Archive for: 2005

26 May 2005

D(epolarisation) Day: what might have been

From 1st June all financial advisers must spell out whether they are independent agents or tied to one or more product manufacturers and what and how they get paid. It’s the last step in the FSA’s ‘depolarisation’ programme and a much watered down version of its original plan to make the adviser/salesman distinction clearer and prevent commission bias. How watered down is demonstrated by the belief in the industry it need make no effective difference to how you run your business.

read more Commentary by Stuart Fowler
06 May 2005

The cost wedge just got fatter

Most personal finance sections have recently converged on the story that several large fund management houses are pushing up annual management charges again. This is an inevitable consequence of consumers using more agents, including the internet, to avoid or cut front-end loaded sales commissions. The effect is that more of the commission payments from providers to distributors must take the form of a share of the annual management charge, making distribution costs more equal across different types of fund and the ‘cost wedge’ harder to avoid.

read more Commentary by Stuart Fowler
02 May 2005

Equity risk and time

Talking Head, FTfm, 2nd May. The relationship between equity risk and time is a key battle ground in the conflict between ‘fair value’ accountants, for whom equity investing is a huge gamble by people who ‘should know better’, and investment professionals and many actuaries, who are more trustful of the benefits of equity investing, for most individuals and the nation state collectively.

read more Commentary by Stuart Fowler
23 Apr 2005

Affordable mortgages for key workers

Stability Brown has come up with a new tweak for a market that’s misbehaving. It seems that in 9 out of 10 major cities key public sector workers can’t afford to buy homes. His big idea is to encourage lenders to provide shared mortgages with the Government (us, actually) underwriting part of the equity risk.

read more Commentary by Stuart Fowler
15 Apr 2005

More academic research on active management

Newly published research by the University of Exeter’s Centre for Finance and Investment analysed the performance of UK equity performance in 2,175 segregated UK pension funds between 1983 and 1997. Author Professor Tonks found weak evidence of persistence of outperformance from one year to the next, based on averages of the top quintile (some 400 funds).

read more Commentary by Stuart Fowler
news archives

News Categories:

Popular Tags:

Last 12 months:

» Archive of older content

» About our insights
» About our commentary
» About our research

Bookmark and Share

© 2012 Fowler Drew | Privacy Policy | Accessibility Statement | Legal Statement - Site created by HEARDcreative
Fowler Drew is regulated by the Financial Services Authority. It is authorised as a personal investment firm to provide investment advice and discretionary investment management. It is an independent intermediary with no ties to any product firms and can advise on the whole market. It is covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. HS.