Against the backdrop of global financial turbulence, AWD Chase de Vere, considers how sticking to some investment fundamentals can help investors weather the storm.

It is not surprising that investors around the world are increasingly worried about their long-term financial security. Sovereign debt woes across Europe; stagnation of the US and other major economies; procrastination and half-measures by politicians; and fears of a new global recession, mean that worldwide, investor confidence has been shaken to the core. The consequence is a global stock market sell-off to rival that of the 2008 financial crisis: on 9 August, the FTSE 100 fell below 5,000 points, nearly 20% down from 5,900 a month earlier.

Steve Martin from AWD Chase de Vere offers reassuring advice, saying: “Investing is a long-term activity: 5 years or more, so as a long-term investor, you shouldn’t panic when your investments experience short-term movements. It is time in the market that drives returns not market timing. Trying to time investments (called the bottom) or pick individual stocks are more like gambling than investing. Over the last 5 years the FTSE All Share gained 63.4%. Had one been out of the market for the best 10 days in that period the return would only be 40%. Missing the best 40 days and the return is down to 3.9%. Jumping out or waiting to invest clearly carries its own risks.”

“That said, Haslers clients can speak to me if they need to access their investments in the short-term and are concerned about recent losses.”

AWD Chase de Vere also advises to diversify to spread their risk. Diversification is a key concept in investment management and involves distributing your funds between different type of asset – stocks, property, fixed-interest (bonds) and cash. How much you should invest in each asset is governed by your investment objective, timeframe and appetite for risk.

“Right now the panic has affected mainly the stockmarkets. In a diversified portfolio, stocks will only be one component. This means a 10% loss in the stockmarkets will not equate to a 10% loss on the whole portfolio. This is the due to the affect of the other assets, property for instance, which has a low correlation to the stockmarkets and has the potential to hold up its returns while stocks are falling.”

“We can advise if they have not invested in a mix of assets, or if they have not had their portfolio reviewed for some time.”

The last piece of advice that AWD Chase de Vere offers may give a bit of comfort to people who are using their investments to produce a regular income. The adviser says: “For stocks, where investors will traditionally rely on dividends to provide their income, in spite of recent price falls, companies are generally in good health, in fact, we have seen examples of dividends of 8% and above.”

“So, whilst falling stock prices are unwelcome, dividends do not seem to be under any immediate threat. This situation may well change if we enter a new recession and corporate earnings are hit but, for the time being, for those willing to take risk there will be bargains out there with well financed companies declaring high dividends relative to share value.”

“We would always advise clients to speak to us if they are not achieving the desired level of income from their investments.”

Get an investment health-check

AWD Chase de Vere, offers Haslers clients an initial (no charge) consultation to discuss their investments.

For more information or to arrange a consultation and review your investments with please call Steve on 0208 418 3408. Alternatively, simply email your name, address and telephone number to Steve.martin@haslers.com.

Please remember the value of your investment can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested. As such, all investments should be regarded with a long-term view. No news or research item is a personal recommendation to deal. If you are unsure about the suitability of any investment, you should seek professional advice.

AWD Chase de Vere Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of AWD Group plc and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. AWD Group plc is a member of AWD Holding AG, one of Europe’s largest financial advice groups. Registered office: 60 New Broad Street, London, EC2M 1JJ.

Award-winning Essex accountants Haslers are now award-givers after sponsoring a prestigious prize at Bancroft’s School. The Haslers Highest Achiever 2011 award was presented to 18 year-old Upen Patel by the school’s Department of Economics and Business Studies 2011. The Iceberg Star Award trophy and an Amazon Kindle e-reader was presented to Upen by Michael Watts, Corporate Finance partner at Haslers and a former pupil of Bancroft’s, during the school’s annual award ceremony on September 8. Upen is going to study Economics at Cambridge University. “Upen is clearly a very talented and gifted young adult who I am sure has a very bright future and career ahead of him,” said Michael.

“As a top-60 firm of accountants, we are constantly looking to help develop and nurture the accountants and businessmen and women of the future.

“I am particularly proud that we have sponsored this award as former pupil of the school and am delighted that Haslers are supporting Bancroft’s “tradition of excellence” – which is a motto that also sits well with our vision and outlook.

“We would like to congratulate Upen and wish him all the very best at Cambridge University.”

Founded in Woodford Green by the Drapers’ Company in 1737, Bancroft’s is a HMC coeducational school for 1000 pupils aged 7-18.

Haslers was founded in 1951 and is based in Loughton, Essex. In May it was named as the Accountancy Firm of the Year in this year’s Essex Accountancy and Business Awards.

Partners and staff at Essex accountants Haslers are celebrating after being shortlisted for a prestigious regional award for their work in the community and the environment.

The firm, which is based in Loughton, is a finalist in the Corporate Social Responsibility category at this year’s Docklands Business Awards organised by the Docklands Business Club and East London Chamber of Commerce.

The Haslers team will find out whether they have been successful at an awards ceremony which takes place at The East Wintergarden Hotel, in Canary Wharf, on 29 September.

