Fidelity International have become the first investment fund provider to launch an iPhone app, a free app dedicated to bringing you the latest fund information and news.

The app allows you to track the prices and key features of over 1,100 unit trusts, OEICs and investment trusts available through their Funds Network fund supermarket, as well as keeping up-to-date with the latest fund news and commentary from the experts.

Screenshots

On first launch, you’re presented with the latest fund news and the ability to search for funds to add to your watch list.

The search function is pretty basic, with no filters to help narrow the search when your keywords return a big list – there’s no way of filtering by fund manager, for example, which would be useful, you just have to scroll through the results to find the correct fund.

Once you have found the fund you’re after and selected it, you’ll then be presented with the fund factsheet, which shows recent prices, a graph of the performance of the fund, along with some key information, such as charges (although the TER, which gives you an idea of the annual charges levied on the fund is notably missing) and fund size. The data is sourced from MorningStar.

If you rotate your iPhone on this page, you’ll be given a bigger performance chart, and you can select the timescale shown. As an added bonus, move your finger across the screen to show the exact performance figure at that particular point in time. It looks good, but I’m not too sure how useful this particular bit of information will prove to be.

Clicking the star on the top right of the fund factsheet will add it to your watch list, which lets you monitor the prices of these funds when you next open the app.

It’s a nice little app to keep on top of your investments, but it only gives basic information and doesn’t let you truly monitor your investments as you can’t enter the number of units held.

In terms of buying the funds, each fund factsheet has a button to call Fidelity, but it’s worth considering what charges you’ll end up having to pay by going direct to Fidelity. You may find it cheaper to invest in the funds via a discount broker who should give up all their initial commission to reduce the initial charge you pay.

There’s more info about the Fidelity iPhone app at their site, and to download it for free, head over to iTunes.

Fidelity iPhone App was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

A new stock exchange might give you the chance to make (or equally, of course, lose) money betting on the performance of the latest Hollywood blockbuster.

Hollywood Stock Exchange is a new venture from Cantor Fitzgerald, a big player in US stockbroking, so although it sounds like a dubious idea, it has some big backing. The Guardian has more information:

Punters choose from a huge list of “movie stocks”, priced on the exchange according to market expectations of their box office success. Each $1 of the stock’s price represents an expected $1m in box office receipts. For example, units in Hot Tub Time Machine, a sci-fi comedy opening this weekend in the US, were trading midweek at around $72; in other words, the market expects it to gross around $72m. If you buy it at $72 and it grosses more than that, you’re in the money. If it takes less, you’re out of pocket.

So why are Cantor Fitzgerald doing this? Is it aiming to take a load of movie off gulible traders who think they know a thing or two about the movie market?

In truth, the exchange has been designed for big studios to hedge their risks, in much the same way that farmers can take out forward contracts on everything from pork bellies to orange juice. And it comes at a time when, in spite of the success of Avatar, film producers are wary of falling DVD sales (down 12% in the US last year) and illegal downloads.

Critics have suggested that this new market could be open to insider trading, but I guess that particular argument could be used against most trading (and gambling) markets.

The Hollywood Stock Exchange website is currently running in beta, with no real money involved as yet, and is currently not available to the UK market, but Cantor are hoping to change that in the near future.

I don’t think I’ll be rushing to have a go.

photo credit: Eva Luedin

Make (or Lose) Money Betting On Hollywood was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs) should be an integral part of your savings strategy, but there tends to be quite a bit of confusion about what they are and their benefits.

ISAs are not a savings or investment product in themselves, they’re a “wrapper” in which you can place savings or investments, in much the same way a pension is a wrapper for certain types of investment.  This wrapper gives the products inside the ISA its tax-free status – it’s possible to invest or save in similar products outside the ISA, but to be tax efficient you should only be doing this once you have used up your annual ISA allowance.

To confuse things further, there are various differences in the allowances depending on which of the 2 types of product (cash or equity) you decide to put in your ISA, and also depending on your age (although this will be made simpler from 6th April 2010 when all age groups will get the same allowance).

LoveMoney has some answers to 10 common ISA myths to help clear up some of the confusion.

photo credit: Iain Farrell

Confused about ISAs? Here’s 10 Facts You Need To Know was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Tomorrow (6th October) sees an increase in the ISA allowance for anyone who will be 50 or over by 5th April 2010 (the end of the current tax year).

