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GB NEWS

State pension could be MEANS-TESTED under Labour, admits senior Keir Starmer advisor.

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I agree, if you’re over 67 and loaded , it’s your duty to put more back into the pot.

Triad Group PLC is having a good day after yesterdays results.

This is the single stock that is held within my SIPP Pension for growth and dividends.

I can't remember ever reading a more upbeat outlook statement from any company over the past 40 years.

Outlook

In my Trading Statement dated 7th March 2024, I indicated that we should expect "a flying start for our new financial year beginning in April". I can now confirm that our progress since the year end has shown that my words have turned out to be a very substantial understatement. A transformation of our results is now being achieved in the current financial year.

We are continuing to recruit at pace and of the highest quality. Our cash flow is very strong, and we are bidding for major further lines of business. Our orderbook is also extremely healthy and we are already aiming up to two years ahead in our efforts to win new major contracts. Further detail follows in the Managing Director's statement below.

I believe that the recent excellent performance in the share price is further proof that our status as a quoted company (Main Market, Premium Segment) is of great value to the Company, combined with the fact that we continue to be an SME and have substantial headroom for further expansion within the SME category.

I agree with this article.

Here’s a policy that would be political suicide for any party, and which the next government should do anyway. It involves taking people’s benefits away – so, natural Tory territory – but it’s also redistributive. The only problem is that it targets the most protected group in society: wealthy pensioners.

We’re projected to spend £146bn on the state pension next year, which is about as much as the UK will spend on roads, railways, prisons, courts, the army, the navy, the police, the air force, buses, bridges, judges, spies and airports combined. Our annual state pension bill is enough to run Denmark, all of it, for two years.

Of the 12.6 million people in the UK who receive the state pension, 1.1 million have a private pension pot over £1m, according to the most recent Wealth and Assets Survey from the Office for National Statistics. The least wealthy people in this group will have enough to retire at 65 and be paid £60,000 a year for the rest of their lives. I think it’s highly likely that most people in this group will have no rent or mortgage to pay and most would have other investments. Why should a large group of people, all of whom are guaranteed nearly twice the median income for life, be subsidised in their retirement by current workers?

From the Labour manifesto:

Labour will also act to increase investment from pension funds in UK markets. We will adopt reforms to ensure that workplace pension schemes take advantage of consolidation and scale, to deliver better returns for UK savers and greater productive investment for UK PLC. We will also undertake a review of the pensions landscape to consider what further steps are needed to improve pension outcomes and increase investment in UK markets

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Yep, just tell the city pension returns need to be 25% not the 7% average a year.

Looks like yet another year, of a bumper rise in the State pension :

On target to be way above inflation.

Nearly 12.7 million State Pensioners across Great Britain, including over one million living in Scotland, should start to keep an eye on the CPI as it forms part of the Triple Lock measure which determines the annual uprating for the contributory benefit.

Under the Triple Lock measure, State Pensions increase each year in-line with whichever is the highest of average annual earnings growth from May to July, CPI in the year to September or 2.5 per cent. The latest figures show the earnings growth at 5.7 per cent for January to March, 2024

Monday 10 June

FT article just published.

Labour has abandoned plans to bring back the pensions lifetime allowance in an £800mn U-turn that will be welcomed by wealthier savers including hospital consultants and headteachers.

Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor, has dropped the proposal from Labour’s election manifesto, to be published on Thursday, because it would add uncertainty for savers and be complex to reintroduce, her allies told the Financial Times.

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No HRT to pay on death.

Normal tax rates, as income during lifetime ,paying up to 45% is fair in my view.

Labour will no doubt lift CGT to match, again which is fair,( for unearned income), more so , as some wealth can be sheltered in an ISA.

Experts argue that if mortgage payments were swapped for pension payments in later life, it can mean an extra £52,000 towards one preferred retirement style.

Standard Life’s calculations highlighted the potential retirement boost if mortgage payments are swapped with pension contributions later in life.

Their analysis found that those who begin working on a salary of £25,000 per year and pay the standard monthly auto-enrolment contributions (five per cent employee, three per cent employer) from the age of 22, could build up a total retirement fund of £461,000 by the age of 66**, not taking inflation into account.

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This means that today's prices are 5.37 times as high as average prices since 1980, according to the Office for National Statistics composite price index. A pound today only buys 18.608% of what it could buy back then.