Haslers’ entry focuses on its highly successful Haslers Foundation as well as its Corporate Social Responsibility Pledge and Environmental Action Plan.

Launched in 2008, the Haslers Foundation supports local charities and fundraisers.

Since 2010, Haslers has raised more than £15,000 for its chosen charity, The Dream Factory, which makes dreams come true for children and young people with terminal or life-limiting medical conditions.

Laurence Jacobs, a partner at the firm, said: “I am delighted that we have been shortlisted for this prestigious award.

“As a firm which has been supporting the local community for nearly 60 years, it is a tremendous honour that our work supporting charities and the environment has been recognised at this stage of the judging.”

The shortlisting is the latest in a long line of awards successes at both regional and national level for Haslers.

For further information, please contact Haslers on 020 8418 3333.

Essex accountants Haslers took to the skies on Monday, August 22 to complete their leg of a national Olympic-style challenge to raise much-needed funds for Alzheimer’s sufferers.

The firm took part in the UK200Group’s “Not the Olympics 2012” charity campaign, in aid of Alzheimer’s Society. Participating member firms have been tasked with relaying an Olympic-style torch across the country in imaginative forms of transportation. And Haslers did not disappoint, relaying the torch by aeroplane and the more humble bicycle.

Having received the torch on Sunday, August 21, the participating accountants at Haslers had to unexpectedly bring their participation a day forward following a 6.30am email from the pilot, Andrew Montlake, who advised that there was oncoming bad weather and that the leg of the relay should be completed whilst the weather was still good.

With a bicycle route planned from the Haslers office to the Stapleford Abbots Aerodrome, participating accountants Lee Ervin and Laurence Gane had to make a mad dash to get their bikes to the office, from which they left at 1pm and made their way to the Aerodrome to meet the pilot.

With the accountants donning their special aviation outfits, which were kindly provided by Rhonda Elliott, the torch, accountants and pilot Andrew safely piled into the aeroplane and began the next part of the relay with a flight across Essex which included views of Chelmsford and the Haslers office.

After taking in the aerial views of Essex Lee and Laurence were back on their bikes for the final section of the relay, cycling to Chelmsford where they safely delivered the torch to the next participating firm, Edmund Carr.

The torch began its mammoth journey in Perth, Scotland in May and the challenge will finish at the Olympic Stadium in London in time for the Group’s annual conference in November.

Michael Watts, partner at Haslers, said: “I would like to thank everyone that volunteered to help and those that did help on the day, it was a great day.  It was also very kind of Andrew to donate the use of his plane. 

We are proud to be part of the event that is in aid of such a worthy cause. Alzheimer’s affects around 465,000 people in the UK, so we are grateful for all the support we have received so far from clients and colleagues.

For further information, please contact Haslers on 020 8418 3333.

New research has highlighted the potential scale of organisations and businesses failing to comply with EU directives on downloading cookies.

An August report issued by the Society for Local Authority IT Managers (Socitm) revealed that only six out of 603 public sector websites it checked were compliant on regulations that came into effect in May, which require website operators to ensure they have the informed consent of users for the use of cookies.

A cookie is a small file that a website places on a user’s computer so that it can remember something, for example the user’s preferences, at a later time.

The Socitm audit, which included council, police and fire websites, found that the average English county council website had 186 cookies. Prior to the audit, Socitm asked organisations how many cookies they thought they had and the best guess was just 19 per cent of the total.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has given businesses and organisations that run websites aimed at UK consumers until next May to take the necessary steps to comply with the new cookies rules before enforcement of the law begins. It has also issued information and guidance on the rules.

Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said: “As the regulator, I’m conscious that my own website will be looked at for a model of how to comply.

“We’ve decided to place a header bar on our website giving users information about the cookies we use and choices about how to manage them.

“I am not saying that other websites should necessarily do the same. Every website is different and prescriptive and universal ‘to do’ lists would only hinder rather than help businesses to find a solution that works best for them and their customers.”

LINK: ICO information and guidance

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has found in favour of an NHS employee, ruling that she was entitled to payment in lieu of holidays she had been unable to take while on sick pay for a year.

The NHS Leeds worker was signed off sick for the whole of 2009-2010 and was then dismissed on the grounds of incapability due to ill health.

She was not paid in lieu of untaken annual leave on the grounds that she had not formally requested leave, a stance in line with previous case law that suggested that employees need to ask for annual leave while they are off sick, otherwise they will lose it.

An earlier tribunal had ruled that the claimant should have been paid in lieu of her annual leave. Following the EAT on 29 June, Mr Justice Bean found that the claimant had not been well enough to take her annual leave because of sickness so she had the right to carry the entitlement over to the following year, without having to formally request that.

Giving judgment in NHS Leeds v Larner, he said: “The right to be paid for that annual leave crystallised on the termination of her employment; as it happens, only a few days after the end of the pay year.”

Permission to appeal against the EAT decision has been sought from the Court of Appeal.

