An independent (financial adviser's) view

More than a few have told me in the last couple of weeks of the cheap, winter-prices-in-peak-season flights they’ve booked, getting the whole family to Malaga for less than the cost of a tank of petrol to Cornwall. Doesn’t look so clever today, in the light of our government’s ‘sound and cautious’/‘shooting from the hip because they haven’t got a clue’ (take your pick) approach to quarantining. And don’t get me started on pubs and restaurants. On a somewhat lighter note, if you follow me on Soc Med, you’ll know I regularly review stuff I watch and read. This week’s highly recommendeds are ‘The Salt Path’ (book) and ‘How to Build a Girl’ (film). Give them a go. Both put big smiles on my face. As you'll see, I needed them.

“Cost of advice to jump as FCA bills rocket”

Adviser’s annual bills from the regulator arrived this month and have left most of us open-mouthed. Mine’s up by 85%, others by more, and pretty much all is our contribution to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Payouts to those who’ve lost money when dodgy advice firms go bust are funded by those who’ve haven’t given dodgy advice nor gone bust. Many would say that if the regulator were regulating properly, there would be nothing for which they’d need to compensate. And I’ve said many times that, were it illegal for regulated advisers to put clients into dodgy, unregulated investments, a big part of the problem would be solved. Anyway. See that brick wall over there…

‘Covid has given us the chance to build a carbon-free future’

It’s not just Brexit which has become, perhaps conveniently, background noise in These Unprecedented Times. We all thought for a few weeks how nice it was to have empty skies, uncongested roads and pollution-free cities. We bought locally-sourced stuff from local shops. There was talk that we could perhaps lick climate change before it licked us. Now our cars are the safest place to be, because who knows what we might catch on a bus or train. Air-freighted Guatemalan plums, Chilean prawns and the like are back on the supermarket shelves and we’re back in the supermarkets. All very depressing; until I watched the highly-recommended ’2040’, which shows what we could all do if we put our minds to it. There’s still time, folks.

“'The Nanny State Made Me' — a defence of big government”

The ’70s were my coming-of-age time, as they were for Stuart Maconie, author of ‘The Nanny State Made Me’. It’s when I took my 0 and A Levels, went to uni and started my first job. My view of the decade will always be rose-tinted, I’ll remember the music, discos, student grants (wouldn’t have known what a tuition fee was) and monthly inflationary pay rises negotiated by unions of which I was not a member. The strikes, high taxes and IRA bombs were background noise to me and, yes, I was the first in my family to go to university and, yes, despite everything, felt more secure with a nanny state in charge than at any time since. I’d happily pay more tax to give my kids and grandkids the same.

“FTSE falls as Trump warns on virus, Brexit trade hopes wane”

A leading fund manager told us in a presentation this week that only 4% of their global portfolios are currently invested in the UK. The technical term is ‘underweight in UK equities’ and 4% is positively anorexic. Of our other, main recommended portfolios, one has 11%, the others around 25%, more the norm (as opposed to the ‘new norm’, of which I’m sick of hearing!) Why the differences? As I write, our stockmarket is still some 15% below where it was in January, while the US is just 5% down, despite Trump’s appalling handling of the pandemic. So one view is that the UK offers ‘good value’ and could come back strongly; the other that Brexit approacheth with the government’s eye firmly off the ball. Both could be right.

“Holidaymakers urged to take out extra travel insurance post-Brexit”

Many (many) moons ago, I was a travel rep in Spain, which was not then a member of the EU/EC/EEC or whatever it was then called. I remember having to go to the hospital in an ambulance as translator with some poor client who’d been taken ill. I’ve never forgotten that when we arrived, the driver asked for payment or proof of insurance before he’d offload her. When we became one big, happy Euro family, the EHIC card arrived and ensured you’d at least get through the sliding doors, even with a pre-existing condition. Looks as though, from 31st December, it’ll be full circle. But I guess our NHS will be able to save a few bob by tit-for-tatting and refusing to treat those pesky Johnny Foreigners. Every cloud.