This is Money Podcast

Rumours are swirling ahead of the Budget that Rishi Sunak will extend the stamp duty holiday by three months? The idea is that this would help stop the collapse of chain after chain as buyers pull out, renegotiate or have to find more money if they miss the deadline. The excuse being given is that conveyancing delays are holding up sales. But wouldn't a three-month delay just kick the can down the...

Since the stamp duty holiday came in last summer, there has been a property market mini-boom despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Is it losing puff yet and if not, when is it going to run out of steam and will we see the tax holiday extended? The typical home added £20,000 of value in 2020 according to the Office for National Statistics, while prices of detached homes are growing far quicker...

The double dip recession is off.  The GDP figures are in for the final three months of 2020 and the UK economy grew by 1%, according to the ONS, despite widespread expectations that it would shrink again. This means that even if the latest – and hopefully last – lockdown shrinks the economy in the first quarter of 2021 then we will avoid the dreaded double-dip – as you need two consecutive quarter...

Mistakes. We all make them, but whether we will admit them freely often depends on what they are and how we made them. Investing mistakes can be among those that are tough to swallow and own up to. Often the easiest thing is to brush them under the carpet and try not to think about it too much. But looking at where we went wrong and learning from it is an important part of long-term investing. On...

‘It’ll end in tears.’ How many times did you hear your parents sound that warning - and how often did you actually pay attention? The army of traders playing with fire in the GameStop stock market frenzy this week have had their warning from a plenty of those who supposedly know best. But it’s fun, they feel a common sense of purpose, they’re giving the big boys a bloody nose, and for now they’re...

In case you hadn’t noticed, bitcoin went on bit of a tear recently. And as the price of the leading cryptocurrency soared again, so did the number of stories written about it. Bitcoin is an interesting tale, a welcome diversion in a Covid-bound world, and the circus around cryptocurrency is the gift that keeps on giving for journalists. But the vast majority of those column inches focus on two thi...

More than five years since pension freedom arrived a solution to take the pain out of investing in retirement is being lined up. Before pension freedom many savers were locked into buying an annuity with their personal pensions or defined contribution work schemes – and a lot of them felt they were getting a raw deal. That’s meant that keeping a pension invested and drawing on it as you choose in...

Happy new year, happy new lockdown. 2021 has seen off 2020, but schools and large chunks of the economy have shut down again and people have been ordered to stay at home, as across the UK the nations adopt their own version of lockdown.  It’s probably been the gloomiest start to a year for as long as many can remember and a tough winter for people, businesses and the economy lies ahead. So what ha...

Making predictions can be a mug’s game and never has that proved more true than for any made at the start of 2020. It’s been an astonishing year, when the lives and freedoms we took for granted were dramatically disrupted – and one where ordering people to stay at home triggered the biggest economic crash in the UK since the Great Frost of 1709. While looking forward to what might happen in 2020 w...

Is buy now, pay later the demon it’s made out to be?  Klarna, Laybuy and the rest of the delayed spending crew are coming in for lots of scrutiny at the moment.  Shoppers love them and shops pay them, but there are concerns on over-spending and the cost of not meeting payments. Yet, surely spreading the cost of a purchase interest-free is a sensible financial move? On this week’s podcast, Georgie...

This week, a new in-depth report from the Wealth Tax Commission recommended a one-off 'wealth tax' on the richest households rather than hiking taxes for the masses. It comes as the national debt has spiralled this year as the Government spent more than £280billion tackling the pandemic and its financial fallout, with Chancellor Rishi Sunak claiming the 'economic emergency' has only just begun. Ho...

December had barely begun when two of Britain's biggest High Street names collapsed. Sir Philip Green's Arcadia, the group that contains Topshop and Miss Selfridge, fell first - followed swiftly by Debenhams. Bonmarché, owned by retail tycoon Philip Day, then also slumped into administration. So how bad is the crisis on the High Street, if these stores couldn't even make it through the Christmas t...

