A lot to get through this week, but in place of the usual top-of-Update whimsy, please accept heartfelt thanks from all of us to all of you who supported our 20 Mile CatWalk, which we completed on Saturday past. We had an amazing day, which is nice for us, but much more important is the fact that you raised well over £10,000 for Samaritans. Add on some offline donations and the lang cat’s own chipping in, and we will be a gnat’s bawhair (the smallest known unit of measurement) off £16,000. Over 210 individuals donated, and we send thanks and love to every single one.
If you want to see some out-of-form people walking, accompanied by Tom McPhail of HL and Ollie Smith of Citywire, then you can visit our photo album here. And if you do still want to support, the site is still open here. Finally, although this wasn’t planned, Laura Purkess of Citywire wrote a great story in Citywire on financial distress as a cause of suicide and the part Samaritans play in trying to help. You can read that here.
Right, on with the show.
GREAT NEWS FOR MARKETING TEAMS!
It turns out that complexity totally works in stopping individuals understanding what charges they pay and especially stops them taking action to improve their situation.
That’s the main finding of our latest stocks and shares ISA research on a nationally representative sample of 1,345 adults, which we conducted with YouGov this summer. Other findings include:
- Only 54% are aware of the charges on investments held in their stocks and shares ISA – and a significant gender awareness gap was revealed
- 69% of stocks and shares ISA investors have never switched provider
- Half of all stocks and shares ISA investors would be willing to change provider if they knew they could save money
- Awareness of charges dramatically increases with age (only 38% of 18-24 year olds are aware, compared to 67% of those aged over 55)
We offer hearty congratulations to the industry. Particular kudos to those who are tasked with keeping younger investors in the dark – 62% haven’t got a Scooby what’s going on – and those concentrating on befuddling female investors – 53% don’t know which way to turn (compared to 40% of dudes; need to step up the efforts there).
Obviously this is tongue in cheek and all that, but honestly. Anyway, we’ve written all this up and you can read and download a free copy of the research in the flipbook below, along with our prescription for what we think the industry needs to do to sort all this out. Read it and weep.
VALUE VALUE EVERYWHERE NOR ANY DROP TO DRINK
But it’s fine! Because as of Monday, we have new value statements from fund managers hoving into view. These will contain…well, no-one’s quite sure yet. Mike Barrett has a closer grip on this than most and wrote up his thoughts in this excellent blog. Read it and weep.
GET LINKING DONE
- 2 bumps – first of all, did you read our paper with Origo that we launched last week on integrations? We’re particularly proud of it. Catch it here, here or open the flipbook here.
- Second bump – tickets seem to be proceeding out the door at a pleasing clip for the DeadX talks on – you got it – value in asset management on 14 November. Please do read up on it, check out our fine speakers and purchase your posterior a space at https://www.langcatlive.co.uk/
- Absolutely world-class trolling from Mr Rory ‘Rory ****ing Percival’ Percival here.
- And for your music option, I’m gutted that Nick Cave’s new record isn’t out until tomorrow, so no sneaky peeks are available. We’ll return to this next week, but for now please do take solace in some blistering Finnish sadboi melodic death metal from the incomparable Insomnium. Why do these bands always play outside in forests? I don’t know and neither do you, but their new song Heart Like A Grave is a belter.
See you next week. Thanks again for all the sponsorship.
Mark
