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Nutmeg. Cavendish Funds. Crowd2Let.com - Crowdfunding Buy-To-Let Investment Property. Your Cheat Sheet For Smarter Investing. Index funds help keep your returns on track with no excessive fees. The FTSE 100 has jumped by 14% in a dramatic recovery since its post-Brexit dive on 24 June.

Index funds help keep your returns on track with no excessive fees

But once again the cheap “index” funds have given investors the best returns, prompting many to conclude that paying a fund manager to look after your money just isn’t worth it when computers do it better. Year in, year out, low-charge index funds have been beating their more expensive actively managed counterparts. Almost all the difference is down to the fact that index funds charge as little as 0.06% a year, while active funds charge at least 1%, and often a lot more once hidden fees are taken into account. After all, those Porsches and Ferraris have to be financed somehow. On 24 June, Brexit result day, active funds fell 8%, but UK index funds were down just 6%.

Index and tracker funds simply replicate the market, neither beating it or falling much behind. Performance of small value stocks in bear markets. If you have ever seen comparisons of investment returns with and without reinvested dividends, you know that the difference gets huge as the investment horizon increases.

Performance of small value stocks in bear markets

Wouldn't it be great you could achieve a similar increase in returns by altering your investment style? Small cap value stocks have historically achieved much higher returns that typical stocks. Using data from French and Shiller, we can calculate that the average yearly (CAGR) total return with dividends has been 14.3 percent for US small cap value stocks (doubling every 5.2 years) and 10.1 percent for the S&P 500 index (doubling every 7.2 years). Identify stocks that will see a boom because of virus: Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I hate gold and I have always hated gold but unfortunately, I own gold, says The Black Swan author.

Identify stocks that will see a boom because of virus: Nassim Nicholas Taleb

What is your view on the Fed action and the US markets? The Federal Reserve has lost one weapon: interest rates. At zero rate, there is no arbitrage but they have the monetary policy arm; it can not only just lower rates but they can even print money to buy your commercial paper of the multi-bank in New York. Anything they see on sale, they will buy. So that definitely will prop up the stock market for a while.

Fooled by Randomness. I recently read the great book Fooled By Randomness by Nicholas Nassim Taleb.

Fooled by Randomness

There is a nice illustrative example in there on the scaling property of distributions across different time scales. The example is formulated as the hypothetical example of a dentist who has set up a home trading environment and started to invest in some assets (say stocks). The dentist has access to real-time market data and thus can check in on their current investment portfolio valuation at any point in time. The investment portfolio has an expected annual return of 15% and volatility of 15%. Freelance On The Side: Everything You Need To Know about Tax. Contrary to popular belief, the terms ‘employed’ and ‘self-employed’ are not opposites.

Freelance On The Side: Everything You Need To Know about Tax

In the strange world of HMRC, it’s possible to be employed and self-employed at the same time – in fact, it’s actually pretty common. But what implications does working on the side have for your freelance tax liability? If you’re considering making a bit of extra money by working for yourself on top of your main job, read on for everything you need to know, including what self-employed tax and National Insurance you’re expected to pay, and how to pay them. Tax-free allowances on property and trading income. In 2017, the government introduced two new annual tax allowances for individuals amounting to £1,000 each: one for trading income (sole trade), and one for income from a property business.

Tax-free allowances on property and trading income

The allowances aren’t available if you have such income from a private limited company. The allowances were introduced on 6 April 2017 for the 2017/18 tax year and beyond, and mean that those with small amounts of income can simplify their personal tax arrangements in certain situations. Shiny app to compare mortgage costs. Mortgage calculator in R Shiny. I recently moved out and bought my first apartment.

Mortgage calculator in R Shiny

Of course, I could not pay it entirely with my own savings, so I had to borrow money from the bank. I visited a couple of banks operating in my country and asked for a mortgage. If you already bought your house or apartment in the past, you know how it goes: the bank analyzes your financial and personal situation and make an offer based on your propensity to repay the bank. You then either accept the offer if you are satisfied with the rate and conditions, or visit another bank if you believe you could receive a better offer. How to determine if an "only or main residence" is being replaced. The question regarding whether an "only or main residence" is being replaced applies only to purchases by an individual who is not acting either as a sole trader or in a partnership of which that individual is a partner, in the course of a business, the sole or main activity of which is investing or dealing in property.

How to determine if an "only or main residence" is being replaced

It also does not apply to purchases by non-natural persons. Where you are a buyer (or, in the case of joint buyers, one of the buyers, as each is considered individually) who owns only one dwelling at the end of the day that is the effective date of a transaction, you will not pay the ADS.