'Be greedy when others are fearful.' Warren Buffett's investment adage was tested this year when the coronavirus crash hit and sent stock markets tumbling in late February and early March. But as nations went into lockdown, economies nosedived and draconian measures surpassing most seen in living memory were introduced, it was hard for most investors to get up too much of an appetite, however many...

For better or worse the internal combustion engined car has shaped economies and the way we live over the past century. Now Britain has been told that new petrol and diesel engine cars will not be allowed to be sold in just nine years’ time. But the car itself isn’t going anywhere – just the way it is propelled and hybrids will still be allowed – so how much difference will the 2030 ban on new pet...

There have been some clear winners and losers in the rebound from the stock market crash as coronavirus and lockdown hit. Tech stars, companies with a  strong digital presence and those who have seen business increase as a result of lockdown – from B&Q-owner Kingfisher, to cycle and motoring store Halfords, and takeaway deliverer Just Eat - have been the only game in town. But, as news of the...

When lockdown arrived in March it sunk the UK economy.  The message was clear: Stay home.  And people did just that; there was a dramatic shift to either working from home or shutting down businesses entirely.  For a couple of weeks pretty much the only place you could go was the supermarket, followed a little while later by the opportunity to head to B&Q to queue for an hour and try to do a c...

Murmurs from HSBC HQ this week warned that an overhaul of its business model could leave customers paying a monthly fee for their current accounts. This week, Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost ask whether this is really a possibility, if banking actually is free anyway and what happens next. We also look at who is winning the battle of current account switchers and whether people are just...

Has the V-shaped recovery been put on hold?   Lockdowns across Britain’s major cities, the tier system and more businesses being forced to close their doors or operate far below usual business levels means the direction of travel has shifted dramatically from the summer’s optimistic reopening of the economy.   It's likely that the UK will emerge from recession with growth over this quarter, but is...

While the world worries about coronavirus, there is another decade-defining event going on – the US election. Will Donald Trump win a second term as US President and have the world dance to his tune for four more years, or will Joe Biden take charge – and what on earth would that mean for people? There is less than a month to go until the US election and under normal circumstances you would expect...

The cornerstone of the Prime Minister's Conservative Party speech this week was turning Generation Rent into Generation Buy with state-backed 95% mortgages. The idea is that this will help first-time buyers frozen out by the need for big deposits - and combining it with long-term fixed rates will reduce risk? But is this a good idea or a bad plan? Is more help just what first-time buyers could do...

Lockdown Britain has produced a nation of savers, ONS figures showed this week, with people salting away almost 30% of their disposable income on average. But for those hoping that we might finally have got the savings habit, there’s a catch. Those figures cover April to June, a three-month period when most shops were shut, along with pubs, restaurants, hotels and B&Bs, and going on holiday wa...

There won't be another budget this year. Instead, we had the Winter Economy Plan unveiled this week as fears over a second wave of coronavirus infections - and the further economic turmoil it could create - takes hold. Despite repeated calls to extend the furlough scheme, Chancellor Rishi Sunak held firm. How does this new Jobs Support Scheme stack-up, will it be enough and what else did Mr Sunak...

Britain is in the grip of a mysterious property mini-boom. Talk of a property market more buoyant than it’s been in years, of viewings and offers flooding in and family homes in hot demand, doesn’t seem to just be the usual estate agent puff. Evidence from mortgage reports, surveyors and data on estate agent activity, appears to bear this out. The stamp duty holiday and lockdown itchy feet have co...

As if 2020 wasn’t already proving to be a painful enough year, fraud has soared in lockdown. Fraud victims are now losing at least £11.5million a day but the real total is estimated at £80million, as only about 15 per cent of cases go reported. Cases are up 43 per cent in lockdown, according to Action Fraud figures, and the amount lost is up a staggering 286 per cent – meaning a victim loses £8,00...

The property market in the UK and the stock market in the US appear to be pulling off gravity-defying feats. The coronavirus crisis is still here, waves of job losses keep on coming and almost everyone is agreed there is more bad news to come. Yet, shares in the US and house prices in the UK are on the up. Is there anything behind this other than cheap central bank money and the belief that it wil...