What should we do about sequence risk?
Sequence risk has been a hot topic lately and with recent market volatility questions of post-retirement portfolio construction are at the forefront of advisers’ minds. However, new research from CWC Research produced for the FE Investment Summit later this month, finds adviser attitudes towards sequence risk and its management within retirement portfolios vary widely across […]
What will September bring?
If there is one thing I’ve learnt during 20 years in financial services, it’s that August is traditionally a quiet month. Everyone goes on holiday and then frantically crams in two months work into September. Already I can feel the September surge coming through, but this time it feels different. Quite a lot did happen […]
LETTER FROM AMERICA: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD
Big news today that BlackRock, which looks after more money than you can POSSIBLY IMAGINE, has bought the robo-adviser (and I might be sitting in New York but I’m still going to spell, adviser! correctly) FutureAdvisor for an undisclosed sum which the FT reckons is between $150m and $200m. OK, so a takeover, no biggie. […]
LETTER FROM AMERICA: MARKETS DOWN? TIME TO SUIT UP
As Bill Hicks once said, oops, did I leave a cigarette lit or something? As I write! Dow down 6.5%, over 1,000 points. FTSE 100 down 3.5% China down a shitload European indices down over 5% Twitter meme incidences of traders with head in hands up by 5 million percent. So the correlation of two […]
It’s all in the game
One of the most iconic scenes in The Wire is the court room scene where Omar, a character who has a penchant for murdering drug dealers, is being cross examined by an especially slimy prosecution lawyer. After a couple of minutes of the lawyer lambasting our hero for living off the drug trade and creating […]
Price: only important in the absence of clear value
Last week the lang cat launched PLATFORM PRICING PROPHECIES: PAST PRESENT AND PHUTURE. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, consider yourself on the naughty step? but don’t worry? you still can and all will be forgiven. Calling it as we see it is kind of our thing and the paper has elicited (ooh fancy) a […]
Better communications: Only smarties have the answer
I was interested to read the FCA’s discussion paper around smarter consumer communications, published yesterday here. The Regulator has recognised the fact that the way the financial services industry communicates with its customers often leaves a lot to be desired. Christopher Woolard, director of strategy and competition, said: “information itself does not necessarily empower the […]
On-brand heatmapping: Aviva goes D2C
On Friday past, the gaffer shared his thoughts on the difficulties facing new entrants to the already stacked D2C market. In it, he alluded to details of a new entrant emerging any day now. Well, today Aviva has launched its platform for consumers, cryptically named the Aviva Consumer Platform. The platform is powered by FNZ […]
Drowning in the D2C value pool
Another week, another D2C platform’s details start to emerge. No names, no pack drill in deference to the journalist who’s writing it up, but by our count that’s the 33rd contender vying for the self-directed market. We’ll see another couple by the end of the year. Irrespective of the relative merits in terms of proposition, […]
Indebted to technology
One of the housekeeping points I chatted through recently with @theactualpolson was the matter of company expenses. As much as I left my old job on good terms I had to relinquish my beloved old company credit card, so I needed to apply for a new one to cater for the massive Lang Cat expense […]