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Those that were aged 22 in 1980 ( the previous 44 years ) and been forced to pay 5% a month would end up with spending power of a poxy 18% of £461,000 in real terms !!

An out and out con in my personal view

Neither party is willing to face up to the fact that when it comes to state and public sector pensions, there really is no money left, says James Price

General elections really ought to be a platform from which the seismic, structural challenges facing our country are debated. Governments need fresh mandates if they are to grapple with such problems. Too often, though, a desire to win means that these epochal challenges, to which there are no easy or quick get deliberately ignored.

To add to our demographic challenges, geopolitical terror, civil service inertia, and chronic low growth and productivity, the other ‘too big to countenance’ issue of our time is the slow-moving car crash of the UK’s state and public sector pensions. Monday’s announcement of the ‘triple lock plus’ promised that, like the state pension, pensioners’ tax-free allowance will automatically increase in line with the highest of earnings, wages, or 2.5 per cent, will only make things worse.

Allow me to set the scene for you. The current UK public sector net debt for next year is predicted to be £2.8 trillion, more than our entire GDP. This is money owed to the various funds, banks, and institutions (not to mention foreign governments) from whom our Government borrows. And last year we paid about £112bn just to service that debt – almost as much as we spend on education.

The state pension could become unaffordable as soon as 2035 if Labour and the Tories pledge to protect the triple lock in their election manifestos.

The cost of paying the benefit will outstrip National Insurance Contributions (NICs) as the ratio of workers to pensioners shrinks, according to analysis for Telegraph Money by the Adam Smith Institute.

The think tank warned that the ballooning cost to taxpayers meant the state pension was “very likely” to become fiscally unsustainable between 2035 and 2045. It means action will have to be taken to cut the size and scope of the benefit.

Britain is already buckling under the strain of its state pension bill. Overall spending will be £23bn higher in 2027-28 than it was at the start of the 2020s, according to Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts.

An ageing population in increasingly poor health is expected to add even more pressure to the national finances. Pension spending has risen from 2pc of GDP in the early 1950s to more than 7pc today.

National Technology Awards 23 MAY 2024

RegTech Project of the Year

WINNER: Triad Group

https://www.kiplinger.com/investing/stocks/603777/30-best-stocks-of-the-past-30-years

Think of it this way: A microcap penny stock that grows into a small-cap stock after delivering a 10,000% price increase rewards anyone lucky enough to have bet on that name – but it adds very little to equity investors' overall collective wealth. It doesn't drive the major indexes higher, fill the coffers of pension funds or enrich anyone beyond a comparatively small number of traders and investors involved in the stock.

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As an investor you want to be in that very small group who research and buy that penny stock that grows 10,000% or 100 fold. To be clear it’s wrong to quote penny stocks,( as the shares could start at £1.00 or more) . One needs to invest in very low market cap stocks, the share price itself, does not need to be in the penny range. Then let growth in revenues and profits do all the work for you.

A couple of typo errors in my last post :

Sorry

The Sunday Times is calling for the Government to increase the minimum amount employers contribute to workers pensions, from 3% to 5%.

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How stupid is that ?

It just adds to the cost of dong business.

The pension industry needs to increase the average returns from 7% a year on average towards 20%. Those pension managers that do perform should be sacked .

Then pension contributions could be cut for both for the boss, and his workers .

Now Standard Life are playing the same dirty trick , trying to get workers to save yet more each month for their future pension. ( that increases their profits ).

This would not be required if standard life managers produced returns of 20% compound a year. Private equity companies can achieve it, i can achieve it . So why can”t the pension industry .?

Rob White

24 April 2024 • 6:00am

11

Private sector workers and their employers must put more money into their pensions to stave off a retirement catastrophe, ministers have been warned.

Minimum pension contribution rates need to rise immediately, from 5pc for employees and 3pc for employers to 6pc for both groups, because millions of people are not paying in enough, according to a new report.

Pensions and savings firm Standard Life, which published the report with consultants WPI Economics, said if the Government doesn’t act swiftly, the current level of contributions could lead to an increase in pensioner poverty and people running out of money in retirement.

HL doing its best to scare the pants of uk pension savers.

Another way is to do what i have done and make a single payment small lump sum, and purchase one or two tiny super growth stocks. Let the market do the work for you and never pay a monthly sub into the pension.

