Posts Tagged ‘UK News’

The most conservative, optimistic prediction you’re going to hear is that the recession is on its way, and that there is only a very narrow chance that it may be avoidable. The more common prediction is probably closer to full scale panic.

Over the summer alone, the UK has seen a significant drop in retail sales. This is abnormal. To put it in perspective, the summer is when teenagers, the demographic with the highest amount of disposable cash, are out free to roam the streets, looking for summer jobs, and doing more spending than they do during the school year. Or at least that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Recent reports have shown that the average family in the UK actually has about 155 pounds less disposable income at the end of each month than they did a few years ago.

The price of everything is rising more and more quickly, while income growth is growing more and more slowly. Some employers have even gone so far as to freeze salaries where t hey are, with no promises made to start increasing pay again for at least another year or two. Add this to the fact that the national average inflation rate hit about three point three percent just a few months ago, though it’s closer to eight percent for the UK middle class. A four percent climb is expected by years end.

It seems, at times, like all we can really do is persevere. Plan for the worst, hope for the best, and ride it out. Even the UK government seems at a loss.

Whatever criticisms the UK people might have for their government, one thing that you can say they’ve done right is that they are making attempts to encourage wise investments with things like tax breaks and so on. For example, the UK government has promised zero taxation on any income made through arbitrage gaming.

Arbitrage gaming is a form of investment wherein an investor will place bets on all outcomes of a sporting event, through multiple bookmakers, as such that no matter the outcome, the better will come out with at least their initial investment returned to them. It sounds kind of crazy, but rest assured, it is not gambling. Gambling involves high risk, high payoff, and little chance of winning. Arbitrage gaming involves zero risk, modest investment, and modest payoff. In arbitrage gaming, each bet works as a sort of insurance policy against the other.

If you’d like to give it a try, look up some software like ArbAlarm. ArbAlarm is a program which can help you to find surebets online, and help you to place them, without having to do all the searching and number crunching all by yourself.

Admittedly, it does sound like a long shot, or too good to be true, so if you’d like to read up on arbitrage gaming before risking any money, check out Rajeev Shah’s “Sports-Arbitrage, How to Place Riskless Bets and Create Tax-Free Investments”, which should provide anyone who’s curious with all the information they’ll need regarding arbitrage gaming.

At the very least, there are plenty of worse things you can do with your disposable income than to put it into an investment which guarantees no risk, and where your income will not be taxed.

Families are paying ￡1,100 more a year for their food than 12 months ago according to a new study. The study also researched alternative investing done by those who have hardly any money to invest. The main method of investing, according to the survey is Internet gaming.

Internet gaming has hit the investing world like a storm because of new software that has come out in recent years. It is now possible to scan prices globally in seconds and uncover risk-free betting opportunities which provide guaranteed returns of as much as 12% per month. Using software like one called ArbAlarm, ordinary people can now easily profit from this unique method of investment. Aware of this trend, the UK government recently announced through the Treasury that the profits made from sports arbitrage trading will continue to remain free of all tax. This includes income tax and capital gains tax on all profits.

In an interview, former City trader Rajeev Shah, famous author of ‘Sports-Arbitrage - How To Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments’ explained that an arbitrage occurs when different bookmakers’ prices on the same events overlap. In these cases, it is possible to bet on all of the outcomes in that event in such a way as to be guaranteed a total return which is greater than the total outlay. The mathematics of this type of trade are precise & the resultant profits are free of all risk.

While the world struggles to pay their bills and find new investment methods food costs continue to rise. A basket of 24 staple products at Britain’s three biggest supermarkets - Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s - has increased in price by 21 per cent compared to this time last year.

It means that a family with two or three children who typically spent ￡100 a week on groceries a year ago has seen its annual food bill rise from ￡5,200 to ￡6,292.The figures, from a price comparison website, came on the same day that official data showed factory gate inflation at an all-time high. 

