UK Savings Accounts - Top Rates

03/03/2010 by bill.

We always recommend anyone thinking of opening a savings account to shop around for the best deals. Interest rates can change quickly in this highly competitive market even though it seems unlikely that the Bank of England will cut rates below the current record low of 0.5%. Interest rates may be variable at short notice or fixed for a specified period. However, we have identified the following Internet accounts as good deals available on-line on 3rd March 2010.

On-line Savings accounts

The AA - AA Internet Extra (Issue 1) Account 3.00% aer (rate includes 2.50% bonus payable for 12 months)
Halifax - Web Saver Extra 2.80% aer (1 withdrawal a year without loss of interest, further withdrawals with loss of 30 days interest)
Alliance and Leicester - Online Saver Issue 7 2.75% aer (rate includes a variable rate bonus payable for at least 12 months) Minimum deposit £1000

Cash ISAs

Alliance & Leicester Flexible ISA 3.50% aer For 12 months the rate will be 3.00% above the Bank of England base rate, but is guaranteed not to drop below 3.50% for 12 months.
Santander Flexible ISA 3.50% aer For 12 months the rate will be 3.00% above the Bank of England base rate, but is guaranteed not to drop below 3.50% for 12 months.
First Direct cash e-ISA 2.75% aer fixed until 31 August 2011
Standard Life Cash ISA 2.65% aer
Aldermore Cash ISA 2.65% 30 days notice for withdrawals
Barclays Golden ISA 2.58% aer
Intelligent Finance Cash ISA 2.50% aer
National Savings and Investments Direct ISA 2.50% aer

See moneyjungle.net for more on selecting the right savings account.

Please note that although we check rates regularly moneyjungle.net does not claim that the products listed above are the most appropriate for an individual investor and does not claim that the list is exhaustive. We exclude introductory offers that offer short term high interest rates that later fall or those that require the customer to open another account such as a current account. We always recommend thorough research, reading terms and conditions carefully and, where appropriate, consulting an independent financial advisor. See the moneyjungle.net independent advice page for further information.

Posted in Personal Finance, Savings, Investments | Print | 1 Comment »

Time to Invest in a Stocks and Shares ISA

02/03/2010 by bill.

Over the long term, investing in the stock market can offer you a great potential for return on your investment. But finding the right investment can be time-consuming. There are just so many different types out there.
With Legal & General’s range of investments simply choose the fund(s) that best suit your needs. You can invest in an ISA or a unit trust from as little as £500 lump sum or £50 a month. You should also remember that your investment is not guaranteed and the value may fall as well as rise.

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Virgin Money Climate Change ISA

17/02/2010 by bill.

Virgin Climate Change ISA – The ISA that saves more than just tax - aims to provide excellent returns by investing in specially selected companies who combine the potential for outstanding profit growth with a lighter environmental footprint. - invest up to £7,200 a year tax-efficiently through a Virgin ISA. - pay in lump sums from £100 (your first lump sum must be at least £500). Or you can set up regular monthly payments, from £50 upwards. - You can stop, start or change your payments at any time without penalty. - 24 hour online service lets you keep track of your investment, make payments online, and change payments and other details. - No notice periods – you can get at your money whenever you want. - We earn an annual management fee of 1.75%. There may also be a performance related fee, which we only earn if we outperform agreed benchmarks. - The Virgin Climate Change Fund is an actively managed fund and carries more risk than, for example, a Tracker Fund. Please remember stock market investments can go down as well as up and you may not get back all you invest. To maximise your chance of a good return you should be looking to invest for at least 5 years.

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Us Now

09/07/2009 by bill.

Us Now is a new documentary on More 4 that examines the way social media technologies are sparking the greatest social change since the invention of the printing press. The first programme is shown tomorrow Friday 10th July at 23.10 and features Zopa as one of several examples demonstrating the power of the internet to facilitate mass collaboration that can really change the way we do things and govern ourselves.

