During these difficult economic times, one of the tools available to the Bank of England to stimulate the economy is interest rates. Lower interest rates mean that it is cheaper to borrow money and people have more to spend, hopefully stimulating the economy and reducing the risk of deflation. This is why the Bank of England has aggressively cut them. With interest rates at their lowest levels in history, those relying on the interest from bank or building society accounts to supplement their income potentially face a problem. Indeed, once tax and inflation are taken into account, for many their capital on deposit is at risk of losing money in real terms.
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Income distribution bonds
Distribution bonds are intended to provide income with minimal affects on your original investment. They attempt to ensure that any tax-free returns, up to 5 per cent and usually in the form of dividends, do not greatly reduce your original investment, thereby providing the opportunity for future long-term growth. They also combine two different asset classes, equities and bonds, inside one investment wrapper.
Investment bonds
An investment bond is a single premium life insurance policy and is a potentially tax-efficient way of holding a range of investment funds in one place. They can be a good way of allowing you to invest in a mixture of investment funds that are managed by professional investment managers.
Individual Savings Accounts
An Individual Savings Account (ISA) is a tax-efficient ‘wrapper’ designed to go around an investment. You’ve got until 5 April 2014 to use your current 2013/14 tax year annual ISA allowance before you lose it forever.
Investment trusts
Investment trusts are based upon fixed amounts of capital divided into shares. This makes them closed ended, unlike the open-ended structure of unit trusts. They can be one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to invest in the stock market. Once the capital has been divided into shares, you can purchase the shares. When an investment trust sells shares, it is not taxed on any capital gains it has made. By contrast, private investors are subject to capital gains tax when they sell shares in their own portfolio.
Open-ended investment companies
Open-ended investment companies (OEICs) are stock market-quoted collective investment schemes. Like unit trusts and investment trusts they invest in a variety of assets to generate a return for investors.
Unit trusts
Unit trusts are a collective investment that allows you to participate in a wider range of investments than can normally be achieved on your own with smaller sums of money. Pooling your money with others also reduces the risk.
Pooled investments
If you require your money to provide the potential for capital growth or income, or a combination of both, and provided you are willing to accept an element of risk, pooled investments could just be the solution you are looking for. A pooled investment allows you to invest in a large, professionally managed portfolio of assets with many other investors. As a result of this, the risk is reduced due to the wider spread of investments in the portfolio.
Reducing the overall level of investment risk
The volatility experienced in global markets over the past five years has tested the nerves of even the most experienced investors, making it a difficult time for individuals who rely on income from investments for some or all of their needs.
Spreading risk in your portfolio
One of the principal tenets of spreading risk in your portfolio is to diversify your investments whatever the time of year. Diversification is the process of investing in areas that have little or no relation to each other. This is called a ‘low correlation’.
Diversification helps lessen what’s known as ‘unsystematic risk’, such as reductions in the value of certain investment sectors, regions or asset types in general. But there are some events and risks that diversification cannot help with – these are referred to as ‘systemic risks’. These include interest rates, inflation, wars and recession. This is important to remember when building your portfolio.