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It was another fairly upbeat week for global capital markets, as equities continued to make good progress. There appears to be a groundswell of optimism emerging, fuelled by some recent encouraging economic news and the positive intervention from central banks, most notably the European Central Bank (ECB). This optimism is being further fuelled by the belief that equities have already ‘priced-in’ the bad news and that strategies such as the ECB’s emergency lending scheme, its Longer Term Refinan

Listening to the radio the other day I was engrossed in a story which reported on the number of people who turned down an honour from the Queen between 1948 and 1999. The report also stated that 116 people turned down an honour in the past three years, although these people weren’t identified. I suppose the initial question on everyone’s lips when they hear this is “WHY?”. Why would someone turn down something which is so prestigious?

Dental treatment: it’s expensive, right? Well, not as much as you might think. In fact, the range of prices for dental treatment can vary rather wildly. The problem is how to find the best value treatment and the most affordable way of paying for it. Dental payment plans could be the answer.

The amount of evidence stacking up that hedge funds, mutual funds and even private equity do not provide value for their investors is just staggering. The latest figures reported in the FT showed that 70% of the profits of private equity had been gobbled up by the managers rather than the investors. While there are certainly signs that the public's tolerance of excessive fees and executive pay is falling, the likelihood of significant structural change in the finance industry is still remote. Gi