On 8th June Richard J Hunter wrote an article for Financial News under the title “Up in Smoke”. According to the article from July 1st smoking ban will be implemented in England. One of the most effected sectors would be the pubs sector. As the food sales increase in those pubs that have become smoke free it is being debated whether these pubs are turning into restaurants. Another story around the pub sector is the extensive property portfolios which many of them own, and how some of this value might be released, either through sale and leaseback schemes, or by converting to Real Estate Investment Trust, or REIT, status.
At the moment the pub companies are not generally committing themselves to a plan of action. Nonetheless this has given these share prices some support. Indeed, many of the pub shares have had a stellar run over the last year. During a period when the FTSE100 has risen some 15%, Punch Taverns have made 52%, Mitchells & Butlers 72% and Enterprise Inns 53%. The FTSE250 has risen 29%, and its constituent JD Wetherspoon has spiked by 56%.
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According to a new article published by Funds Centre on 1st June and written by Sarah Modlock a new kind of internet fraud is becoming popular. According to an estimate fraud costs the UK around £20bn a year and £3bn of that is through internet scams. Now a day’s people are custom to visiting chartrooms and dating websites on the net. There they often start an online relationship with confidence tricksters. Most are familiar with this kind of fraud as Nigerian ‘advanced fee’ or ‘419’ fraud (named after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code).
Although people are becoming aware of this kind of fraud but there is still a large number of lonely hearts out there who fall an easy pray. Sarah says she asked Mike Bowron, Commissioner of the City of London Police, the force which leads the UK’s fight against fraud why are people really falling for this? Surely no one is that trusting? “We’re seeing more and more of this,” he says she reported “We are keen to get the message out so that people don’t fall for it.” Bowron says that so-called ‘lonely hearts fraud’ is usually perpetrated by the same criminals who worked the ‘419′ scam. “The 419 crew realize that people are wising-up to that and so they decided to try a different approach and moved onto lonely hearts. It’s already paying off for them. It’s not just women that are falling for it; there are plenty of women laying the bait for unsuspecting men, too,” he explains. (more…)
The June 27, 2007 edition of The Daily Mail had an interesting story about interest rate being on the rise. One of most Britain’s senior bankers warned that interest rate must rise to help ward off an unsustainable boom in the city and the property market.
Sir John Gieve, deputy governor of the Bank of England, warned that massive growth could hurt the banking system and cause a huge financial downturn. He said the only way to control the problem was with higher interest rates.
Having voted against a rise in June, the bank is now greatly expected to raise it’s key interest rate to 5.75% to 5.5% next Thursday. This will be the fifth time in a year the bank has raised their rates, placing even more pressure on household budgets. (more…)
The June 27, 2007 edition of Telegraph explained how Northern Rock, Britain’s fifth largest mortgage lender, has come out saying that profits for this year will be lower than expected due to interest rates rising faster than expected.
The news had Northern Rock’s shares falling over 10pc and is on the heels of four interest rate increases since August. The Bank of England is expected to increase rates to 5.75pc, maybe as soon as next month.
In an update, Northern Rock claimed that it’s underlying profits will now be between 403m pounds and 457m pounds in the current financial year. This is an increase of 15m pounds since 2006. The City had been expecting an increase of 17pc. (more…)
Phillip Scott wrote an interesting article in the June 17, 2007 edition of Times Online about foreign investment markets.
With Shanghai and Mumbai shares being overvalued, investors are now seeking other countries such as Egypt, Turkey, and Mexico for investment. Goldman Sachs, the American investment bank, has created a list of the new top eleven – Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, South Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam.
Over three years, economic growth for these countries has averaged 5.5%. This is the best it’s been in fifteen years and doubles Europe’s average of 2.3%. (more…)
On 5th June Financial News published a guide written by Richard Evans for those who wish to earn income from there savings. According to the article there could be the following sources: Shares, Equity income Funds, Bonds, Cash.
Good profitable companies usually pay there shareholders ( also called stockholders) twice a year dividends from there earnings once they have meet there expenses and made investment necessary for future. Unless things go badly wrong, these payments are usually fairly predictable, and often rise from one year to the next. If you pick the right shares, (more…)
On 20th June Sarah Modlock wrote about “The true cost of moving home” in Money Weekly. Sarah says that the average Briton moves home between three or four times in a lifetime, latest research from Abbey Mortgages shows. According to calculation an Briton spends £54,400 in today’s money moving home during their lifetime that’s about 2.3 years worth of annual salary. Looking at the fees charged by lawyers, estate agents, financial advisers, removal firms and stamp duty,
added to the money spent to get their property in a ’saleable condition’, homeowners said they’d forked out £16,000 on average at their last move. Based on these figures Abbey estimates that in 2006 alone Britons spent a combined £28 billion to up sticks. (more…)
On Wednesday 9th May Funds Centre published an article by Richard Evans under the title “Don’t let Hips catch you on the Hop”. According to the article from 1st August you would need a HIP in order to sell your property. Hip actually stands for Home information Pack which brings together a number of documents in order to sell a property. Hip includes the usual evidence of title, searches and leases, for example, along with a “sale statement” detailing basic information about the and a Hip index listing its contents. However there is also one new document – the energy performance certificate.
The main aim of HIP is to lessen the chances of surprises for the buyer, and this can go a long way when one intends to buy a new home. Also, The Government also hopes that energy performance certificates will highlight the amount of energy wasted in domestic use and encourage homeowners to take steps to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. (more…)
An interesting article was written in the June 23, 2007 edition of Telegraph in response to the heavy flooding that hit the country last week. 1,200 insurance claims were being filed to help with the damage caused. And unless British homeowners had insurance for flooding, they will be left to pay the bills.
The majority of homeowners have buildings cover, which is often a condition in the mortgage but out of 6 million homes, one in four do not have adequate coverage for things such as carpets, furniture, and personal belongings.
Approximately five million people live in flood risk zones with 570,000 of these being considered ‘high risk’ so, the importance of coverage is clear. The price of cleaning up after a flood is incredibly costly as everything the water had touched usually needs to be thrown away. Then there is also the consideration of accommodation, which is also often necessary while the house is put back into shape.
The Environment Agency can provide details of whether or not the homeowner is living in a high-risk flood zone. For 25 pounds, the agency will also write a letter to insurance companies explaining what risk you are living in and what flood defences are in place should a flood occur. This is useful if the homeowner believes insurers are overestimating the risk and could benefit from a second opinion. (more…)
Lisa Petit wrote an article in Yahoo Finance that put the focus on going green to save money. One has to wonder with all the hype about going green these days whether we are truly ready to put it into action.
uSwitch.com, a comparison and switching services recently conducted a survey to see if consumers can ‘walk the walk’ while they ‘talk the talk.’ In the survey 61% said they paid the money to insulate their homes, 57% are washing clothes in lower temperatures, and 70% said they are no longer leaving appliances on standby.
However, the study was not entirely positive. 79% of people thought they did not have enough information to become more energy efficient and only 0.8% thought that going green would save them money.
People haven’t switched to green yet because they think it’s too expensive and also because many consumers don’t know what green energy exactly is and why some plans are greener than others. (more…)