by The Investor
on April 27, 2009
Most Mexican commuters won't be thinking about stock prices
Deciding how to react to a crisis like a potential flu pandemic, a natural disaster or war is one of the most controversial aspects of stock market investing.
Many panics, whether they affect the whole market or individual companies, turn out to be false alarms.
Even those scares that have substance often turn out to be less important than the market first anticipated.
In this article, I’ll divide panic scenarios into three categories, and discuss how I personally react to such scare stories when investing.
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by The Investor
on April 25, 2009
Every week I read a large number of personal finance and investing articles. Here’s my latest weekly shortcut to the best.
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by The Investor
on April 23, 2009
I guestimated in my rant about the new 50% tax rate introduced in the UK Budget yesterday that I wouldn’t be much better or worse off because of the various changes.
A quick skim this morning through the various online calculators that have popped up proves the point: I will be just a couple of good bottles of wine poorer, and that’s mainly because of the increase in duty on good bottles of wine!
Most of my gross annual income comes through dividends, since I run my own Limited Company. This means I’m not much affected by tweaks to the income tax system – the stalling of the increase from 21% to 22% in the small business tax rate is more relevant to me.
The new £10,200 ISA contribution limit will make a difference over time, but it won’t mean any immediate change in my living standards.
Wondering how the 2009 Budget has affected you? Interestingly, I’ve noticed there are two camps of Budget calculators on the big websites today.
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by The Investor
on April 22, 2009
I had a lot of fun today covering the UK Budget over on the Monevator Twitter channel. It was fun racing other finance bloggers and the bloke who does the BBC captions to announce the news.
There were two occasions though when I was late with my updates. Both times it was because I was too annoyed to ‘tweet’ before I’d calmed down. It happened:
- 1. When the Chancellor outlined the £2,000 scrappage scheme for cars
- 2. When he revealed the 50% tax rate for those on over £150,000 a year
Both moves were idiotic distractions when the country needs real leadership.
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