If your birthday falls on or before 6th April 1960, you will now be able to invest up to £5,100 into a cash ISA (up from £3600), or up to as much as £10,200 (up from £7,200) in a stocks and shares ISA (you can also invest in a mix of the 2).

Those of us who will remain under the age of 50 will have to wait until the start of the next tax year (6th April 2010) until we have the same increase in our annual ISA allowance.

ISAs shelter your cash or investment gains from the taxman, and although the benefits of them can appear quite small on the surface, over time (if you’re using your annual allowance each year) the savings can mount up. And if you can find a suitable account for your savings or investment, then you should always look to put it into an ISA in the first instance to get the most from your money.

For a more in-depth look at the all the details surrounding ISAs, take a look at Five Pence Pieces guide to ISAs.

photo credit: hill.josh

ISA Allowance Increase For Over 50s was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

Strolling round our local shopping centre, as I do of a lunchtime, I stumbled across a new stand which differs from the normal ornament and cheap sunglasses stands which we’re normally treated to – and what surprised me was that this one is offering people the chance to buy and sell gold.

Gold  is going through somewhat of a renaissance at the moment.

On the one side you’ve got the companies advertising that they’ll help cash-strapped punters out by buying any gold they have lying around their house (or possibly more worryingly, lying around other people’s houses, or indeed, still attached to their appendages).

You know the sort, like the one advertised by Mr Mahogany himself, David “The Duke” Dickinson (he once went to jail, you know), waving a wad of notes around offering to pay cash to take your family heirlooms off your hands. You let them know what you’ve got, and they’ll quote you an amount to buy it from you.

Of course, although you may think the item is worth loads, a lot of the time the actual scrap value of the gold will be far less than you may value the item at yourself, and probably less than you’d have it insured for, so be prepared for a quotation below your expectations. A lot will also depend on the quality of the gold (e.g. number of carats).

And on the other side of things, gold is also returning to be seen as a “secure” investment, as every other type of investment around it disappears into oblivion and investors become disillusioned.  Whilst a little gold might not be a bad thing to have in your portfolio, it’s not something I would consider as being a core investment – it’s a pretty secure investment, but unless you’re a sophisticated investor, it’s unlikely to make you particularly rich.

I’m also not too keen on the idea of investing in something that’s being hawked outside the local Spud-U-Like.

If, like me,  you’d prefer to look elsewhere than your local shopping centre for gold bullion, here are 10 other ways to invest in gold.

Of course, the obvious next step is buying gold from a vending machine.

So would you invest in gold from a shopping centre stall? Let us know your thoughts, or indeed any gold buying or selling experiences you’ve had, in the comments below.

photo credit: BullionVault

Buy & Sell Gold… At Your Local Shopping Centre was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

This week has seen the launch of Vanguard, a US fund manager, into the U.K. market. Their entry and the arrival of its tracker funds was hoped to have set a challenge to other fund managers to make their funds cheaper to invest in – as some of Vanguard’s tracker funds charge just 0.15% per year, whereas most other fund manager’s trackers charge considerably more, with none-tracker funds charging as much as 1.5% per annum.

I used to be pretty dismissive of tracker funds, as the are generally run by computers which follow a given index, and are not actively managed by an experienced fund manager or team of people. But more recently I’ve come to appreciate that they can perfrom pretty effectively, even compared to actively managed funds. And because tracker fund charges are generally cheaper, your investment doesn’t have to perform quite as hard to get the same performance as a managed fund.

Anyway, back to Vanguard. As we mentioned, their entry into the market should have helped to highlight the high charges on other funds, however, there seems to be some confusion on how you’ll be able to invest in their funds.

Ed Bowsher at Lovemoney suggests that they’ll only be available if you buy them via an IFA - who will charge you their own fees – rather than through execution-only brokers, who tend to offer funds far cheaper than IFAs (as you get no advice as to whether the funds are suitable for you).

However, Vanguard’s website suggests that their funds will be available on the popular fund platforms (such as FundsNetwork or Cofunds), although they’re yet to reveal which ones, and the FT reckons that they’re yet to sign up with any platform.