Zopa is the online marketplace where people meet to lend and borrow money. The easiest way to describe it is like eBay for money - lenders lend money, borrowers borrow money, and by cutting out the banks, everyone gets a better deal.

If you’re looking for a loan, you will get a competitive rate and Zopa do not have any sneaky fees or penalties if you want to repay early. Plus, you get that warm feeling inside, knowing that your repayments are helping real people rather than the fat cats.

Or, if you have got some spare cash and fancy making a return, why not try lending at Zopa? Zopa credit-score and risk assess every borrower, you can lend each borrower as little as 10 pounds to minimise risk and all payments are collected on your behalf.

Click here for more information about Zopa

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Climate Change and Investments

22/06/2009 by bill.

Climate change caused by carbon emissions and other green house gases is one of the biggest issues facing the world today. Investors may feel that companies offering low carbon and green technology and solutions could perform well over coming years.

The Virgin Climate Change ISA is an environmental ISA with a difference, investing in all industry sectors, in businesses which combine the potential for outstanding profit growth with a lighter environmental footprint.

We believe environmentally aware companies may perform better. Customers prefer them, and they are not saddled with green taxes and penalties which will be increasingly levied on the heavier polluters.

The Virgin Climate Change Fund is an actively managed fund and carries more risk than, for example, a Tracker Fund. Please remember stock market investments can go down as well as up and you may not get back all you invest. To maximise your chance of a good return you should be looking to invest for at least 5 years.

Click here for details and to apply

More about green investments

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Free Gold — Now Waiting for You in Zurich

15/05/2009 by bill.

How to Claim a Free Gram of Investment-Grade Gold Today

IF YOU LIKE buying low and enjoy selling high, then you cannot ignore this free gift of gold today.

“Gold rose 600% in the 1970s,” says Jim Rogers, world-famous fund manager and best-selling author of Adventure Capitalist.

“Then gold went down nearly every month for two years. Most people gave up.

“But then it went up another 850%.”

Gold just pulled back again in early 2008. But “that’s what happens in bull markets,” as Jim Rogers says. And buying gold to join this bull market now could prove very rewarding if his forecast comes good.

Why not find out for yourself — starting for free today?

To claim a gram of FREE GOLD with the compliments of BullionVault — the fastest growing private gold ownership service — simply click through now.

Worth more than $27 at todays prices, your free gram of gold is safe and secure inside a specialist vault in Zurich, Switzerland.

It is yours if you would like it, for free, today.

Accepting this gift won’t put you under any obligation to buy or sell in the future. Nor will BullionVault ever rent, sell or abuse your email address.

This free gift of gold is simply to show you how easy it is to own investment-grade gold outright in your name with no risk of default.

BullionVault offers you direct access to the same investment-grade gold as the professional gold market trades. This means you can also access the same low dealing and storage fees that professional gold traders enjoy, too.

Using BullionVault, you may buy and sell from as little as one gram of gold up to 20 kilos or more. All deals at BullionVault are settled immediately with gold that’s already safe and sound inside the vault.

Only ownership and cash ever change hand, reducing your dealing costs “dramatically” as the Financial Times recently put it.

You can claim your FREE gold bullion here today.

BullionVault’s online order-board also lets you quote prices and trade directly in Euros and Sterling, as well as in US Dollars.

So there’s a big saving here if you don’t have a US bank account, or you’d like to hold your savings in Euros while you wait for a dip in the gold market to get back in again. Because BullionVault cuts out the cost of currency exchange entirely.

The website’s full daily audit also shows that you own a unique quantity of investment-grade gold. Published each and every working day, this audit gives you a proven record of outright gold ownership, protecting your property rights against the financial performance of BullionVault, its suppliers and bank.

And your free gram of gold? It’s part of a large 400-ounce bar, warranted to be 99.5% pure gold or better. It’s sitting in a gold vault in Zurich right now, a vault used by professional gold dealers and banks, government agencies, global investment funds and ultra high net worth individuals.