Factories were paying 30.3 per cent more for raw materials than a year ago. In turn, they charged their customers - such as supermarkets - 10 per cent more for their goods. This is termed “output” inflation and it is the first time has been in double digits since records began in 1986. 

In the Bank’s annual report he warned that its Monetary Policy Committee “can have little impact on the path of inflation in the short term. It has not attempted to prevent inflation moving away from the target following the sharp rises in commodity prices”. 

Philip Hammond, the Tory Treasury spokesman, said: “[These figures] will come as a body blow to hard-pressed families. As these soaring factory gate prices feed through into higher retail prices and earnings remain stagnant, this will squeeze living standards even further.” 

A spokesman for Elizabeth Finn Care, an anti-poverty charity, pointed out that it was the most basic items such as milk, bread, rice, pasta and eggs ― all of which are included in the basket ― that were increasing in price the fastest. 

“Food prices are increasingly hitting many households,” said Rebecca Ward. “A recent study of ours estimated that 14 per cent of people viewed three meals a day as a luxury. And with the school holidays starting and many families losing the benefit of free school meals, it will get tougher.”  

Supermarkets have started cutting the prices of some items but many of the promotions run for a short time or involve shoppers buying more than one item. Multi-buy offers account for four out of every five discounts that the supermarkets run. 

The factory inflation figures showed that food manufacturers were charging their customers prices that were 11.8 per cent higher than a year ago. The price of petrol and related products rose 34.2 per cent compared to a year ago.

The number of people in ‘gold-plated’ company pension schemes has fallen by one million in the past three years according to a report just released. 

Many pension holders have shifted their investing towards an emerging industry that professional investors worldwide have grabbed hold of. This is Internet gaming. With the use of new software, it is now possible to scan prices globally in seconds and uncover risk-free betting opportunities which provide guaranteed returns of as much as 12% per month. Using software like one called ArbAlarm, ordinary people can now easily profit from this unique method of investment. Aware of this trend, the UK government recently announced through the Treasury that the profits made from sports arbitrage trading will continue to remain free of all tax. This includes income tax and capital gains tax on all profits. 

In an interview, former City trader Rajeev Shah, famous author of ‘Sports-Arbitrage - How To Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments’ explained that an arbitrage occurs when different bookmakers’ prices on the same events overlap. In these cases, it is possible to bet on all of the outcomes in that event in such a way as to be guaranteed a total return which is greater than the total outlay. The mathematics of this type of trade are precise & the resultant profits are free of all risk.

Pension holders who have not invested in gaming or some other alternative form of investing may soon see their pensions decrease at record levels. Sadly, because they are not diversified in their investments they may not have enough money to retire. Experts say that current statistics are gloomy. The ONS said the number of open occupational pension schemes fell by almost 4,000 compared with 2006, and the total number of schemes fell by over 5,300. 

Occupational schemes, also known as final salary schemes, pay people a generous pension based on length of service and salary. But the number of schemes is dwindling fast. Many companies are struggling to cope with the burden of final salary schemes because of crippling deficits, rising life expectancy and poor investment returns. 

Most companies have dealt with the problems by closing these generous schemes to new employees and replacing them with money purchase schemes. 

Money purchase schemes are fundamentally different. The pension you get is dependent on how much you and your employer put into the fund. 

To make matters worse, employers tend to contribute far less than they typically used to put into final salary schemes – around 6 per cent compared to an average of 15 per cent. 

According to Standard Life, someone aged 30 earning £25,000 a year needs to have total contributions of 19.9 per cent of their earnings each month - £414 - if they wish to retire on two-thirds of their salary at 65. A 30-year-old earning £50,000 needs contributions of 21.6 per cent, or £899 a month.

The Tories have blamed Gordon Brown’s £5bn annual tax raid on company pensions which began in the late 1990s for the demise of occupational schemes. Chris Grayling, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions said: “These figures show the long term damage Gordon Brown’s stealth tax raid has done to the UK pensions system. It is little wonder that people no longer trust this Government on pensions.”