Financial experts at Hargeaves Landown advise 22-year-olds who are starting to save for their pension for the first time to put away £282.89 into their pension pot each month in order to reach the £200,000 figure by the time they're 66 - the current state pension age. This assumes your contributions stay the same throughout your working life.

By the time you reach 32, your pension savings should be sat at around £35,322. Again, this assumes your pension investments grow by 5 per cent each year. After another ten years, at the age of 42, your pension pot would then be worth £74,626 and by 52, the pot should have grown to £120,216. Finally, with your contributions remaining the same and your pot growing by 5%, your pot should be sitting pretty at £174,866 by the time you're 62.

With the state pension age at 66 - rising to 67 between 2026 and 2028 - you will have another four or five years to grow your pot even further and hit the £200,000 mark before you retire. Hargreaves Lansdown says the earlier you start saving for your pension, the better, as those who start saving later in life will have to pay higher monthly contributions to reach the target.

According to Hargreaves Lansdown's figures, if you don't start until you're 32, then you'll need to put in £402 a month to build the same pension pot. If you leave it until you're 42, your contributions would need to be £615 a month, or £1,122 month if you only start contributing at 52 - just 14 years away from the retirement age of 66.

Early retirement is a specific life goal for 65% of working-age adults around the world, with 70% of Gen Z employees (the highest proportion of any generation) actively working towards this aspirational goal. This compares to just 51% of the over 55s.

The findings appear in a new study* into the financial wellbeing of 11,577 working-age adults from 17 countries around the world.

The results highlight a significant geographical disparity between employees’ approach to early retirement, with 72% of working Americans citing early retirement as a specific life goal, compared to just 40% of French employees. Only 26% of respondents from Japan specify they have this life goal.

Planning for early retirement

Despite the desire for early retirement in some regions and age demographics, when asked in which ways money is important, only 30% of all respondents cited saving for retirement as being important. And this figure drops to just 18% for 16–24-year-olds. This shows that perhaps there is a disconnect between the idealistic notion of early retirement, versus the reality of prioritising saving for it.

Across the globe, 69% of respondents say they have a general financial plan in place to achieve their goals, yet 42% admit this is only an ‘informal’ plan that spans three years or less. However, 70% of Gen Z respondents say they have a general financial plan in place, compared to just 60% of 45–54-year-olds.

Almost half a million pension pots were emptied when they were accessed for the first time during the 2022-23 tax year, figures show.

Savers took a record £5.3bn in cash, paying income tax of three quarters of what they withdrew, to cover rising mortgage bills, according to the Financial Conduct Authority.

Of the 420,727 pots taken in full, the average was around £12,500, but tens of thousands took pots worth more than £30,000, the Financial Conduct Authority said. This was up from around 395,000 the prior year.

The most common age group for those making total withdrawals was 55- to 64-year-olds, who have not yet reached state pension age, with 294,694 pots accessed. It was three times those accessed by the next age group, 65- to 74-year-olds, at 114,601

Daily Express

Women are six times more likely to put their money into savings - than to invest it

It comes as a fifth of women believe investing is only for men - although over three-quarters are keen to learn more about how to start investing.

By SARAH LUMLEY

10:28, Mon, Apr 15, 2024 | UPDATED: 10:28, Mon, Apr 15, 2024



On average, the FTSE 100 has outperformed inflation. Over the last 119 years, UK stocks have made annualised returns of +4.9% over and above inflation. Therefore, if you think inflation will be 2.5% on an ongoing basis, you might expect your long-term returns to be around 7.5%.

If one compounds £1,000 pounds at 4.9% over 50 years you will get back just £11,000 above inflation.

Grow your pension at my target of 20% compound and this is the result .

£9.1M pounds .

Hence i personally believe today’s pensions savings plans. are not fit for purpose. They require huge sums to be paid in over a lifetime in return for rubbish returns.

A far better solution : ( that worked for me ).

A small lump sum invested on day one , targeting 20% compound for life. No more payments into the plan after the initial single, one off payment

My previous post of 3 years and 4 months ago:

17 Dec 2021 14:31

TRD were 27P : 13 months ago, now £1.25P : and we’re just 5P : ,6 years ago.

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This week Triad Group PlC shares closed at £2.50P

Dividends paid over the time span have produced extra hansom returns.

At this juncture, i would refer any investor or potential investor to read the last trading update from Triad Group Plc.