Tag Archives: Funds

How do you annoy a wealth manager?

Posted on July 18, 2017 by

Question; how do you annoy a wealth manager? Answer; ask him about his fund supermarket.   It may offend your local wealth manager (aka IFA) but that’s what Reuters call these funds platforms the FCA are investigating and if you believe Platforum, … Continue reading →

Posted in advice gap, pensions | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

A make or break week for UK investors

Posted on June 26, 2017 by

Are fund managers the new bankers? If you’ve read the excellent  (draft) FCA Asset Management Market Study, you’d be forgiven to think they were – (and that investment consultants were their knowing flunkies). The question now is how far the FCA … Continue reading →

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Why we have actively managed funds

Posted on January 24, 2017 by

The FCA’s Asset Market Study is written with certain corrective bias’ and it should not be taken as the last word on the active/passive debate. A central focus is on the allocation of savings, particularly long-term retirement savings, to active … Continue reading →

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The funds that time forgot.

Posted on December 13, 2016 by

We’ve all got guilty secrets at the back of the cupboard, those packets of flour purchased at college that you could never throw away (knowing the beer sacrificed to buy them); I even have guilty secrets glued to the back … Continue reading →

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Beware the Channel Isles my son.

Posted on October 29, 2016 by

In the UK we fight financial fraud through the FCA,tPR and a variety of enforcement agencies which together are “action fraud”. Our Regulators are accountable for ensuring that organisations that they regulate behave properly and that investments that they offer … Continue reading →

Posted in FSA, pensions | Tagged , , , , , , , | 23 Comments

“Strap me in and platform me up”

Posted on September 2, 2016 by

  One of the great financial mysteries of Britain today is the success of fund platforms. Last night, light was shed on their murky secrets by a high priest of their dark arts at a talk I attended in a … Continue reading →

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Searching for the Loch Ness Monster

Posted on August 10, 2016 by

  The Investment Association has concluded that hidden charges within funds are like the Loch Ness Monster, much talked about but never seen. Presumably those of us consumers seeking to find the financial Nessie are like the cranks who sit upon … Continue reading →

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Midsummer Madness as £3.5bn’s lost to real assets!

Posted on August 3, 2016 by

The Investment Association reported yesterday that jerks kneed £3,500,000,000 out of funds in June – “clearly Brexit has been unsettling, with property and equity funds particularly affected” – the report opined. Well £2.8bn was lost from equity funds and £1.4bn … Continue reading →

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Buying our funds the Ottoman way. What British investors can learn from Turkey.

Posted on March 7, 2016 by

Last week at a meeting of the Transparency Task Force, I listened to Dr Chris Sier talk of his work in Turkey, understanding how that country’s regulators are getting to grips with fund costs and charges and ensuring that fund … Continue reading →

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“Search and Stewardship” – all that we want from asset managers

Posted on December 3, 2015 by

  I spent yesterday morning listening to John Kay talk about the ideas behind his new book “Other people’s Money”. The big idea is that the UK asset management industry spends too much time talking to itself and not enough … Continue reading →

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