Also, Vanguard have put a minimum investment amount of £100,000 if you’re investing with them – which will exclude the vast majority of investors, and definitely isolate themselves from any ISA investments. Yet they’re suggesting that this restriction will not apply if you’re buying through a platform (you’ll have to invest the platform’s minimum amount) – but as they’re yet to sign up to any platforms, it’s pretty academic at the moment. I’m led  to believe that negotiations with platforms have fallen down because of the charges that a platform would make – these would either cost Vanguard more than they’re making on the funds, or would eat into the margins that Vanguard has over other manager’s charges.

All-in-all, it’s a disappointing start to something that could have sent some shockwaves through the fund management industry, but hopefully Vanguard can sort the distribution confusion out and we can all have access to some extremely cheap investment funds.

Vanguard Enter UK Market With Some Confusion was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

If you’re yet to invest in an Individual Savings Account (ISA) this tax year, and you’ve got some spare money lying around that really should be earning more than it is (plus you’d like to shelter it from the clutches of the taxman), then you’re quickly running out of time to make sure you make the most of your ISA allowance.

The 2008/2009 tax year ends tomorrow (Sunday 5th April), but despite being a weekend and with the impending deadline looming, there is still a chance to make your investment. Here is some advice on last-minute ISAs from around the web:

• Midnight deadline looms large for ISA savers – The Times explains how to make the most of your allowance before the end of the tax year tomorrow night. (Via WalletPop)
• Act now – and beat the taxman – The Independent looks at all the ways you can get one over the taxman, including tips of securing your ISA.
• Last minute cash ISA offers – The FT has details on some cash ISAs.
• Deadline Sunday: Choose Your ISA in 5 Minutes By Your Personality – BitterWallet gives some ideas on choosing the right ISA.

It’s worth remembering that given timescale to beat the deadline, in most cases you’ll have to be prepared to invest online now, otherwise you’re reliant on bank/building society branches being open on a Sunday, which although it does occasionally happen at the end of the tax year, is still pretty rare.

If you don’t get chance to use up this year’s ISA allowance, don’t fret – you get a new allowance from 12.00 a.m. on Monday!

Last Minute ISA Investments: Your Available Options was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

The annual Individual Savings Account (ISA) deadline is fast approaching, and once again if you don’t sort out your ISA before 6th April, you will lose your allowance for this tax year.

Whilst this might not be of interest to the vast majority of us who are struggling to save anything, if you are one of those lucky people who can afford to worry about maximising their annual ISA allowance, even though there is only a couple of weeks left, that’s still plenty of time to choose and invest in an ISA.

With interest rates at all-time lows, most cash ISAs are only paying low rates, which is tempting some people to consider stocks & shares ISAs once again. The stock markets are obviously still very unsettled, but the thought is that over 5 to 7 years (and maybe more), which is the sort of timescale you should be looking at for investing in an ISA, then the current low level of the FTSE should allow for plenty of growth over that period. Of course, this is not guaranteed, but that’s what past evidence should suggest.

If you’ve decided to take the plunge but are unsure where to invest, you may wish to find out where the experts are investing their money in this Independent article.

photo credit: quinn.anya

ISA Deadline Approaching: Expert Investment Ideas was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

And thanks to the plunging interest rate, they’re now even less attractive, as National Savings & Investments have cut the prize fund from £60 million to £32 million, and the two monthly prizes of £1 million cut to just the one.

The truth is, Premium Bonds can be very profitable for the lucky few who win the big prizes, but most investors will find that they could earn more investing in an ISA.

More info at Economonkey

Premium Bonds Even Less Attractive Than Before was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.

A demonstration by disgruntled customers was organised for this afternoon outside HSBC’s head office – HSBC had been blamed by Wrapit’s management for exacerbating their problems by withholding debit and credit card income, although as I pointed out yesterday, the firm hadn’t made a profit in the past 6 years of trading.

It also appears that the writing had been on the wall for at least a few months for Wrapit – this Facebook group moaning about their customer service was setup in April, and has managed to gather over 700 members as of writing.

If you are affected, there’s some useful info on the Facebook page, and a site has also been setup specifically to bring affected customers together.

More On Wrapit Going Bust was originally published at Money Watch a UK personal finance blog. Sign up to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter.