Tolgart | E+ | Getty ImagesScammers are always looking at ways to separate you from your money and they are using the tax season to try and trick taxpayers into falling for various fraud schemes.With millions of Americans sharing personal and financial information, tax season is a prime time for scammers to steal not just your refund but also your identity, experts say.”Anybody can be a victim,” said Jennifer Hessing, who works as a fraud analytics director at Wells Fargo.Hessing said she experienced having someone file a tax return in her name with stolen personal information. The Internal Revenue Service…
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Image source: Getty Images Kingfisher (LSE: KGF) reported a 7% fall in full-year profit before tax (PBT) on Tuesday (25 March), and the share price promptly slumped 12% when the market opened. The home improvement retailer saw sales dip 1.5% in the year to 31 January 2025, with bottom-line adjusted earnings per share (EPS) down 5.2%. But the owner of the UK’s B&Q and Screwfix, and Castorama and Brico Depot in France, reckoned its core categories were resilient. Big-ticket spend on things like kitchens and bathrooms has been under pressure. CEO Thierry Garnier said: “Recent government budgets in the UK…
Image source: Getty Images Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (LSE: SMT) offers UK stock investors something different from the rest of the FTSE 100. The trust aims to invest in what it sees as the world’s most exceptional growth companies, regardless of where they’re located geographically. Here are five reasons why an investor might consider loading up on Scottish Mortgage shares while they’re still under £10. Solid track record The first is performance, which is what an actively managed fund is ultimately judged on. Has it outperformed the market over meaningful time periods? In the case of Scottish Mortgage, it’s delivered…
Image source: Getty Images There are good reasons why it’s worth investing from an early age. The benefits of compounding via buying UK stocks means that if someone started when they were 18, they’d have a considerable head start on the rest of us. Unfortunately, very few are financially literate at that age! Yet even from the age of 35, big things can develop over the years with consistency and discipline. Choosing where to allocate cash A lot will focus on the end goal of £1m and miss the point that to potentially hit that figure, the strategy needs to…
Image source: Getty Images M&G (LSE: MNG) has been a foundation stock in my passive income portfolio for some time now. These shares generate very high dividends for me without too much effort on my part – hence the ‘passive’ label. In fact, all I need do is pick the right shares initially and then monitor their progress periodically after that. A key quality I want in my passive income picks It is a company’s earnings growth that determines its dividend and share price over time. A risk to M&G’s is another surge in the cost-of-living crisis that may cause…
Image source: Getty Images The FTSE 100 has some incredible opportunities for investors looking to build a second income stream right now. One that leaps right out at me is insurer and asset manager Legal & General Group (LSE: LGEN). With a forecast yield of a mind-boggling 9%, it’s set to pay one of the most attractive passive income streams on the blue-chip index in 2025. While there’s plenty of dividend income on offer, share price growth has been in short supply. But after a rough few years, that’s starting to show some life too. Can this FTSE 100 dividend hero…
(Bloomberg) — Rithm Capital Corp. sold nearly $900 million of debt backed by the fees collected from homeowners when they make their mortgage payments, in what the firm said is the largest ever securitization of its kind. Most Read from Bloomberg Bond buyers finalized their orders earlier this month at a spread of 290 basis points over Treasuries. Rithm expanded the original size of the deal to accommodate more investors, according to Sanjeev Khanna, the company’s head of capital markets. The bonds are tied to rights to collect mortgage payments, known as mortgage servicing rights, and it’s only the second…
A view shows a board with the logo of Shell at the company’s fuel station in Saint Petersburg, Russia May 6, 2022. Anton Vaganov | ReutersBritish oil major Shell on Tuesday announced plans to increase shareholder returns and cut spend, as it doubles down on its liquified natural gas (LNG) push.In an announcement ahead of its Capital Markets Day 2025 event, the company said it would bolster shareholder distributions to 40-50% of cash flow from operations, up from a 30-40% range previously. It intends to stick to progressive dividends of 4% per year and to grow free cash flow per share…
Image source: Getty Images The dividend forecast is important for any investor. It tells us how much we can expect to receive in the form of typically biannual payments if we purchase shares in the company. So, today I’m looking at Lloyds. The stock has surged over the past 12 months, and as a result, the dividend yield has fallen somewhat. Looking at the forward yield — the dividend yield an investor could expect to receive based on forecasts over the next 12 months — is 4.9%. That’s quite strong compared to the FTSE 100 average, but it’s actually lower…
Image source: Getty Images Baillie Gifford is best known for the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust. However, it also operates many other trusts, including Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust (LSE:EWI). Edinburgh Worldwide is a volatile, FTSE 250-listed investment trust with significant holdings in SpaceX, quantum, and disruptive stocks. Let’s take a closer look. A concentrated portfolio Edinburgh Worldwide has a high-conviction approach, with a relatively concentrated portfolio — its top 10 holdings account for 46.2% of assets. The trust’s largest exposure is to SpaceX, representing 13.6% of the portfolio. SpaceX’s valuation has surged in recent years, driven by its dominance in the…