I was a bit disappointed that Gary Lineker didn’t feature at all in today’s Budget, but his name did make an appearance in Prime Minister’s Questions which preceded it, so that will have to do ...

So while robo-advisers have been around for a while (and, to coin the late, great Ian Taylor, “involve neither robots nor advice”), the more traditional world of real-people financial advice has bee ...

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, but things are settling down now. The past few years have been personally very challenging and very busy (injury, bereavement, house renovations and more) s ...

The Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) has recently introduced a new Pension Transfer Gold Standard, to help ensure the highest-quality advice for clients considering whether to transfer out of a final salary ...

Happy Birthday to us!! Kennedy Black Wealth Management is ten years old today.   Here’s to the next ten years. Hope it doesn’t go quite as quickly as the first ten. ...

In what we believe is a first for a UK-based financial planning firm, Kennedy Black Wealth Management is delighted to announce that it is now carbon neutral and zero single-use plastic.   We recently intro ...

We monitor financial markets on an ongoing basis, and one of the tasks we undertake regularly is to compare the performance of our client’s portfolios against a variety of benchmarks.   We have been ...

Much like peeling an onion, financial services can make one’s eyes water. Particularly when it comes to costs, which have traditionally been buried under layer upon layer.   Thankfully, the onion tha ...

Breaking with recent tradition on a number of fronts, yesterday afternoon saw Spreadsheet Phil’s third Budget as Chancellor. It was as politically motivated as ever, perhaps no surprise as we are now just ...

Please find enclosed our hot-off-the-press summary of this afternoon’s Budget.   As with the Spring Budget before it, and the Autumn Statement before that, this (new) Autumn Budget was another damp s ...

As the price of one Bitcoin soared past $7,000 yesterday evening, we thought we should dig out the following article from of the archives (originally posted in December 2013) to maintain some perspective. It is ...

I am delighted to report that we finished as RUNNER-UP in the Moneyfacts Investment Adviser of the Year Award 2017, receiving a nice trophy for being “Highly Commended.”   We were very surprise ...

One of the most pleasing elements of receiving a “Highly Commended” award at the Moneyfacts Investment Adviser of the Year Awards were the lovely testimonials left by clients and other stakeholders ...

I am delighted to say that we have once again been short-listed for the prestigious Moneyfacts Investment Adviser of the Year award for 2017. We were last short-listed for the exact same award in 2015. This is ...

Following his announcement in the last Autumn Statement, Philip Hammond today gave his first Spring Budget, but also his last Spring Budget. He will announce his first Autumn Budget later in the year, followed ...

  I couldn’t resist posting this video, from Vanguard founder Jack Bogle, on why the ‘traditional’ finance industry has got it all the wrong way round. ...

Here as usual is our summary of the main announcements in today’s Budget, with some thoughts and comments to boot.   The build-up to this Budget suggested it could be far-reaching and highly memorable, b ...

Humans are terrible investors. Our brains are primarily driven by emotion and, in certain situations, it can make us act irrationally. This presents a problem for traditional economics, where there is a presump ...

2016 has started in spectacularly poor fashion, eerily reminiscent of 2008 – a story that didn’t end well.   In the furore of doom-and-gloom headlines, we prefer to ask a slightly more unorthodox quest ...

April heralds a number of major changes to tax and pension rules (as outlined in previous editions of this newsletter).   One, that has so far avoided most of the headlines, is the change to the taxation o ...

Welcome to the latest edition of the Kennedy Black Quarterly Private Client Newsletter.   First off, we are delighted to be able to say that Kennedy Black Wealth Management recently won not one but two pr ...

Effective home insurance is an important part of protecting your family’s finances. We often find clients are under-insured, which means any prudent planning could be undone through events beyond their contro ...

A relatively sobering conversation recently highlighted the risk of relying on employer-based life assurance (often referred to as “Death-in-Service”).   Most employers offer life cover as a benefit fo ...

As we approach the end of the tax year, Enterprise Investment Schemes (EIS) and “Seed EIS” (SEIS) will be high up the agenda for a number of our clients.   These are high-risk investment vehicles that ...

George Osborne announced his half-yearly Budget yesterday. This is, in fact, his third visit to the despatch box this year after the Budget in April and the Summer Budget in July.   The build-up was very m ...

Welcome to the latest edition of the Kennedy Black Quarterly Private Client Newsletter.   We summarise yesterday’s Autumn Statement, we talk about Enterprise Investment Schemes (EIS) and when they s ...

RECENTLY UPDATED: to 30/06/2015   Please see below the updated performance figures for three of our risk-rated model portfolios. These model portfolios typically form the cornerstone of our client’s ...

