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June was a fairly tough month for most markets, all the vital statistics are available to read via our website. The new market report is now available.
News Corp has today withdrawn its bid to take a majority shareholding in BSkyB. The current climate is clearly not helpful to their orginal plans. I presume that this would mean that there is no longer a requirement for the Competition Commission to investigate News Corp which was referred by the Culture Secretary on Monday.
For the record, financial advisers (often not highly regarded) have had to be fit and proper people for many years and this is simply part of the rules of engagement set out by the Financial Services Authority.
Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA
You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Today, Neptune is one year old. That’s not Neptune the Fund Management Group which celebrated its ninth birthday in May this year. No, I’m talking about the planet Neptune. A year on Neptune is approximately the same as 164.79 years on earth. Being, what they are, the good and the great seem to order the world and universe by when we discovered it, rather than when it was created. Odd but true.
Neptune, now regarded as the further planet from the sun within our solar system was discovered in September 1846 by Johann Gottfried Galle (German) following application of enormous amounts of mathematical calculations by Frenchman Urbain le Verrier. His mathematics was quite brilliant. Perhaps even more impressive was Galileo (Italian) who is believed to have first calculated and observed Neptune nearly 230 years earlier in The Starry Messenger in 1610. Englishman John Couch Adams is also attributed to have discovered Neptune independently, again using mathematical brilliance.
How our global finance system could benefit from genius mathematicians like Galileo or le Verrier! At the same time, NASA are conducting the final Space Shuttle mission with Atlantis, which has hooked up with the International Space Station. All of this takes genius and is happening above your head now. Precisely what these giants of mathematics and science would make of our respective nations inability to balance the books would perhaps be the one element of maths that confounds them.
Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA
You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Please remember that this is not advice, but simply a list of top rates out there. Check with the Bank first, I also suggest checking MoneyFacts.
One Year Deposit
Online: Barnsley BS 3.51%
Bank: Santander 4.05%
Building Society: Yorkshire 6.00%
Two Year Deposit
Online: Bank of Ireland 4.00%
Bank: NatWest 3.75%
Building Society: National Counties 3.76%
Instant Access
Online: Coventry BS 3.10%
Bank: Santander 2.50%
Building Society: Nottingham 3.25%
Fixed Rate Cash ISA
Online: Clydesdale 4.50%
Bank: Clydesdale 4.50%
Building Society: Newcastle 4.20%
Variable Rate Cash ISA
Online: AA 3.35%
Bank: Santander 4.00%
Building Society: Derbyshire 3.10%
Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA
You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk
There has been increasing interest in a social action ISA. A variety of interested parties would like to take ethical investment a step further by using money to fund social action community projects. This is something that has been mooted for some time. There is suggestion that the ISA allowance could be increased with the increase being used to fund such projects. How this works in practice is yet to be thrashed out, but you may be interested in this short 2 minute piece from the BBC.
Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA
You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk
I have to admit to being a little amused when I hear the media discuss Andy Murray and his chances of ever winning a grand slam tennis title. The guy only turned 24 in May and whilst he has still not won a grand slam tournament, his earnings from prize money alone in the 2011 season to date are $2.4m which is only a touch less than Roger Federer’s $2.5m this year. Over his total career he has won prize money of $16.4m since turning professional in 2005. Pause for a moment, he is 24, been a professional for 6 years and has already won $16.4m. He is ranked 4th in the world by the ATP, behind Federer, Nadal and Djokovic who has had a fantastic run of form and obviously won the Wimbledon 2011 men’s singles championship at the weekend. His season has seen him win $7.6m which is nearly a third of his total and career winnings since 2003 of $27.8m. As Novak Djokovic claims the ATP number one spot, consistently progressing well in the 18 tournaments that he has played in this year he can certainly enjoy the heights of being the current tennis ace with 26 titles.
Roger Federer: Career Earnings $63.5m with 67 titles (pro since 1998, now 29) now ATP#3
Rafael Nadal: Career Earnings $42.6m with 46 titles (pro since 2001, now 25) now ATP#2
Novak Djokovic: Career Earnings $27.8m with 26 titles (pro since 2003, now 24) now ATP#1
Andy Murray: Career Earnings $16.4m with 17 titles (pro since 2005, now 24) now ATP#4
Robin Soderling: Career Earnings $10.3m with 9 titles (pro since 2001, now 26) now ATP#5
Andy Roddick: Career Earnings $19.6m with 30 titles (pro since 2000, now 28) now ATP#10
Career earnings are from tournament prize winnings only, it does not include income from promotional work or other business activities. Whilst it is clearly Andy Murray’s dream, ambition and determination to win a grand slam title (Australia, France, Wimbledon, US) by any sensible measure he is surely already a highly gifted and highly successful tennis professional. There may not be much in it (which could be said of a many tennis tournaments) but in terms of age and when he turned pro, Andy Murray’s career is already a glittering one. Few people on planet earth can say that they got to number 4 in their field by the age of 24.
This prompts me to reflect on how success might be defined. It is surely rather more than simply being number one, or winning a specific tournament, even if it is a Wimbledon final (now in the past). This reminds me that success in a moment is fleeting and that real success is from the lives we lead consistently day after day.
The US Open, the fourth and final “grand slam” of 2011 is now just a few weeks away held in New York on 29 August. Last year Nadal beat Djokovic in a 5 set final. At the end of the year on 20 November London will again host a major competition in the O2 (The Dome) where the top 8 ranked ATP players will compete for the World Tour Finals. Tickets for the final (27 November) range from £100 to £8,500.
Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA
You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk
Dominic Thomas
July 2011 • 2 min read
For all my blogging about gold over the last few weeks, you may not be aware of the Gold To Go ATM (automatic telling machine) that now resides a short distance from me at the Westfield shopping centre. This is not to be confused with the 1990’s European TV quiz hosted by Henry Kelly.
German company Gold to Go have been gradually placing gold dispensing machines in some high-profile locations across the world. Much like a normal ATM you punch in your PIN to dispense money, though instead of your selected level of cash, you select the weight of gold bar that you require. Being German, the ATM is a remarkable and highly reliable piece of engineering, which is clearly a rather fundamental feature. Anyone that has ever used one of the car parks in Kingston Upon Thames will appreciate the problems of consistently failing machines.
This begs questions about money laundering and fraud, but apparently this is all taken care of via a form of identity check. Suddenly you can appreciate that the machine does need to work rather well. The Gold to Go website says that there is money-laundering and smurfing protection. A smurfing attack is not a hoard of tiny blue…er.. smurfs? but an exploitation of internet broadcast addressing to create a denial of service… because this ATM is plugged into the internet. It includes a personal ID scanner and camera.
For those into coin collecting, this will perhaps be a temptation, indeed many may be tempted to convert cash into gold which is very neatly dispensed in mini gold bars, with local branding. Mind you, as for its original mining source, I suspect that you will not get this information printed on your receipt.