Archive

24 May

Posted at 07:00h in
It was a difficult first quarter for platforms with the expectation of a recession and the cost-of-living crisis dragging on sentiment and flows. Two Interest rate hikes didn’t help either. Higher interest rates are usually bad for stock markets, but markets appeared to be Teflon-coated in Q1 with the FTSE 100 up 2%, the FTSE All World and S&P 500 up 7%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq up a whopping 17%. This boosted platform assets to £880bn, although the industry’s £930bn high is still some way off.

10 May

Posted at 12:00h in
After a difficult 2022, the D2C industry had been counting on business picking up in Q1 2023. For many D2C platforms, the ISA season is when they generate most of their flows so a buoyant Q1 is critical for annual revenues. However, a perfect storm of negative factors — rapidly rising interest rates, stubbornly high inflation, the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, a wave of public sector strikes and geopolitical uncertainty —had a major impact on investor sentiment. Despite this, assets rose by 4% on the back of strong stock markets and gross sales rebounded to £11.3bn – well up on Q422, and marginally ahead of Q122 figures.

09 Mar

Posted at 08:00h in
2022 was a tough year for platforms and the final quarter of the year was no exception. Investor sentiment has been battered by a seemingly endless succession of bad news including the squeeze on living standards brought on by inflation, higher taxes, energy prices and the war in Ukraine. All this means customers and new flows are hard to come by and business levels are down. Stock market volatility meant most platforms closed the year with lower assets than they started with.

14 May

Posted at 12:00h in
A high viral load sent stock markets around the world into shock in March. As a result, there was a collective contraction in platform assets of £78bn to £633bn, an 11% drop, although this was considerably better than the ~ 25% fall suffered by stock markets worldwide.

12 Feb

Posted at 11:39h in
The PLATORM INDUSTRY is in extended lockdown as several public limited companies will be reporting their full-year results between now and 17th March 2020. We’re unable to provide individual platform data until the last PLC has reported its results. As a result, this is the first of two press releases for Q419 /2019 platform data.

13 May

Posted at 16:28h in
THERE MAY BE PROBLEMS AHEAD… By the end of March 2019, stock markets had recovered from the severe whipping they’d received in the last quarter of 2018. All major markets were home to stellar growth, with even the FTSE All Share rising by 8.3% despite Brexit concerns. The upturn pushed UK platform assets up 7.3% to £637bn, a vast improvement on Q418, but only £4bn higher than Q318’s closing balance of £633bn. Hargreaves Lansdown, D2C platform and the UK’s largest distributor, moved into pole position as the UK’s largest investment platform.

02 Dec

Posted at 11:00h in
Fundscape is pleased to announce the appointment of Gavin Fielding as Editorial Director as of November 2018. Gavin (Gav) joins Fundscape after a 27-year career at Aviva where he developed, researched and wrote about investments. His last position was that of Investment Research Manager for the Strategic Partnership division. Gavin will continue to be based in York and will be Fundscape’s representative in the North.