We are immensely proud of our achievements at Kennedy Black Wealth Management.  Not least:   We are proud to have achieved Chartered Financial Planning firm status in 2015;   “HIGHLY COMMENDE ...

As the first Budget from a majority Conservative government since 1996, this was always likely to be an interesting exercise. Buy-to-Let properties: For a lot of our clients, the biggest bombshell relates to t ...

Today we are delighted to launch our brand new, in-house Wills and Trusts service.   HAVE YOU GOT A WILL?   Having reflected on many client meetings over the past couple of years, it has become clear ...

Welcome to the latest edition of the Kennedy Black Quarterly Private Client Newsletter.   In this edition we are delighted to be able to announce the launch of our brand new in-house will-writing service. ...

The election took most people by surprise, not least Baroness Ros Altmann who was swiftly invited to the post of Pensions Minister.   Baroness Altmann is a well-known figure in the pension community and t ...

View image | gettyimages.com This was touted as the ‘most political’ Budget in years, and it didn’t disappoint on that front. Stronger growth and falling unemployment proved too good an opport ...

Two interesting meetings recently have touched on similar points, and I felt that the answer was important enough to warrant a more detailed explanation on our website.   These conversations boiled down to ...

Welcome to the twentieth edition of the Kennedy Black Quarterly Private Client Newsletter.   In this edition, we focus on why proper financial planning is important and worth paying for.   This month ...

Welcome to the latest edition of the Kennedy Black Quarterly Private Client Newsletter.   This edition is 100% pension-focused, now that the dust has settled on some ground-breaking changes in the Budget ( ...

We thought the following was quite interesting, at least enough to share.  It’s a word cloud generated automatically from the content of this very website.  We hope it provides a good feel for what Kenn ...

We’re pleased to report that Ben has been interviewed again by Citywire as part of their AdviserKnowHow series, this time discussing how to gauge client satisfaction.   ...

Welcome to the latest edition of the Kennedy Black Quarterly Private Client Newsletter.   In this edition we focus on some important pension changes that are coming into force in April.  If you have built ...

We are absolutely delighted to announce that Kennedy Black Wealth Management has been short-listed for a Money Marketing Award – for the second time in three years.   This time we’ve been short ...

Enclosed below is a link to the final edition of the year of our Private Client Newsletter.  This includes the very exciting news that we have recently been short-listed for another Money Marketing Award ̵ ...

Welcome to the latest edition of our Private Client Newsletter   We focus on a couple of important topics in this edition.  First, why we have concerns about equity income investing.  And secondly, how s ...

As I regularly remind my mother- and father-in-law, 1948 was the luckiest year in which to be born.   According to Prudential, cradle-to-grave NHS care, gold-plated final salary pensions, an unprecedented ...

I’m pleased to publish the latest edition of our Private Client Newsletter.   With great pleasure, we launch a brand new comprehensive financial planning service in this edition – one that is u ...

Another year, another austere Budget.   As usual, I’m pleased to provide the following overview of the main points, with some thoughts and balanced opinions thrown in.   Overall, the headline fi ...

I’m pleased to publish the latest edition of our Private Client Newsletter, incorporating some important tax planning ideas for the end of the tax year.   We also try to illustrate yet more short-co ...

We recently undertook a Client Satisfaction Survey, polling existing clients about how they perceive our service.  We are pleased to publish the results in full:   1. How satisfied are you with the level ...

I’m pleased to publish the latest edition of our Private Client Newsletter, including a first look at the results of our client survey which was carried out last month. The full breakdown of responses sho ...

We’re very pleased to post the below video, where Ben discusses investment platforms with Jun Merrett at Citywire.   ...

We’re pleased to report that Kennedy Black Wealth Management has once again featured in City A.M, this time offering guidance to investment newbies.  It’s particularly nice to see us get top billin ...

I am delighted to attach below the link to our latest Private Client Newsletter, inspired by those wonderful men and women of Team GB.  We hope it makes up for those, like us, suffering from the post-Olympic b ...

HM Treasury has recently published its Consultation Paper on the new property taxes first outlined in the Budget earlier this year.   See below a brief overview of the main suggestions.  The consultation ...

Please see below a link to May 2012’s Quarterly Private Client Newsletter from Kennedy Black Wealth Management.   In this edition, we address one of the furthest-reaching changes to pensions legislat ...

A recent Islington mortgage case I worked on has highlighted two words that should strike fear into any homebuyer or homeowner: Japanese Knotweed.   It might sound exotic, it might even look quite pretty. ...

Much like last year, the weather has been very kind to George Osborne on Budget Day.   Please find below an brief overview of the main points, with some thoughts and opinion thrown in. Hope it’s usef ...

