100 will respond by increasing its value due to the weakened sterling as over 70% of its earnings come from abroad, so when its repatriated the earnings look greater.

UK polls are notoriously poor with an average miss of somewhere in the region of four percent therefore, a hung parliament, a large Tory majority or pretty much no change were all equally likely.

Without a majority Mrs May finds herself in a similar position to John Major with the only way to govern now through compromise.

There has never, in my opinion, been a bigger election than this.

Personally I see it as one of the first I can remember where we are looking at a stall or halt on neo liberalism, or at least the bad parts of it.

The impact on the economy could be considerable.

UK house prices fell for the third month in a row in May, according to Nationwide, the first time this has happened since the financial crisis.

While Nationwide do not break down their index by region, other recent surveys have found that London in particular has seen falling prices, with that region seeing waves of new build property come to market.