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The BBC understands the government will also freeze fuel duty again in the Budget.
The Investors Centre on the stories shaping UK markets and household finances.
Asset rich, cash poor: the short version You are asset rich and cash poor when most of your net worth sits in a house you live in and cannot spend. A paid-off home pays you nothing each month. There are only four ways to turn it into money — sell it, shrink it, let part of it, or borrow against it — and each one costs something. The cheapest fix…
Can you get a mortgage on trading income? Yes, but a lender will treat you as self-employed, so the mortgage stands on your SA302 tax calculations, tax year overviews and bank statements rather than payslips. Most want two years of figures. A smaller group will lend on one, and that route runs through a specialist broker rather than a branch. Why this page exists We write a lot here about…
Quick Answer: What Happened to the £500? It survived, which is not nothing. Four weeks of spread betting spot gold on a live IG account turned £500 into £459.35. Call the £40.65 a tuition bill, and note who got paid: only about £4.45 of it went to IG in spread and overnight funding. The rest went to my own decisions, most of it to a single trade where I doubled…
Quick Answer: Which Spread Betting Strategies Actually Survived? Out of everything this programme has tried with real money since spring, three strategies are still standing: planned index breakouts in the US afternoon, financing-aware swing holds, and news-settle entries taken after the spread calms down rather than during the fireworks. Two approaches got formally retired, news-spike scalping and set-and-forget trend holds, and in both cases it was the costs that did…
Quick Answer: What Does the First Month of Day Trading Actually Look Like? A real education, at a knowable price. I funded a live IG account with £1,000 on Monday 3 August 2026 and traded it for four calendar weeks. It finished the month at £846.60, and the interesting part is the shape of the journey: two winning weeks, one expensive stretch of three days when I traded my frustration…
Quick Answer: What Do UK Day Traders Actually Pay in Tax? On my own numbers, almost nothing, and the reason is the wrapper rather than the profit. Last tax year my spread betting account finished £4,120 up and the tax on that was zero: no capital gains tax, no income tax, no stamp duty. My CFD account made £3,650 over the same year; after the £3,000 annual exempt amount, £650…
Hand-picked across the day's most active topics.
Third-quarter profits and revenues at Europe’s biggest bank narrowly miss expectations
HSBC profits surge 32%, sparking fresh calls for bank taxes in the budget – business live The GuardianHSBC shares dip despite quarterly profits jumping amid cost cuts Financial TimesHSBC's third-quarter revenue misses estimates, shares slide ReutersHSBC Profit Growth Misses, Plans $1 Billion Buyback WSJHSBC announces share buyback of up to $1 billion as third-quarter profit meets estimates CNBC
Budget hopes for struggling first-time buyers BBCPennycook announces raising of shared ownership income eligibility caps Housing TodayEarnings limit of up to £140K for first-time buyers loan scheme BBCAre you a first-time buyer in England? Would the government’s Your First Home scheme help you? The GuardianHealey to make more first-time buyers eligible for help The Negotiator
He allegedly said his "favourite meme" is "the one where they put my face on a Chinese dictator".
People earning from £380 a month to £150,000 a year tell the BBC what they want to see in this year's Budget.
People earning from £380 a month to £150,000 a year tell the BBC what they want to see in this year's Budget.
Figures obtained by BBC Newsnight show large spikes in sales of torches, radios and power banks.
Woman 'sexually assaulted by man who came up to her outside McDonald's 15 minutes before second victim targeted' The Sun
People in the prime minister's constituency say rising costs are squeezing household finances.