You can now join them in owning investment-grade gold offshore in Switzerland. And choosing to own physical gold bullion, with no risk of default, might prove a valuable decision as today’s bubble in cheap debt explodes.

To claim your gram of FREE GOLD right now — and to start trading physical gold bullion on ultra-low fees — simply visit BullionVault here.

PLEASE NOTE: We will receive a small referral commission for any accounts opened through this email. But the tiny dealing fees and storage charge you will pay would be no smaller without it.

And this ground-breaking service really does give you unique access to live gold market prices, cutting out the middleman and slashing the costs of investing in gold.

To find out for yourself, click here now.

Click here for more about investing in gold

Posted in Gold, Investments | Print | 1 Comment »

Get three issues of Moneywise Magazine for just £1

04/05/2009 by bill.

With financial news never far from the headlines Moneywise magazine is there to help guide you through your personnel finance issues in a jargon free way. New subscribers can take advantage of the current 3 issues for £1 promotion which includes two free guides - the A-Z of investing and investing for children.

Click here for details

Posted in Savings, Investments, Finance | Print | No Comments »

How to Make Investing in Gold Simple, Secure & Cost Effective

08/04/2009 by bill.

DEEP UNDERGROUND in a secure vault in Zurich, Switzerland sits a gram of gold.

It is yours if you would like it, for free, today.

The gram is part of a 400-ounce gold bar, the only kind of bullion that professional dealers and international banks will buy and sell. It is 99.5% pure gold or better.

And it has never left the care of professional bullion vault operators…not since the day it was first cast, assayed, and delivered by armored truck through the streets of Switzerland.

This means your free gram of gold is guaranteed to be top-quality. So you can forget about wide “dealing spreads” between the buying and selling price. It will trade on the international gold market almost bang on the ’spot’ price you see quoted on the internet and in your newspaper.

Find out more, and to claim your free gold here.

No, you can’t fly out to Zurich tonight and collect your free gram of gold after breakfast tomorrow. It has to remain within that 400-ounce bar to keep its integrity and value.

And that bar — worth more than $365,000 at today’s price — has to stay in the bullion vault.

You see, the quality of a gold bar must be guaranteed if it’s going to trade on the international gold market. Wall Street banks, London bullion traders and Tokyo investment funds only deal in top-quality warranted gold.

And now you can join them.

BullionVault enables you to trade the purest gold at the tiniest spreads…with no delivery charges, minimal insurance fees, and storage costs to make your local bank blush.

Your free gram of pure gold — just like the seven tonnes of gold BullionVault now stores on behalf of people from 62 different countries worldwide — is held in the form of 400-ounce “good delivery” bars. It will retain full resale value on the professional market.

And most importantly, your free gram will belong to you outright if you choose to fund your account and add to this gold, just as it would if you bought it and kept it at home.

This is the crucial difference between BullionVault and holding “unallocated” gold with a bank, or dealing in exchange-traded gold shares through a stockbroker.

When a bank sells you unallocated gold, you become the bank’s creditor. It owes you the gold in other words, and you do not own the asset you’ve bought. The gold is only available to you if the bank remains solvent.

And if it doesn’t…?

Your BullionVault gold, on the other hand, will never be used, lent or sold by the vault where it’s stored. Nor is it merely “backed” by gold like a trust-based certificate.

Legally and in all eventualities, even a run on the banks…the collapse of the Dollar, Sterling or Euro…a stock-market meltdown…or a crash in the $700 trillion global derivatives market…your gold will be yours.

You can find out more at BullionVault now.

BullionVault offers you an easy, cheap and safe way of buying, owning, storing, and selling gold. Because it marries two technological breakthroughs that had both passed the precious metals market by entirely.

The first innovation is the Depository Trust Company’s model for making financial trading simple, safe and efficient. Just like CREST — the UK’s central stock depository in London — it keeps shares and government bonds in safe-keeping, immobilising them in a physical location.