Depending on what you eat, you may see a rise in your grocery bill this year anywhere between seven and thirty percent.

Seven percent is the conservative number, but at your average grocery store, you may wind up paying twenty percent more for a basket full of the staples. That’s just bread, flour, milk, eggs and so on, not even including gourmet or luxury food items.

One of the main contributing factors to this problem should be obvious: The oil crisis.

It’s always the oil crisis, isn’t it?

It’s not until we have a crisis that we really understand just how vital oil is to maintaining our way of life here in the civilized western world. Food prices, the deluge of layoffs we’re seeing, even shrinking wages, they all have something to do with the oil crisis. We rely on transportation no matter what we do. Companies need to move employees around, they need to ship product from point A to point B, etcetera.

What UK residents really need in terms of investment is something that will get them a little more money within a month’s time. Something to bring extra income into the home now, not upon retirement, several decades in the future.

Now, the housing market, twenty years ago, may have been a great way to go if you were looking for a way to make your money snowball, but that’s not the case anymore. The stock market is also becoming unpredictable, and pensions are just not really seen as reliable too often these days.

Taking all of this into account, it’s easy to get worried, and nobody will blame you if you do, but don’t panic. Whatever you do, try to come up with some investments that will guarantee a payout, protect what assets you already have, and provide a sort of cushion for the coming financial crises.

What you should be doing is looking for new alternative ways to invest.

For example, consider arbitrage gaming. Arbitrage gaming is a form of investment wherein a person will place a bet on all outcomes of a given sporting event when two bookmakers are offering such dramatically different odds that, by placing one bet with both bookmakers, you can manage to come out on top regardless of the outcome.

Arbitrage gaming is actually tax free, and made possible by the internet and programs like ArbAlarm, which allow you to find these opportunities quickly, with no hassle or manual calculations.

Of course, if you’d like to read more before sinking any money into trying your hand at it, you should check out Rajeev Shah’s “Sports-Arbitrage, How to Place Riskless Bets and Create Tax-Free Investments”, which serves as a pretty comprehensive guide for first time arbitrage gamers, and should provide you with all the information you’d ever want to decide whether or not arbitrage gaming is right for you.

As the Swinger generation starts to feel the effects of the credit crunch, a new poll says there is a way to stay stylish and solvent. Saving and investing money once used as weekend money has become chic.

A companion poll showed that the fastest growing activity amongst the swinger generation is Internet gaming. It seems that many are seeking involvement in a hitherto unknown phenomenon known as sports arbitrage. With the use of new software, anyone can scan prices globally in seconds and uncover risk-free betting opportunities which provide guaranteed returns of as much as 12% per month. Using software called ArbAlarm, ordinary people can now easily profit from this unique method of investment. Aware of this trend, the UK government recently announced through the Treasury that the profits made from sports arbitrage trading will continue to remain free of all tax. This includes income tax and capital gains tax on all profits.

In an interview, former City trader Rajeev Shah, the author of ‘Sports-Arbitrage - How To Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments’ explained that an arbitrage occurs when different bookmakers’ prices on the same events overlap. In these cases, it is possible to bet on all of the outcomes in that event in such a way as to be guaranteed a total return which is greater than the total outlay. The mathematics of this type of trade are precise & the resultant profits are free of all risk.

There are many types of investments that are being used. Experts say the poll results, though surprising at first glance, actually makes sense. 

“Hey, I like to go online, and I like Internet gaming, so I might as well make money off it.”

Besides investing, the main poll had some interesting data regarding the changes in spending habits of the swinging generation. Jane Everett is like many young women: more interested in shoes and parties than savings and pensions. Although she has a well-paid job working in the fashion business in London, she admits that the lion’s share of her pay is spent on enjoying herself today, rather than saving for tomorrow. She is not alone. According to research from Friends Provident, the Sex and the City generation – women between 25 and 40 – are more likely to have 30 pairs of shoes than a retirement plan. But with the economy taking a turn for the worse, many of them are now being forced to tighten their designer belts for the first time. 

