A recent report has suggested that the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ will be lending their children over £6.5 billion this year in order to help them onto the property ladder! The projected figure is around £1.5 billion higher than the £5 billion loaned by parents to their offspring in 2016, demonstrating an increase of 30% and meaning that more than one in four property transactions in the UK in 2017 will involve parents. The figure is similar to that lent by the Yorkshire Building Society, the ninth biggest mortgage lender in the UK, and will help fund deposits for more than 298,000 mortgages and property purchases to the value of around £75 billion. The expected average amount lent to children by
As we wrote last year, ‘It is tempting to think that Brexit is the only game in town.’ Cross out ‘Brexit’ and replace it with ‘General Election’ and the sentiment holds good. But the rest of the world keeps turning – or in May, grinding to a halt as the WannaCry ransomware attack hit more than 250,000 computers in more than 100 countries, with our own NHS being particularly badly hit. Once the computers were back up and running, UK growth for the first quarter of 2017 was revised down, whilst US growth for the same period was revised sharply upwards. In France, new President Emmanuel Macron presumably had a small sip of champagne to celebrate his victory over Marine Le Pen. Who knows what Ki
Over the long run, the market has provided substantial returns regardless of who lives at Number 10. Next month’s snap election is the first national vote in the UK since the EU referendum. While the election’s outcome and overall impact are unknown, there is no shortage of speculation about how the election will impact the stock market. Below, we explain why investors would be well-served avoiding the temptation to make significant changes to a long-term investment plan based upon these sorts of predictions. Exhibit 1: Growth of a Pound Invested in the Dimensional UK Market Index January 1956–December 2016 For illustrative purposes only. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results
