interest rates

Portfolio Review 2023 – Mark Bentley

This article reflects the opinions of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. Introduction This is now my fourth annual comprehensive portfolio review. See my 2020 review for an explanation of my investment objectives, strategy, "asset types" and investment accounts. My 2022 review can be found here. 2023 was again a difficult and disappointing rollercoaster year. For the second consecutive year my results underperformed my FTSE All-share total return benchmark. See "Results Breakdown" below for the gory details. At least this year my aggregate ...

Interest Rate Sanity and Chancellor’s Announcements

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc. The Bank of England’s announcement of an increase in base rate to 2.25% was just one step in a return to sanity. With inflation nearing 10% why would any idiot lend money at 5% or less as many mortgage providers have been doing. In reality the last few years have seen lower interest rates than have been available for the last 5,000 years. This has been ...

Money – You Can’t Give It Away

A momentous item of news last week (which arose while I was on holiday and hence the late post) was the astonishing fact that two public companies, Henkel and Sanofi, sold bonds with negative coupons. Yes the purchasers of their bonds are guaranteed to get back less than they paid for them in a few years time giving an effective return of minus 0.5%. In a normal financial world, you have to pay to borrow money you do not have. More recently ...

Financial repression to continue

Are you feeling subject to financial repression? You should be because it's the phrase used to describe how the Government reduces it's debts by lowering interest rates to a level that is negative in real terms. Anyone saving in a bank account or building society is having their savings eroded this way because they are not getting a real return. Bank base rate has been at the historically exceptional rate of 0.5% for some time and high street banks are as ...