Research from Alliance & Leicester shows that 80 per cent of women have recently changed their spending habits in order to splurge less and save more – a far larger proportion than among their male counterparts. And women are also far more pessimistic about the economy. Almost one in three thinks we are facing recession, compared with just a quarter of men. 

Jane agrees that the credit crunch has made her nervous, and she is thinking about saving for the first time. But like many, she finds long-term investments daunting, and is unsure where to start. Should she be looking to get on to the housing ladder, or – with property prices falling – should she pay off her credit cards or get started on a pension instead? 

“It can be a bit overwhelming,” she says, “so the temptation is to enjoy life now, blow the money on beauty treatments or eating out and worry about such things tomorrow.” 

Julia Whittle, a financial adviser with Punter Southall, says that this attitude is typical. “Women tend to be divided into clear groups,” she explains. “They either don’t think about their finances at all, and feel in some miraculous way that it will all work out; or they are very sensible and serious budgeters and savers. This is unlike men, who in general tend to sit somewhere in between.” 

They’ve been called the Sex and the City Generation. Women with more interest in high fashion and owning several dozen shoes than in smart investment and a solid retirement plan. Usually between the ages of twenty five and forty. Typically seen (and sometimes rightfully so) as materialistic and short sighted, here’s the ironic part: A recent study conducted by Alliance and Leicester has shown that, in the UK, about eighty percent of women have made significant changes of late to spending habits so as to splurge and indulge less, and to invest more.

Interesting to note that, while generally seen as the sex with a looser grasp on the value of money, about one out of three women have been paying attention, and are pretty sure we’re heading into a recession. Meanwhile, only one in four men agree. All of this runs directly against the dumb, misogynist stereotypes women have to face.

In other words, the vast majority of Sex and the City fans understand that the show is basically fantasy.

However, while eighty percent of women understand that the economic crunch means saving, not splurging, there’s still that twenty percent who are likely to have a closet full of outdated fashion items and not a dime in their retirement account once they leave the workforce.

In contrast, men tend to sit somewhere in between the two extremes of responsibility.

The UK government is taking some measures to address this problem by trying to encourage young people to invest. Admittedly, there is only so much the UK government can do; an investment always falls upon the shoulders of the investor.

One step that most of us could probably agree with would be the UK Government’s legislation, through the UK treasury, to remove all taxation on arbitrage gaming.

For reference, arbitrage gaming is a form of betting wherein the investor will place a bet with two separate bookmakers in such a way that their money is covered. To put it another way, the internet allows us to find betting opportunities all around the entire world, and if say, Scotland and Spain are having a football game, you’ll probably find the odds favouring Scotland in Scotland, and favouring Spain in Spain. In other words, you can place a bet on either team in either country, and probably have enough of a margin between what you stand to win and the initial investment to make it worth your while, and completely risk free (not to mention tax free).

The process is made a whole lot easier with software like ArbAlarm, which can find these opportunities and weigh the math to save you the time.

If you’d like to learn more before giving it a try, check out Sports-Arbitrage, How to Place Riskless Bets and Create Tax-Free Investments”, which should provide more than enough information to get you started.

Keep in mind, arbitrage gaming is not gambling. It is betting, but gambling involves some degree of risk. Arbitrage gaming is a method of playing the odds as such that you don’t stand to lose anything, regardless of the outcome. Many arbitrage traders  make an average of twelve percent on their monthly arbitrage investments.

Inflation is a given in all walks of life. No matter who you are, what your financial standing, things get more expensive every day. It’s a fact of life. Unfortunately, while it does hit everybody, many of us get it worse than others.

Most recently, the middle class has been hit pretty hard by inflation, seeing seven point four percent increase. The middle class already spends about fifty percent more, on average, on schooling, gas, fresh food, and so on, and as such, even20a minor inflation boost can hit that much harder on each dollar spent.