Only ownership needs to change hands between buyer and seller, making for much faster and cheaper settlement. And at BullionVault — whose founder and director, Paul Tustain, developed I.T. systems to handle CREST dealing for Europe’s very biggest investment banks — this means all trades are settled instantly with gold that’s already safe inside the vault.

That cuts your risk of counter-party default down to zero.

The second innovation is modelled on Betfair, the internet-based gambling system based in the UK which matches orders from private buyers and sellers directly across the internet. This cuts out the middleman entirely at BullionVault, reducing your costs once again and giving you direct access to the dealing spread.

To test-drive this ground-breaking service for yourself today, starting with a free gram of Swiss gold, go to BullionVault now.

No middlemen, no delivery costs, and no risk of losing your gold if crisis hits the banking world. You can buy or sell whatever quantity of gold you like, starting from just one gram today.

Your gold investment will be stored and insured by ViaMat, the privately-owned Swiss storage company in your choice of New York, London or Zurich.

So if you don’t trust the government to leave your investments entirely in your hands, the option of storing gold deep underground in Switzerland may be of interest!

If you’ve not heard of ViaMat, don’t be surprised. This professionally-recognized bullion transporter and vault operator likes to remain quiet and discreet, just like its wealthiest clients.

But be clear on this point — ViaMat is not a bank. Instead, and for the last 62 years, it has simply stored valuable goods without getting involved in unallocated arrangements and other financial wizardry.

Keeping your gold in ViaMat’s high-security vaults makes the actuarial risk of loss so small that it costs only 0.12% per year to store your gold with insurance included. That’s less than a third what you’ll pay to store gold in a bank through an exchange-traded gold fund.

And thanks to BullionVault’s instant online trading and settlement system, you can take profits or add to your position the very moment gold makes the move you’ve been waiting for.

The live gold-market order board is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That gives you the chance to trade gold long after the London stock market closes, and even before Asia opens the next morning!

The crucial thing is that your gold will have stayed inside that specially approved bullion vault. So its resale value will be right up there with the “spot” price you see quoted in the newspapers and on the internet.

To find out more, and claim your complimentary gram of Zurich gold, just go to BullionVault now.

When you buy gold through BullionVault, you do NOT buy a financial security, like a share or a warrant. You’re buying the metal itself. It’s your property; it belongs to you.

But to keep your costs low, and to make sure you can sell your gold straight back onto the international bullion market…where the spread between ‘buy’ and ’sell’ prices runs almost to zero…you simply take legal delivery via a custodian — ViaMat International, the leading secure vault operator in Switzerland — without taking possession at home.

You see, your gold is part of a Good Delivery bar. Weighing 12.4kg, these bars have a minimum assayed purity of 99.5%. BullionVault buys these guaranteed, market deliverable gold bars, and store them at ViaMat on your behalf.

“Of course, we accept the sensitivity of what we are doing,” says Paul Tustain. “Which is why we publish our daily audit. This means you can safely check your holding within the vault — from any internet computer anywhere in the world — and prove it to the actual physical bars evidenced by the ViaMat bar list that’s issued to us.”

This is so simple, but so important. When you open an account with BullionVault, you are given your own unique ‘nickname’. It’s only known to you, of course. No one else will know that you’re storing a portion of your wealth offshore.

Every day, BullionVault then publishes a full list of every single ‘nickname’ holding gold through its unique system. This list is published on a public internet page. And the sum value of the list (with your nickname on it, remember) adds up exactly to the value of the bar list issued by ViaMat.

In short, this means that you can see in a transparent yet discreet way what your holding in the system is, every day.

To open your account — and to start trading your complimentary gram of Zurich gold now — click through to BullionVault today.

“Love the service and the site,” says one British user of BullionVault. “Actually, your whole business model is a good one and like many excellent ideas is simple and just leaves me wondering why it hasn’t been done before.”

