<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Worries Getting in The Way of Your Game Plan?<\/strong><\/p>\n 2022 is less than two months old, and already the news seems filled with reasons to be uncomfortable about the way of the world. With everything that\u2019s happening, it\u2019s understandable if you find yourself spending more time poring over news reports (or looking for new energy suppliers) than your financial masterplan.<\/p>\n But time – and the tax year – waits for no man. Not even Vladimir Putin or Rishi Sunak.<\/p>\n Are you right to be concerned?<\/strong><\/p>\n The elephant in the room is the looming situation in Ukraine. With fears of a European war happening at the same time as some market volatility, it\u2019s easy to leap to the conclusion that the first is the cause of the second.<\/p>\n Dig a little deeper, and the connection becomes more tenuous. Russia\u2019s stand-off with NATO has contributed to higher energy prices and consumer inflation, but that\u2019s not the root cause of the current volatility.<\/p>\n In fact, numerous market studies show that company share prices often rally strongly in times of historical crises and war.<\/p>\n The root cause of the instability can in fact be traced to the domestic front, with worries that central banks might move too quickly from their Coronavirus-inspired monetary easing to monetary tightening.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a hard one to call in the near term but we know markets will begin to calm when the intentions of policymakers become a little clearer.<\/p>\n Markets cope reasonably well with bad news; it\u2019s short-term uncertainty they struggle with. This is why it’s important for you, as a long-term investor, to remain calm and resilient. This too shall pass.<\/p>\n War might not be imminent, but April is.<\/strong><\/p>\n The fact remains that there\u2019s nothing any of us can do about Russia, or energy prices, or cost-of-living, or back-to-back storms. And yes, it\u2019s perfectly normal to be a bit worried by any or all of these things. But worry and procrastination never helped anyone secure their financial future.<\/p>\n If you can tear your eyes away from the endless news flow, there are two things you should be doing to help your future self.<\/p>\n The first is to get your financial masterplan moving.<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s never a perfect time to start or inject new capital – there\u2019ll always be a global pandemic, or a boom, a slump, a slow-down or some reason to put things off. We live in a changing world; there\u2019s rarely a “perfect time” to do anything.<\/p>\n Taking some action is always infinitely better than no action. It\u2019s like the old saying goes – the best time to start saving for your future was ten years ago. The second-best time is today.<\/p>\n The second thing is to make sure you don\u2019t miss out on basic tax planning<\/strong>.<\/p>\n No matter what happens in Europe or the Treasury or the supermarket aisles, you\u2019ll still only have until 5th<\/sup> April to use your ISA, pension and capital gains tax allowances.<\/p>\n These are the bread and butter of your financial game plan, and making good use of them will accelerate the growth of your investments over time. Whatever you do, don\u2019t waste them!<\/p>\n Relax, breathe in, get started<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s only natural to be concerned by whatever the crisis of the hour is. Believe me, I read the same reports and feel the same tension as much as the rest. But there\u2019s always a bigger picture, so don\u2019t let that concern delay actions that will improve your masterplan \u2013 procrastination is the enemy of progress.<\/p>\n If you\u2019d like to discuss how to start or reinvigorate your financial masterplan, don\u2019t delay, get in touch today.<\/p>\n Simon Ben-Nathan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today\u2019s Worries Getting in The Way of Your Game Plan? 2022 is less than two months old, and already the news seems filled with reasons to be uncomfortable about the way of the world. With everything that\u2019s happening, it\u2019s understandable if you find yourself spending more time poring over news reports (or looking for … Continue reading “Today\u2019s Worries Getting in The Way of Your Game Plan?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arkenstonewealth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arkenstonewealth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arkenstonewealth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arkenstonewealth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arkenstonewealth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1466"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.arkenstonewealth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1583,"href":"https:\/\/www.arkenstonewealth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1466\/revisions\/1583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arkenstonewealth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arkenstonewealth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arkenstonewealth.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}