Breed Elliott LLP - Keeping You Informed
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Newsletter
We are speaking to an increasing number of our clients who are asking us to meet with their children to discuss financial planning and to help them as they set out on their own financial planning journey. It seems that the subject of money is becoming less taboo and, based on our experience, grandparents, parents and children are more open and willing to the idea of formulating an overall plan for the family’s wealth.
Previous Newsletters
Asset Allocation
The subject of asset allocation features quite regularly in our monthly newsletters as we believe that it is the most important factor to consider when constructing suitable investment portfolios for our clients. More so than trying to pick the individual funds which will perform best in the future.
In this month’s newsletter, we revisit this subject, which has been regularly shown by empirical research to be the greatest determinant of a portfolio’s future investment returns.
The Spring Budget 2023 Pension Changes
You will be aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer made some changes to pension legislation in the recent Budget.
We thought we would use this newsletter to identify the key changes.
Financial Planning Reviews
For many, the approaching end of a tax year can be a good time to review our financial planning, checking that everything is on track and potentially taking advantage of tax avoidance opportunities before the end of the current tax year or at the beginning of the new tax year.
So, in this month’s newsletter, we have outlined what we see as the process to follow when reviewing our financial plan.
Strategic Investing v Tactical Investing and Gambling
Since the start of 2023, equity markets have been showing some signs of recovery but it is impossible to know whether this is the start of a better time in equity markets or whether it is just a temporary jump.
It is at times like this that we encourage clients to think about long-term investing rather than trying to second guess markets in the short term. Accordingly, we thought it would be a good idea to look at strategic and tactical investing in this month’s newsletter.
Understanding Our Clients' Risk Profiles
For our first newsletter of the New Year, we are focusing on the subject of risk profiling and explaining how we go about understanding and assessing clients’ risk profiles.
The 2022 Autumn Statement and the Financial Planning Opportunities
In the light of the recent Autumn Statement which, thankfully, did not have drastic changes, we thought we would just cover the main points from the Statement and consider some financial planning opportunities it presents.
Financial Planning in Volatile Markets
We thought it would be a good idea to focus this month’s newsletter on how we should manage our financial planning during times of market volatility, such as now. We hope it makes useful reading.
The value in our home
We hope you enjoy reading this month’s newsletter which aims to give you a slightly different perspective on how you view your home
What happens to my pension when I die?
Whilst the subject matter of this month’s newsletter is not the cheeriest, it deals with an important aspect of planning for the future financial security of our loved ones. We hope you find the information useful.
Retirement Planning
In this month’s newsletter, we have considered a six step process to help those planning retirement to feel comfortable and confident about their future financial security. However, the six steps could easily be applied to any life stage of financial planning.
Fund Selection
Having looked at the importance of asset allocation in portfolio management last month, we turn our attention this month to the challenge of fund selection.
Selecting the funds which will perform best in the future is notoriously difficult and it makes sense to have a robust, repeatable process to follow to increase the potential for success. In this newsletter, we explain our process.
Asset Allocation
As our clients, you will be familiar with us ‘rebalancing’ the mix of assets held in your portfolio back into line with the recommended ‘asset allocation’ benchmark.
As this is an exercise we perform with all clients, we thought we would use this month’s newsletter to explain in a little more depth what we mean by ‘asset allocation’ and why we believe this and the regular rebalancing of the asset mix is such an important part of strategic portfolio management.
Behavioural Finance
In this month’s newsletter, we return to a subject we have covered in the past and which we believe is worth revisiting on a regular basis.
Behavioural finance is the study of the effects of psychology on investors and financial markets. It focuses on explaining why investors often appear to lack self-control, act against their own best interests and make decisions based on personal biases instead of facts.
To do list for the new tax year
As we enter a new tax year, we thought it would be a good idea to look at a few things we could be doing early on in the tax year in order to make our financial planning more tax efficient, rather than waiting until the end of the tax year.
Mitigating Capital Gains Tax
As we approach the end of the tax year, it is a good time to think about ways of mitigating a tax liability and, in this month’s newsletter, we aim to provide answers to the most frequently asked questions about how to mitigate Capital Gains Tax (CGT).
Using pension funds to mitigate Income Tax
With the end of another tax year fast approaching, we thought we would devote the next couple of newsletters to tax planning ideas.
In this month’s newsletter, we look at how we can both contribute savings to pension funds and withdraw income from pension funds in such a way as to mitigate our liability to Income Tax.
Sustainable Investing
In this month’s newsletter, we look at the subject of sustainable investing, which has become more and more of a hot topic over recent years.
Our plans for the future
In this newsletter, we would like to share with you how we, at Breed Elliott, are planning for the future and how we plan to care for you, our clients, in the years ahead.
Our plans are based around how we see the demand for financial planning changing in the future and how we need to manage our relationships with you.
Keeping yourself cyber safe
We are living in an increasingly digital and online world, which can be a little frightening knowing that so much of our personal information is floating around in cyber space. This is particularly the case with our financial affairs.
So, we thought we would devote this month’s newsletter to sharing with you some simple and straightforward tips to help maintain your cyber security.
