tatty

I picked up the 2015 Stock Market Almanac and some of the data seems quite interesting. There are certain shares which behave remarkably consistently over the course of a particular month for many consecutive years. This also stands for monthly/quarterly FTSE350 Sector Index performance. If the mantra about trends is correct would it a strategy of following previous years monthly/quarterly performance have a positive expectation or is it another fool's errand?

Thanks very much for the advice, all taken onboard.

I spoke to my insurer and they said they won't get involved because the growing process will have taken so long and they didn't offer any legal support.

Short version: 1. Landlord next door has rented out for last 18 months 2. Ivy grew up from their land in to my garage 3. Rang the landlord and he paid for it to be cleared and organised a roofer for a quote 4. Quote came back at £2000 to repair damage 5. Loss adjuster/landlords insurance company have said it's the tenants fault 6. Tenant says contract states she is to remove nothing from the garden (and you could question why the landlord paid for the ivy to be removed if it was her problem) 7. Tenant moving out this month 8. Landlord texted saying all dealings need to be through his insurance company and they've told him to send any mail unopened to them I'm pretty pissed off that he's palmed the issue off and left me having to pick a fight with his insurance company. Is this the norm and can he just pass on a solicitors letter ? He'll be looking to rent out again and I know any disputes have to be mentioned to potential buyers but what about tenants (i'm not going anywhere for a few years). I'm sure i'll calm down a bit in the morning.

Would this be a situation where equity release could work?

Inflation and QE may well be a subtle enough form of theft that the average person doesn't perceive it to be so but this is forcing people to open their wallets and physically hand over the cash - it's madness. How bad could the alternative options have been that they decided on this one? This will reverberate around Europe because it is so easily understood and to the layman, grossly unfair. The EU have played a blinder here.

Rare to find a deficit denier trolling forums nowadays, the majority stopped peddling that nonsense a couple of years ago.

That's what our company did.

Thanks guys, my employer is making 'moves' on the pension scheme predicated on very poor gilt yields making the scheme unsustainable in its present form. I appreciate that it is very difficult for private sector employers to plug the deficits as required by trustees but it does seem that a 'once in 300 years' event is being used as justification for attacking the scheme without consideration of the impact on deficits of a return to the long-term average returns on gilts or indeed government plans to introduce legislation allowing trustees to 'smooth' forecast returns which will also reduce deficits. All that said, if the money isn't there then no amount of financial trickery will make it appear come claiming time.

I've been trying to find out what the historical average yield on 10 year UK Gilts from first issuance and also from post-WWII. When Gilts are discussed am I right in thinking that the 10 year is the generally accepted reference point? I've checked the UK Debt Management Office and othe sites on the web with no luck. If anybody can help i'd appreciate it muchly.

Why would this rule change not affect a defined benefit scheme?

In this case how would a defined benefit scheme be affected? I assume either the members and/or employers would need to make up the shortfall?

i am making personal contributions but via salary sacrifice so the company deducts my contributions before tax (and in the process saves themselves NI contributions).

Thanks snagger, that's good to hear. Unless they move to block salary sacrifice arrangements of course!

I've read the suggestions in the msm about the removal of upper rate of tax relief for pension contributions. I'm an upper rate taxpayer in a final salary DB scheme which uses salary sacrifice for pension contributions. Would I be correct in thinking that because my pension contributions are made via salary sacrifice then a reduction to a flat rate 20% rebate on contributions won't affect me?

Thanks, any ideas about the sipps etc being paid before tax/ni?

I understood that NI is 2% over c£40,000 or are you saying you get hit for 12% on the £7,500 on top of the 40% income tax? It seems pretty harsh to tax the allowance loss at 40% rather than 20%.

And a supplementary: Would contributions to a sipp or payments for a company organised green car lease scheme be deducted before you paid the c62% tax if the costs/payments were exactly £15,000 (assuming you were paid £115,000).

I've been trying to work this out after a conversation at work the other day (doesn't affect me unfortunately). I get it that for every £2 over £100,000 you lose £1 off your allowance of c£7500 which is why £115,000 is the upper level for this marginal rate. What i'm not sure of is what the total tax take is. 1. Are you taxed at 20% or 40% on the c£7500 you lose? 2. Does employee NI stop at c£40,000 for 12% with 2% on everything above? I've seen websites saying the marginal rate is 61.5% so i assume it works out as this: 40% of the £15,000 = £6000 40% of c£7500 = £3000 2% of £15,000 = £300 Total c£9,300 = c62% of £15,000 Is this right?

Perhaps I'll swerve his bet.

Accepting that it may be necessary to suspend disbelief in contemplating the question I'd be interested in some views. I've been offered a bet that the US will balance their budget and begin paying down their national debt first.

Apologies if this is a dumb question but google wasn't particularly my friend when i tried to find a correlation between national borrowing costs and an individuals.

'...Hungary kept on pursuing sensible moderate measures, instead of punishing the population. They imposed taxes on the hugely profitable sectors of retail, energy and telecoms, and took funds from private pensions to pay the deficit...' How can that ever be right?

I don't have a view one way or another on the desirability of bungalows; I do however have a real issue with the word. 'Bungalow', I mean wtf?

If Betdaq eventually build the critical liquidity levels needed to trade on tight back/lay prices then there will be an exodus from BF. I've used the site for years and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread when it first started - now i'd happily see it fold.