Stock markets around the world are closing in on the index levels achieved before the last bull market turned into a bear market. With hindsight, we can view the old peaks as bubble territory, inflated by foolish notions about technology. Six years later, it is tempting to think the same levels must again be dangerous [...]
read more Commentary by Stuart FowlerCalling an overvalued market is not like calling the top and it makes no difference whether the market is house prices or equities. The analogy with equities is particularly apposite today because there is little question that it is the City bonus boom that reignited London prices. London agent Lane Fox reports that nearly half the buyers of properties it sold in the last year worked in financial services. Add in the lawyers, who are also enjoying a feeding frenzy in mergers and acquisitions work, and the proportion rises to over half.
read more Commentary by Stuart FowlerSo says the Parliamentary Ombudsman, Ann Abraham. It is rare to find government departments guilty of ‘maladministration’: it’s a hard charge to stick. It did not stick with Equitable, even though the DTI clearly was not up to the task of assessing the life company’s reserving adequacy, because the fault lay with Parliament’s mandate to the DTI not the DTI’s execution of its mandate. But in the case of the 80,000 people who lost their pension rights when their employer failed, there was no such excuse. In its desire to encourage pension scheme membership, the Government has repeatedly claimed that occupational pension scheme benefits were guaranteed. ‘Guaranteed’ is a term unscrupulous financial sales staff have played fast and furious with and lies behind all of the misselling scandals of recent memory.
read more Commentary by Stuart FowlerNo Monkey Business Limited, my financial planning and wealth management firm, starts any client relationship with an Initial Review: a highly detailed ‘money makeover’. In the spirit of the new year, our client reports at the end of 2005 included an account of one such review to make some points about the future path of the global economy. Our subject is a powerful business leader on the international stage. For discretion’s sake, we shall call him Sam…
read more Commentary by Stuart FowlerMy professional body’s journal (Financial Analysts Journal) this month includes an article by John Bogle of the Vanguard mutual fund group in America. Bogle is unmatched in the UK. We have no top executive within financial services who has demonstrated over an entire career a dedication to the interests of the customer as the very basis of professional stewardship of money. A deeply old-fashioned philosophy, it has been repaid handsomely in Vanguard’s steady growth in market share for the past 30 years.
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