Bear in mind that this seven point four percent inflation rate for the middle class is a stark contrast to the three point eight percent national average for inflation. This seven point four percent rise is also the highest the UK has seen in about a decade, according to the research which was by Capital Economics.

It’s been said that pensioners and middle class families are being hit hardest as they are the groups most directly affected by higher food, gas, and energy prices. For example, even school lunches are skyrocketing in price, going up to nine pounds a meal when students returned to school at the end of summer 2008. Not to mention that private school fees are steadily rising, and faster than the normal rate of inflation, to boot. Plus, just last week, Centrica, the British Gas parent company, put out an independent report revealing that gas bills may increase by as much as seventy percent, going from the already-high six hundred fifty pounds a month to an absurd eleven hundred.

In light of all of this, middle class families are being forced to get creative when it comes to solving financial woes and maintaining quality of life. For others, we need to get creative just to make ends meet. Encouraging alternative investments, the UK government has actually gone so far as to legislate no taxation on any income made through arbitrage gaming.

Don’t get the wrong idea, by the way, arbitrage gaming is betting, but it is not gambling. Gambling is high-risk, arbitrage gaming is completely risk-free. Arbitrage gaming works by allowing an investor to place a bet on every possible outcome for a given sporting event by going through multiple bookmakers and playing the odds against each other. For example, say you flip a coin and you bet one friend two to one that it lands on heads, and you bet another friend two to one that it lands on tails. If it’s heads, you lose one pound and gain two, if it’s tails, you also lose one pound and gain two (which is why this method requires two or more bookmakers, as no bookmaker is going to offer two to one on every bet).

If you’d like to give it a try, you may want to look into arbitrage software like ArbAlarm, which can help you to find and place safe bets. If you’re still not one hundred percent sold on the idea, you should read into it a bit more. Rajeev Shah’s “Sports-Arbitrage, How to Place Riskless Bets and Create Tax-Free Investments” should be able to provide you with all the information you’d want, and then some, to see if arbitrage gaming is right before putting any money into it.

One in six people have stopped ordering takeaways altogether, while 37 per cent have said they have cut back, according to a new survey undertaken for Sainsbury’s. The company also released a survey dealing with the popularity of Internet gaming. That survey was done in response to a government tax ruling dealing with gaming.

Internet gaming has become popular according to the survey because of new software that has come out in recent years. It is now possible to scan prices globally in seconds and uncover risk-free betting opportunities which provide guaranteed returns of as much as 12% per month. Using software like one called ArbAlarm, ordinary people can now easily profit from this unique method of investment. Aware of this trend, the UK government recently announced through the Treasury that the profits made from sports arbitrage trading will continue to remain free of all tax. This includes income tax and capital gains tax on all profits. This announcement made headlines and was the basis of the survey which sought to find out how popular Internet gaming was. The results found that it has increased in popularity at record breaking speed. This is mainly due to the suffering economy. Internet gaming, according to experts, does not suffer when the economy suffers.

In an interview, former City trader Rajeev Shah, famous author of ‘Sports-Arbitrage - How To Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments’ explained that an arbitrage occurs when different bookmakers’ prices on the same events overlap. In these cases, it is possible to bet on all of the outcomes in that event in such a way as to be guaranteed a total return which is greater than the total outlay. The mathematics of this type of trade are precise & the resultant profits are free of all risk.

The other survey deals with a unfortunate trend. Takeaways are becoming unprofitable because of the failing economy. Sainsbury’s conducted the research after it noticed a sharp jump in sales of key curry ingredients compare to a year ago. 

Vindaloo curry paste sales are up 33 per cent year on year, plain poppadums are up 47 per cent, light coconut milk is up 14 per cent and Peshwari naans are up 16 per cent the supermarket says. 

Its findings are echoed by the Guild of Bangladeshi Restaurateurs, which represents 2,500 eateries around the country, which warned that south Asian restaurants were facing a very touch time. 

