Money, money, money…
Cat Ommanney discusses the past week at MRM, with all the latest gossip from the team as well as the news items which have been hot topics at MRM towers.
The Budget has been at the forefront of our minds this week. With the country’s economy arguably still on rocky ground, George Osborne had a whole range of issues to address – where are we going to see tax cuts? What are the inflation and unemployment prospects for 2013? And, what does this all mean for us? With the Government steadily leaking what could be expected from this year’s report ahead of the actual event, there weren’t that many surprises on Wednesday. However, for a comprehensive overview of the Budget, please click here. If, like many of us, you’re left scratching your head working out how this will affect you personally, the Budget Calculator on the BBC lays out the facts and figures too.
As predicted, Osborne’s Budget provoked a range of responses from those in the financial services industry, including an interesting webinar debate hosted by Cofunds and Money Marketing.
Elsewhere, Apple announced plans to pay shareholders a quarterly dividend. The first dividend payment since 1995 will be paid out in July 2012, and there has already been change in stock prices in anticipation of this. Hersh Cohen, CIO at Legg Mason subsidiary ClearBridge, has praised this as a positive move for Apple and expects this announcement to act as a catalyst for more firms in the tech space to follow suit (for his full comment please contact MRM).
Closer to home, we have been ramping up the activity surrounding MRM’s own project of research into young people’s attitudes to money. I’ve written a blog about this here and we now have our first two experts on board – Katie Morley and Iona Bain. As financial journalists who are in their twenties themselves, they have keen insight into young people’s finances and the struggles that we face.
That just about rounds it up here, hope you get a chance to enjoy the sunny weekend and don’t forget the clock change on Sunday!