Please see below a link to February 2012’s Quarterly Private Client Newsletter from Kennedy Black Wealth Management.   In this edition, we are pleased to recap on some prestigious recognition that we ...

We are very excited to inform you that Kennedy Black Wealth Management has been short-listed for Small Company IFA of the Year at the prestigious Money Marketing Awards for 2012. This is a national award in its ...

Please see below a link to November 2011’s Quarterly Private Client Newsletter from Kennedy Black Wealth Management.   In this edition, we are very proud to announce that Kennedy Black is completely ...

  Kennedy Black Wealth Management is pleased to announce that it is ready for the Retail Distribution Review, 420 days early.  We are proud that this puts us among the first advisers in the country to be ...

Please see below a link to August 2011’s Quarterly Private Client Newsletter from Kennedy Black Wealth Management.   In this edition, we continue a theme from the last issue, focusing on our investme ...

On a day of public pension strikes, I thought some comments on pensions (especially private vs public) would be a topical subject.   If you are confused as to how much to contribute towards your pension, t ...

Please see below a link to May 2011’s Quarterly Private Client Newsletter from Kennedy Black Wealth Management.   In this edition, we focus on some of the fundamental investment beliefs that we hold ...

As seen on FT.com   With the Child Trust Fund no longer available to babies born since the start of the year – even children haven’t avoided the Age of Austerity – parents looking to save ...

Please see below a link to February 2011’s Quarterly Private Client Newsletter from Kennedy Black Wealth Management.   In this edition, we focus on some year end tax planning topics such as ISAs and ...

Please see below a link to the latest Kennedy Black Wealth Management Quarterly Private Client Newsletter.  In this edition, we focus on one of our favourite pet topics – Behavioural Finance, and how to ...

In what could be the most revolutionary changes to pension legislation in decades, the Department of Work and Pensions (“DWP”) has recently published “Making Automatic Enrolment Work” (O ...

So the Spending Review has now been and gone.  I won’t dwell on the more general elements here, but I will cast an eye over the pension changes announced – less than a week after the last set of pe ...

The Coalition government has this morning announced the changes to pension legislation that were first contemplated in June’s Budget.   To summarise, from April 2011 the Annual Allowance will reduce ...

In response to the global influence of Twitter, we will be publishing these blog articles and more using Twitter.  We promise not to bore you with what we’ve just had for dinner, instead we will focus on ...

I’m very pleased to see lots of focus on pensions by the BBC at the moment. First Newsnight, now Panorama.   Some initial thoughts on last night’s Panorama programme.   Firstly, the positi ...

On Monday, Swiss Re published its annual European Insurance Report, highlighting a worrying EUR 10 trillion gap in life assurance across Europe.  The UK ranks third worst in terms of consumer protection in the ...

Please see below a link to the August edition of our Quarterly Private Client Newsletter.  Now that the Budgets are out of the way, I’ve decided to shift from focusing on tax changes to focusing on some ...

I’m delighted to say that Kennedy Black Wealth Management featured in Saturday’s edition of The Times (17th July) in the ‘Money Makeover/Ask the Expert’ section.   Click here to vie ...

As you may have just seen, the new Coalition government has just announced its “emergency” Budget, including a large array of spending cuts and some not insignificant tax rises, with the goal of red ...

We are pleased to publish the latest edition of our Quarterly Private Client Newsletter.  We continue one of the themes of the last edition (available below), namely the tax changes coming in for high earners. ...

As seen on FT.com   The Tories came under serious fire from Gordon Brown in the final televised debate over their plans to raise the Inheritance Tax threshold to £1 million per person.   On the one h ...

Alastair Darling today announced his last Budget before the next general election.  As a result, it was expected to be high on political rhetoric – and it didn’t disappoint.  However, at the same ...

With property prices in London pushing back unerringly towards their pre-crisis levels, you would be forgiven for thinking that we never really went through a crisis in the first place.  (A quick visit to your ...

As part of our ongoing commitment to our clients, Kennedy Black has launched a Quarterly Private Client Newsletter which will cover a whole range of topical personal finance stories.  This month, we start by f ...

I’m very pleased to say that Kennedy Black features on the Financial Times website today – as part of its ‘Money Matters’ blog.  Check out our ‘Top 5 Tips for Pension Planning pri ...

New income tax and pension rules introduced in the 2009 Budget will affect anyone earning over £100,000 – and I cannot stress urgently enough that people in this bracket should be seeking professional advice ...

Kennedy Black is delighted to announce the launch of its brand new website.  As well as finding out about who we are and why we think we are different, you will be able to search for a mortgage deal via up-to- ...