The KISS Principle with Financial Planning
As you will probably know, we are strong advocates of keeping financial planning as simple and straightforward as possible. In this month’s newsletter, we explain why we feel strongly about this and how we endeavour to apply the KISS principle in our advice.
The Role of Cash in Financial Planning
In this month’s newsletter, we consider the role that cash deposits should play in our personal financial planning. Cash is probably the asset class we are most familiar with and this tends to make us feel comfortable about cash savings. However, as with all different types of assets, it is important that we understand the risks and benefits of keeping our savings in cash and use this knowledge within our own financial planning.
Understanding modern pension plans part III
In the final newsletter of our series of three looking at the features and benefits of modern pension plans, we consider the options available when an older client dies with funds still left in their pension plan.
Understanding modern pension plans part II
In the second of a series of three newsletters on the subject of modern pension plans, we look at the options available to those investors with modern, defined contribution pension pots as they contemplate taking benefits from these at retirement.
Understanding modern pension plans part I
Modern Pension Plans can be an important component of a financial plan for all ages of adult. The role a pension fund will play will vary depending upon whether you are still working and funding for your retirement or whether you are near retirement or whether you are several years into retirement.
Because pension legislation is forever changing, we thought it would be a good idea to devote our next three newsletters to looking at the pension considerations for the younger generation, for those nearing or at retirement and for those several years into retirement.
In this month’s newsletter, we consider the issues facing an employed adult looking to accumulate their pension fund during their working lifetime.
Intergenerational wealth transfer part II
Following on from last month’s newsletter, when we looked at transferring wealth down the generations from a grandparent’s point of view, we now consider in this newsletter how the transfer of funds from the grandparents might best be used by their children and grandchildren.
We believe that the case for two or three generations of the same family coming together to formulate an intergenerational wealth transfer strategy is becoming ever stronger.
Intergenerational wealth transfer part I
Figures from the Centre of Economic and Business Research (CEBR) indicate that over the next decade in the UK £1 trillion is expected to pass to the next generation and over the next 30 years, a staggering £5.5 trillion! At present, the average Inheritance Tax (IHT) liability is £179,000 and likely to increase.
In this month’s newsletter, we consider how me might help the grandparents of our Smith family to transfer wealth between the generations. In next month’s newsletter, we will look at how the younger generations might sensibly use any wealth transferred to them.
Our fund selection process
We have received quite a lot of feedback from our clients recently about how surprisingly well investment portfolios have performed over the last year, particularly bearing in mind the coronavirus pandemic and its effect on global economies.
As a result, we thought we would focus this month’s newsletter on looking at our fund selection process.
Retirement Planning
Retirement has always been a fascinating life stage for financial planning. We face the prospect of potentially 20, 30 or 40 years with no earnings and plenty of uncertainty. We’re effectively planning for a very lengthy holiday.
In recent years, there has been a major change in how flexibly benefits can be taken from pension funds, which only adds to the fascination and complexity of retirement.
Plans for a New Year
As it is the beginning of the New Year, we thought we would devote this month’s newsletter to considering some key financial planning issues which may be of concern to the three generations of our fictional family, the Smiths, and which they may wish to address as part of their plans for the New Year.
Why do you need us?
At the end of this very peculiar year, we thought the timing would be right to try to answer the question “why do you need us as your financial planner?!” I hope it makes interesting reading.
Open Banking
Would you like to view full details about all aspects of your personal financial planning in one secure place?
In this month’s newsletter, we give you an insight into Open Banking and how to set it up through your PFP.
Investing in UK commercial property funds
You may have seen mention in the news about a number of UK commercial property funds which have been lifting suspensions imposed on their funds in March 2020, as a result of the coronavirus.
We thought it would be good timing to focus this month’s newsletter on the benefits and risks associated with commercial property investment. We have provided answers to a number of questions posed by our fictional client family.
What happens with my pension fund when I die?
In this month’s newsletter, we aim to shed some light on the increasingly complex subject of what happens to pension funds when the pension plan member dies.
Explaining the importance of strategic asset allocation
In this month’s newsletter, we answer questions posed to us by one of the young adults from our fictional client family, the Smiths, on the subject of asset allocation and the approach we take this within Breed Elliott.
A sound investment philosophy
In this month’s newsletter, we have set out 10 aspects of our investment philosophy which we adhere to when advising all our clients.
Explaining financial planning to young adults
In this newsletter we have set out some of the advice and suggestions we would give to young adults on the subject of financial planning as they start their working careers.
Tax considerations in financial planning
As we start a new tax year, we thought it would be good timing to look at tax planning considerations in financial planning and to consider various scenarios for the three different generations of the Smith family. We hope you find it interesting reading both for your own financial planning and for your family’s.
Coping with falling markets
Considering the shocks in global financial markets which have hit all of our investment portfolios, we thought it would be a good idea to devote this month’s newsletter to looking at various ways of coping when markets are falling.
The first half of the newsletter looks at general strategies for keeping a calm head when all around us are losing theirs. In the second half of the newsletter, we look at the three generations of the Smith family and consider how they might cope at their different ages and circumstances.