AJ Bell Comments

AJ Bell budget comment – three key pensions announcements (and one thing he didn’t say)

Following the launch of a new cash Lifeftime ISA by Nottingham Building Society, AJ Bell looks at whether the Help to Buy ISA or Lifetime ISA is better for different customers.

Following the launch of a new cash Lifetime ISA by Nottingham Building Society, AJ Bell looks at whether the Help to Buy ISA or Lifetime ISA is better for different customers.

The Government would risk a backlash from younger voters if it caves to pressure to scrap the Lifetime ISA (LISA), AJ Bell warns.

“Kingfisher’s Turkish joint-venture Koçtaş is a very, very small part of the DIY giant – it contributed just £3 million in profit last year in combination with a 49%-owned French operation – so investors don’t need to worry too much about that, but slack sales at the core Carrefour brand in France is a bigger concern altogether,” says Russ Mould, AJ Bell’s Investment Director.

“Three founder members of the FTSE 100 in 1984 went broke and it is to be hoped that House of Fraser – a private company since 2006 – does not become a fourth, not least for the sake of the company’s staff and suppliers,” says Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

“The collapse of the Turkish lira and the threat of contagion across emerging and also developed stock and bond markets look to be catching many investors off guard but this is just an another example of what the economist J.K. Galbraith once termed ‘the extreme brevity of financial memory, because we have been here before,” says Russ Mould, AJ Bell Investment Director.

“The Real Estate Investment Trust (REITs) sector has struggled this year, falling slightly while the FTSE All-Share has eked out a 1% gain, and today’s interim results from Derwent London offer enough to keep both bulls and bears of the British property stocks more than interested,” says Russ Mould, AJ Bell Investment Director.

“A very experienced – and successful – hedge fund manager once told me that he never shorted high-flying, popular stocks until they had at least halved, because that was when confidence would finally begin to crack and shareholders would start to sell on the rallies and not buy on the dips. The latest action in Tesla’s share price reinforces the wisdom of these words,” says Russ Mould, AJ Bell Investment Director.