“If there is an easier route to purchasing bullion I have not found it.”
TH

“I have yet to find a more convenient way to own investment-grade gold bullion…Excellent customer service, total security and peace of mind.”
Garry Knott, sovereignlife.com

“I think you have the best online service bar none. It seems to me the customer is guaranteed to obtain the closest to the spot price of gold via your service”
JT

“Everything has been of excellent quality: service, information, explanatory steps (Help file) etc…Thanks a lot to you and your team.”
EFR

“Just a quick message to say I absolutely love BullionVault. Your website provides one smart, efficient service…I can’t see how it could be improved on!”
TJ

“I am new to gold ownership and had been looking to add some to my investment portfolio for some time…I came across your web-site and it was exactly what I was looking for - an easy method of buying, selling or just holding gold without any hassle, and at very reasonable commissions. The order board is very simple to use, even for a novice like myself.”
JS

“Your company is just what I was looking for, great site with excellent information and a very intuitive navigation system.”
JDC

“FIVE STARS…The website scores highly for being easy to read and well-designed. It is clearly laid out for even an inexperienced user and the home page has links to detailed but simple instructions and FAQs…”
thegoodwebguide.com

“It’s an absolutely incredibly good service/website, from everything to presentation, ease of use and security it’s very clear and a pleasure to use.”
BR

Just what is it that’s got all these people so excited? To find out more — and claim your complimentary gram of Zurich gold now — go to BullionVault now.

PLEASE NOTE: We will receive a small referral commission for any accounts opened through this email. But the tiny dealing fees and storage charge you will pay would be no smaller without it.

And this ground-breaking service really does give you unique access to live gold market prices, cutting out the middleman and slashing the costs of investing in gold “dramatically” as the Financial Times recently noted.

To find out for yourself, go to bullionvault now.

© BullionVault.com 2008 - Buy gold online at live gold prices.

Posted in Gold, Investments | Print | No Comments »

Is Gold a Good Investment?

11/03/2009 by bill.

As they turn their back on stocks and shares and property investments, many investors turn to gold as relatively safer. Many experts suggest that gold should form part of the portfolio of any serious investor. However, as with most investments it is important to take a medium to long term view, investing in gold or other precious metals should not be seen as a way of making a quick buck.

As with any investment, My Money Jungle recommends that you seek independent expert advice before investing in gold but if you decide to do so it is really easy to invest on-line through BullionVault.com.

For more about investing in gold, other precious metals and gemstones see moneyjungle.net.

Posted in Gold, Investments | Print | No Comments »

Spread Betting in Financial Markets

19/12/2008 by bill.

There is a great deal of volatility in world financial markets and we read about specualtors who are able to make money whether markets go up or down. Spread betting is one way of potentially doing so.

Spread betting is a cost effective way of trading. Just like share trading you can speculate on stocks and shares but because there are no brokers there are no Brokers Fees and no Commissions. If you are a UK resident there is currently no Income Tax or Capital Gains Tax on Spread Betting returns.

In market terms spread betting companies quote two figures for an index which is known as the spread. They quote a high and a low value and the investors either sells at the low price, or buys at the high price. If the index rises and you buy high then you sell out and at the close of business at a profit relative to how right you were. Spread betting may be on financial markets, foreign exchange or commodities such as gold or oil.

Risk Warning - Spread betting carries a high level of risk to your capital and you may lose more than your initial investment. Only speculate with money that you can afford to lose. Please ensure you fully understand the risks involved, seek financial advice where necessary and make sure spread betting meets your investment objectives.

Financial Spreads offer spread bets on the FTSE 100, Crude Oil, Gold and a wide range of UK and international shares.

Financial Spreads is a trading name of London Capital Group Ltd which is authorised & regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Registered address: is 4th Floor, 12 Appold Street, London EC2A 2AW.

For more about Spread Betting and Contracts for Difference see moneyjungle.net

Posted in Spread Betting, Stock Markets, Investments | Print | No Comments »