Dear Client
Having completed our latest review of the funds selected within our portfolios, certain changes have been made with effect from 1st March.
Full details can be found on our website at: www.charter-partnership.co.uk/services_tailored_asset.html
If you are currently undergoing a rebalance of your portfolios, you will be notified of the new fund selection and the changes will be made automatically when you return your authority to carry out the rebalance.
We do not act as discretionary fund managers, therefore we will be writing to all clients where appropriate to invite them to undertake an interim rebalance to incorporate the new choice of funds.
With less than one month to go before the end of this tax year, it is imperative that you have maximised all tax free allowances available to you -
In the last budget, changes were announced to ISAs which came into effect at the start of this tax year. There are now only two types of ISA – the Cash ISA and the Stocks and Shares ISA – and your overall allowance in 2008/9 is £7,200
Within this, the limit for a Cash ISA is £3,600. However, there is now increased flexibility over how the limits are used. You can, for example, now put the maximum £3,600 in a cash account and £3,600 in stocks and shares. Alternatively, though, if you place £2,000 in cash, you can use the entire remaining balance - £5,200 in this case – to invest in stocks and shares. If you don’t need cash at all, you can put the full £7,200 into stocks and shares.
In addition, you can transfer an existing Cash ISA holding to a Stocks and Shares ISA without impacting on your current tax year allowance. So if you have £10,000 sitting in existing Cash ISA plans, then this amount can be moved to a Stocks and Shares ISA. Be aware that a transfer back to cash would not be allowed. This does not affect your allowance of £7,200 for the current tax year.
The reduction in bank base rate over the recent few months will have impacted hugely on the interest paid on your existing Cash ISA account, variable rates currently available are on average below 3% (with many paying less than 2%). Now could be an ideal opportunity to consider switching to a stocks and shares ISA...
The accumulated wisdom of history shows that stock markets tend to rise in value over the long term. Yet trying to time buying and selling stock market exposure is fraught with difficulty. Market movements from one day to the next are notoriously hard to predict. You can end up simply missing rallies and crystallising losses.
At times of uncertainty, such as now, the dangers of market timing are greater than ever. It’s natural to be anxious following falls in the value of stock markets, and there’s often a temptation to sell to avoid further declines in wealth. Experience shows, however, that it is at times like this that stock markets are at their least expensive. Consequently, when confidence returns there can be huge rallies.
We all love to buy in a sale – what better opportunity than now?
Regardless of how or where you decide to invest your money, you must get in before April 5th (in fact this year the last day you will be able to invest is Friday April 3rd).
At the end of the tax year, your allowance is gone – so use it don’t lose it. |