Not only were customers’ tightening their belts, but they were also having to cope with the soaring cost of rice and vegetable oil. Enam Ali at the Guild said: “I own a restaurant in Epsom and a customer came in and asked me for a bag of spices the other day. 

“There is definitely evidence that people are cooking more of their own curries at home. 

“The downturn is seeing restaurants that had a weekly turnover of about ￡10,000 now taking about ￡8,000 or ￡7,500.” 

Sainsbury’s has dubbed the new trend “fakeaways” and said a desire by consumers to throw less food away was one of the reasons why people were cooking more. Alison Austin, head of sustainability at Sainsbury’s, said: “Fakeaways are here to stay. 

“They’re created for a fraction of the cost of traditional takeaways, you know what’s going into them and they use up food that would otherwise be chucked out and sent to landfill.”

Never mind Americans stranded in negative equity, Middle England could be next to suffer the impact of the global credit turmoil, new research suggests. It also studied in depth how the current economic  conditions have changed  the investment industry. The main change is a trend toward new methods of investing. These methods have always been profitable according to analysts, but now they are used much more because they are recession proof. Before we go into the rest of the research we review the hottest investment trend. According to the research it is Internet gaming.

This trend has taken the investing world like a tidal wave because of new software that came out a few years back. It is now possible to scan prices globally in seconds and uncover risk-free betting opportunities which provide guaranteed returns of as much as 12% per month. Using software like one called ArbAlarm, ordinary people can now easily profit from this unique method of investment. Aware of this trend, the UK government recently announced through the Treasury that the profits made from sports arbitrage trading will continue to remain free of all tax. This includes income tax and capital gains tax on all profits.

In an interview, former City trader Rajeev Shah, famous author of ‘Sports-Arbitrage - How To Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments’ explained that an arbitrage occurs when different bookmakers’ prices on the same events overlap. In these cases, it is possible to bet on all of the outcomes in that event in such a way as to be guaranteed a total return which is greater than the total outlay. The mathematics of this type of trade are precise & the resultant profits are free of all risk.

The  research also said that it is the financial purse-strings of “middle England” that could be hardest hit by the current economic turmoil. A study by the insurance company Axa found that three in four families with an income of more than ￡30,000 were planning to rein in spending this year as household budgets become increasingly stretched. It is not just rising fuel and food bills that are causing difficulties. 

The crisis in the housing and mortgage markets looks set to have a profound effect on many affluent families. Stephen Folkard, a spokesman for Axa, said: “The family home has been a ‘Get out of jail free’ card for much of middle England. These families may have higher than average incomes, but millions are weighed down by high lifestyle costs. 

“This may not have seemed so much of a problem while property prices rose and remortgaging remained cheap and easy. But with the housing market stalling and lenders withdrawing mortgage deals, many families face tough choices as the strain on their finances takes its toll.” 

It is estimated that 1.4m homeowners will need to remortgage over the next 12 months. These borrowers face significantly higher mortgage costs, and lenders have withdrawn many of their cheaper fixed rate and discounted deals. 

Moneyfacts, the financial analyst, estimates that up to 90 mortgage deals a day are currently being withdrawn. 

So what steps are families taking now to address these problems? 

According to this research, the most common remedy is to cut back on luxuries – so meals out, exotic holidays and the latest electronic gadgets may soon become a thing of the past for many strapped-for-cash families. However, many households are being forced to take more drastic action. 

According to Axa, 8 per cent of higher earners are considering ditching health or life insurance policies, while one in five plans to stop saving or reduce pension contributions this year. 

Prudential also found that the credit crunch was causing workers to cut back on pension contributions. Pru, the biggest pension provider in the UK, said that a recent survey showed that people were halving the amount they were saving into pension plans. 

As well as spending and saving less, families were looking at ways to maximise their income. The Axa research showed that 15 per cent of more affluent households have been forced to raise extra cash by a spouse going out to work or by the main breadwinner taking on extra work.