A government consultation on reforming employment law, which includes changes to the Working Time Regulations as a result of European cases on the interaction of annual leave and sick leave, closed on 8 August.

LINK:  Working hours guidance

LINK: Consultation on Modern Workplaces

New rules affecting employers who take on agency and temporary workers will take effect from 1 October 2011.

From that date, the Agency Workers Regulations mean that agency workers who work in the same role with the same hirer for 12 continuous calendar weeks will be entitled to the same basic employment and working conditions as employees in comparable roles.

Agency workers will be able to accumulate the 12 weeks’ service even if they only work a few hours a week. Once the qualifying period is completed, they must be treated as if they had been directly recruited on the first day of the assignment.

As of the first day in a temporary role, the hirer must give agency workers:

• access to the same on-site facilities as a comparable employee would have, e.g. staff canteens, childcare, parking and transport
• access to information on relevant job vacancies within the business.

Once agency workers complete the 12-week qualifying period, the hirer must also give them the following equal treatment entitlements:

• key elements of pay, including salary, overtime pay, shift allowances, bonuses, lunch vouchers, and/or annual leave pay
• working time, including duration of working time, night work, rest periods and breaks and annual leave.

LINK: Guidance on the Agency Workers Regulations

Businesses have been urged to do more to protect customers’ data after hackers were able to access the payment details of thousands of customers of cosmetics and toiletries retailer Lush.

Lush breached the Data Protection Act after the security of its website was compromised for four months, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said.

The breach, which occurred between October 2010 and January 2011, meant that hackers were able to access the payment details of 5,000 customers who had previously shopped on the Lush website.

The ICO announced on 9 August that it has required Lush to sign an undertaking to ensure that future customer credit card data will be processed in accordance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.

It also warned online retailers who do not adopt this standard, or provide equivalent protection when processing customers’ credit card details, that they risk enforcement action from the ICO.

Lush discovered the security lapse in January 2011 after receiving complaints from 95 customers who had been the victim of card fraud. After making enquiries, Lush found that its website had been subject to a hacking incident that had allowed hackers to access customers’ payment details. The security of the website was then immediately restored.

The ICO’s investigation found that, although Lush had measures in place to keep customers’ payment details secure, they were not sufficient to prevent a determined attack on their website. The retailer’s methods of recording suspicious activity on their website were also insufficient, delaying the time it took the company to identify the security breach.

ICO acting head of enforcement Sally Anne Poole said: “With over 31 million people having shopped online last year, retailers must recognise the value of the information they hold and that their websites are a potential target for criminals.

“This breach should serve as a warning to all retailers that online security must be taken seriously and that the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard or an equivalent must be followed at all times.”

LINK: PCI Security Standards Council

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has launched a new online resource to help businesses comply with the law when selling goods and services at a distance, such as website or mail order sales.

The Distance Selling Hub provides information about the rules and regulations that apply to the sale of certain goods and services over the internet, telephone, through interactive TV, by text or by mail order.

OFT research shows that many businesses are not fully complying with the Distance Selling Regulations (DSRs), the main law that relates to shopping from a distance. An OFT report in 2010 estimated that only nine per cent of business respondents considered themselves to be very familiar with the DSRs.

The DSRs give shoppers specific legal protections and different cancellation rights from those buying in store, including:

• an unconditional cooling off period (usually seven working days), during which an order can be cancelled and a full refund received (this excludes certain items such as perishable items or personalised goods)
• a full refund if the goods or services are not provided by the date agreed. If a date was not agreed, then the shopper is entitled to a refund if the goods or services are not provided within 30 days.

The OFT is urging traders to review their sales and returns policies to make sure they are lawful and has launched the Distance Selling Hub help them understand their legal requirements. It provides a simple at-a-glance guide to the law, detailed explanations, practical examples, and training materials developed to help businesses understand their obligations.

Jason Freeman, director in the OFT’s Goods and Consumer Group, said: “The growth in distance selling – in particular via the internet – is bringing great benefits to consumers and the economy, but also creates new risks.

‘Businesses need to check that they are treating their customers fairly so that shoppers trust them and can continue to shop confidently. We know most traders want to comply with the rules and the development of this hub is designed to help them stay on the right side of the law.’

Link: www.oft.gov.uk/distanceselling

The government has bought forward the closure of a loophole that allowed businesses to accelerate capital allowances claims for plant and machinery and obtain advantageous early tax relief.

The change was announced on 12 August by Economic Secretary to the Treasury Justine Greening and took effect immediately.

The closure of the loophole, which was originally proposed for April 2012, was brought forward because the government had become aware that an avoidance scheme was being promoted that took advantage of the loophole.

Justine Greening said: “By ending this loophole we will preserve important revenue while maintaining a fair system of capital allowances to support business investment.”

The capital allowances regime will undergo major reform from April 2012. The annual investment allowance, which offers tax relief at 100 per cent on qualifying expenditure in the year of purchase, will be reduced to £25,000, while the rates of writing down allowances are also set to fall.

LINK: Capital allowances guidance