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Read moreMonday Musings 23/03/2020
I’ve been trying to remember a time when there has been such a seismic event, not just in the stock markets around the world but in the potential changes to the way we live our lives. The Covid 19 virus has changed the way in which we will view our relationships with not just our nearest and dearest but those around us in our work and non-work environments. This might seem to be an odd way to start what is a market commentary, but I think that is relevant to what I want to say.
As you know I and all the team at Straight Talk take our reponsibilty to you all very seriously and I like to think that we demonstrate this on a regular basis. Having watched and read all the advice being given I decided to work from home and communicated this to all of you last week. Because I also have a responsibility to my super staff, I have now decided to close the office from Wednesday-25th– of this week. The team will be working from home so there will be little, if any, interruption to the great work they do. From that date we will no longer be having any face to face meetings either at our clients’ homes, offices or of course our office. This is of course because we owe you our clients the same responsibility. This decision applies to Straight Talk Estate Planning as well. I have no idea how long this situation will last but I suspect it will be several months. I will follow this note up with our processes for ongoing communication.
We will be producing the quarterly reports as usual at the end of the month. I am sure that you realise that the numbers will not look great. Unfortunately, there is not a lot that I, or any other IFA could have done about that. A major difference between Straight Talk and others is that we do not stop communicating just because things are not going well. Please rest assured that I will be looking for opportunities to get things back on track as soon as there is enough stability in the markets to make sensible decisions.
So, there are always two sides to any coin, there are many of you who should be using up your ISA allowance before April 5th. Although the markets are volatile by using a concept called “phased Investment” it is possible to make this volatility work for you. It would make this musing far too long to explain how it works so I have put an explanation video on our website. Also, I will waive our initial fee on any ISA investment made before April 5th2020.
Let us turn to the markets, the central banks have taken big decisions as far as interest rates are concerned with the Bank of England dropping the base rate to 0.1%. The BOE has also put an extra 200 billion into quantative easing, explanation on the website. Although this had some impact on the UK market, over the week the FTSE100 was down as were all the other markets.
At the risk of being boring please do not sell and realise what is a bookkeeping loss unless you sell. Please do contact me, 02380243665, 07435961990, david@straighttalkfinncial.co.uk if you would like to chat.
So, to the markets
January 2nd | March 23rd | ||
FTSE 100 | 7604 | 4992 | Down 34.35% |
DOW JONES | 28584 | 19173 | Down 32.92% |
NASDAQ | 8875 | 6879 | Down 22.49% |
S&P 500 | 3261 | 2230 | Down 31.62% |
NIKKEI | 23648 | 16887 | Down 28.6% |
HANG SENG | 28543 | 21696 | Down 23.98% |
SHANGHAI | 3079 | 2660 | Down 13.60% |
CAC 40 | 6037 | 3924 | Down 35% |
DAX | 13381 | 8671 | Down 35.2% |
I had a strange encounter on Facebook this week (sounds silly, bear with me…). A new mum put a post up on a local group asking for help. She said.
Read moreAs I’m sure is the case for you, I’ve been watching the coverage of the Israel – Hamas war with horror. The loss of innocent civilian lives, the impact of.
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