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Latest Blogs

Inquiry into FCA’s Future Mission

The new head of the Financial Conduct Authority, Andrew Bailey, has announced a consultation into the "Future Mission" of the organisation. The FCA does of course regulate financial markets and should be protecting retail investors (or "consumers" as the consultation prefers to call them). However it has been repeatedly criticised in the past for the following failings: - Weak and ineffective regulation. - Not stopping new abuses soon enough. - Failing to look after the interests of retail investors but rather protecting those of ...

Do Active Funds Underperform? But Costs are the Real Problem

On the 24 October the Financial Times FTfm supplement led with a front page article that was headlined "99% of Active US equity funds underperform". It also had a sub heading of "Almost all UK, global and EM funds have failed to outperform since 2006". So I sent a letter to the Editor which said the following, much of which they have published today (31/10/2016) plus letters from other writers making the same point. This is what my letter said: "Your headline in ...

FRC Lab Report on Business Model Disclosure

Do you ever have difficulty understanding how a company really makes its money? If so it's worth noting that the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) have recently published a report on the work of their "Lab" into Business Model Reporting which may be of interest. ShareSoc participated in the work of this Lab where various stakeholders discussed what improvements were necessary. To quote from the FRC's press release, the Lab found: Business model information is fundamental to investors’ analysis and understanding of a company ...

Remuneration Campaign

ShareSoc Director Cliff Weight has been leading a campaign to reform remuneration in public companies – something that is now of interest to Prime Minister Theresa May it seems...

Learning From The Experts

One way to learn about how to invest successfully is to follow the style and rules of the experts. Yesterday (27/10/2016) I attended the AGM of Standard Life UK...