Category: Analysis & comment

Nov ’25: Coastal Folly loan repaid

FIRE v London1 Comment

Trump dominated the headlines again. This time partly due to some very biased editing by the BBC of a Panorama show about Trump before the US election.

There was also the omnipresent UK Budget. Which has had more than enough coverage. I did a ‘damage assessment‘ at the time and haven’t revised/updated my view since.

Back at home, the Christmas season started early. I found myself dining at two of London’s impressive skyscraper restaurants in one week.

I also managed a trip up to Oxford, where the Christmas lights were out in force.

Other London highlights included a performance of the Crucible in South London, and a dinner at George’s club in Mayfair.

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2025 Budget: Damage assessment

FIRE v London4 Comments

The big news in the UK this week was the latest Budget by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

The scare story in the budget runup

All UK readers of this blog will know that the rumours and counter-rumours in the run-up to this budget exceeded anything we have seen before.

There were too many rumours in advance of the budget to catalogue properly here. But I want to highlight several key rumours:

  • Taxes up by 2%. For a crucial couple of weeks in November, the government was rolling the pitch to break its manifesto pledge by increasing income taxes by 2%.
  • National insurance on investment income, notably property rental income. This rumour felt credible to me, because it happens elsewhere – such as Ireland. However most of the commentary missed a key characteristic about NI which is that there is an Upper Earnings Limit of around £4k per month (£50k p.a., roughly) above which you only pay 2%, not 8% (or, until quite recently, 12%).
  • Mansion taxes. The key rumours here were that there would be a tax of 1% on ‘mansions’ above the value of £1.5m or £2m. This move would have been the most impactful for me – with over £8m in two ‘mansions’, I was facing potential £40k p.a. of an entirely new tax.
  • Pension changes – potentially reducing the ability to take around 25% tax-free, for instance.
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Oct ’25: Trim, trim & trim

FIRE v London1 Comment

October in the markets was one of those slightly giddy months. My portfolio crossed through a big number threshold, and kept going up.

The market stats don’t quite tell the whole story. On a constant currency basis, markets rose 2.8%. Non-UK currencies (AUD, EUR, USD) rose (versus the GBP) about 1.7% too. So my weighted benchmark rose 4.6%, measured in GBP. My (leveraged) portfolio‘s rise of 5.3% is roughly in line with that.

A 5% gain in one month is pretty extraordinary, but it does happen. While October was the best month since January 2023 (+6.6%), I have had 7 better months in the last 13 years.

However, what the market stats don’t show is what it really felt like in October.

Continue reading “Oct ’25: Trim, trim & trim” →