Category: News

Introduction “Markets can fall as well as rise…” Never was that statement more true than in August, when virtually all the major world markets headed down, led by the plunging stock market in China. It became virtually impossible to watch a news bulletin without seeing a shell-shocked fund manager or a weeping private investor. It

As the American baseball coach Yogi Berra, renowned for his comical quotes, once said ‘It’s Déjà vu all over again!’; that is very much how this recent market sell-off feels. Experienced investors will be familiar with the scenario that has been playing out over the past couple of weeks in the markets and familiar, too,

The so-called ‘New State Pension’ will come into force on April 6th 2016 and will affect all pensioners who reach state pension age from that date onwards. For women, this means that you will be affected if you were born on or after 6th April 1953. For men, you will be affected if you were

July was a dramatic month. Greece held a referendum and emphatically rejected the austerity package offered by its creditors. Motor-cycle riding Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis resigned,  calling the creditors “terrorists”, and the new finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, was seen going into yet another final, final crisis meeting with his negotiating position scribbled on hotel notepaper.

An essential part of writing this bulletin each month is making daily notes on the main business and stock market news. This month we have comfortably broken our record – more than six pages of notes. And as you might expect, about half of those pages are about Greece and its debts. ‘An agreement was in sight’

We are delighted to announce that for the second year running we have been shortlisted as a finalist in the Merton Business Awards – this year it’s in the ‘Service Excellence’ category.  In 2014, you may remember that we were the winners of ‘The Extra Mile’ category The awards recognise the most successful companies based

We are delighted to welcome a new member of the team at GEM & Co. Mathavan Saseenthrakumar joins us from Merton Chamber of Commerce where he has worked for the past three years and two months in their accounts and finance department. Having graduated from university with a BA (Hons) Accounting & Finance degree, Mat

It now seems hard to remember, but this time last month the UK was only a week away from a General Election – an election that was the most difficult to predict in a generation. The pundits were unanimous: the Election would certainly lead to a hung parliament. There would be weeks or wrangling and

Chancellor George Osborne has surprised voters, political and business leaders alike by announcing that he will take the unusual step of delivering a second 2015 Budget on 8th July, just one hundred and twelve days after the Budget of 18th March. With an Autumn Statement also due later in the year, the second Budget will

When the polls opened at 7am on Thursday 7th May, the pundits and the pollsters were as one: the only certainty was a hung parliament. It was the most difficult-to-predict election for generations. The opinion polls had the parties running neck and neck, but the Conservatives led slightly in the predicted number of seats. A