For many years we have seen consumers place great trust in the so called “Best Buy†tables in many of the financial magazines. While they do offer a summary of the best offers available at the time, many in the industry have great reservations. Do all companies have the same access to these lists? Maybe not….
Insiders in the industry claim that :-
Over the last decade we have seen massive movements in worldwide stockmarkets, including the technology boom, the Iraq war and various other major incidents around the world. These have all shaped what has been perhaps one of the most volatile periods of recent times. So you think you can still beat the stockmarket?
It seems that every day we are seeing new takeover rumours on the stockmarket, shares hitting new highs on the hope of one massive payout, but is it sustainable? Is it actually helping?
Over the last few weeks we have seen takeover fever grip stocks such as Boots, Hanson, EMI and even Barclays Bank cannot escape speculation - even though they had agreed a merger with ABN Amro, although this now seems to be unravelling with the introduction of Royal Bank of Scotland to the mix.
As the US stock market hits a new all time of over 13,000 many are starting to question the real reasons for the rise - a Golden Economy or Fools Gold?
While many analysts are pointing towards to encouraging state of the US economy, behind the scenes the situation is a little less encouraging with personal savings at all time lows, an increase in the number of mortgage defaults and house prices stagnating (ahead of a fall?).
While the UK stock market appears to have overcome a lot of the worries and concerns which arose towards the end of February, is it time to go back in? Initial worries about the state of far eastern economies and the US housing market had caused the FTSE100 to fall from 6450 to 6000, however the market is again approaching 6400, but is it all over?
While it has not been widely quoted in the press, many people have been borrowing additional funds against the value of the houses - many of which have shown marked increase over the last few years. Some may argue that such moves are a sensible way of raising short term capital, although the medium to longer term impact could see many home owners hit hard. Opportunistic or foolish folly?
