Emergency financial situations can happen to anybody and any financial arrangement exercise is not ideal without planning for such occasions. The whole idea of having an emergency fund is to offer a cushion against any unexpected expense.
This will ensure it does not have any negative impact on your financial condition and does not rip off the whole financial security.
There are many circumstances which can cause a financial emergency such as a sudden illness, accident, medical emergencies, emergency house repairs, loss of a job, emergency car repairs and much more.
The major reason for having an emergency fund is very clear because when a person falls into an emergency financial situation, they will have to break their savings or make a compromise to get the needed money.
It’s not rare to find people who just take out their credit card and swipe it for hard cash. Opposing popular opinions, credit cards are the worst way to fund any financial emergency. The fastest way to get thousands of dollars its to get a car title loan it is not a long-term solution but a short-term solution.
In a circumstance where you’ve taken a cash advance with your credit card to get the needed money, the credit card company will charge you a cash advance fee with an interest rate. This is a very costly way to borrow and manage finances for emergency situations.
Therefore, what is the best amount that should be set aside as emergency money? There are diverse opinions on it. Some professional’s experts agree that a minimum of 3-6 months’ worth of monthly income should be set aside for an emergency situation. This amount can differ according to marital status, the size of family and lifestyle.
Everyone must reserve some extra cash in case of emergencies. But, the amount to reserve depends on your income and monthly expenses. The amount that is needed for your emergency fund is open to debate, the minimum amount should be sufficient to cover your expenses for daily living for at least 3 months. It’s also ideal to save for 6 months even though some financial advisers agree on a full year worth of cash.
These funds must be kept aside in an instrument, which is easily available when needed. It could be money in a bank account, hard cash, liquid funds or fixed deposits. This will ensure the fund is always accessible instantly or within a short period when it’s needed.
Where to Keep the Cash
Your situations and what can offer you peace of mind are the factors that can help you determine how cautious you want to be. Keep your emergency fund somewhere that is safe and accessible because you may be required to get the cash in a hurry when an emergency arises. The best option you’ve is to open a money market account or savings account. But, always examine their offer with regards to the interest rate, minimum balance, and other terms.
When you think you’ve saved enough, you can stop. You can now sleep easier and try to start placing your extra saving into higher-interest and less accessible accounts or investments.
Learn How To Accurately Predict (Judge) The Stock Market With Advanced Algorithms
It is difficult to predict stock market performance and involves a certain amount of risk. An accurate prediction could result in a significant amount of profit. The stock market is influenced by a number of factors:
News, both domestic and international
Government reports
Natural disasters
The stock market is constantly evolving and it regularly generates a huge amount of data regarding bids, buys and puts. Data scientists have found out that using Big Data mining techniques and machine learning strategies, the movements in the markets can be predicted in a matter of seconds. Earlier, experts used to employ various methods to try to predict the stock market; however, with the advent of deep learning and data science, these predictions are quicker and more accurate than ever before. This significantly increases the profits of businesses and investors alike.
What are Stock Prediction Systems?
Stock prediction systems are programs that use algorithms to predict future trends in the stock market. The algorithms used in stock prediction systems were originally used for scientific research in fields such as genetics, astronomy and quantum physics.
However, scientists soon discovered that these algorithms can be applied to stock markets as the field produces huge amounts of data and follows some sort of pattern.
The most commonly used techniques in stock market prediction include genetic algorithms (GA) and artificial neural networks (ANNs).
The use of ANN methods for stock prediction has been found to be widely successful. The ANNs predict future lows by analyzing low price and time lags, while the future highs are predicted using lagged highs. These predictions are then used to determine stop prices for buying and selling.
Benefits of using a Stock Prediction System
Predicting stock market performance is challenging and risky. There are many factors to be considered – physical factors, psychological and behavioral factors. These aspects make share prices unstable and difficult to predict accurately. However, with the use of algorithms and data science, there has been improvement in the predictions. The following are some of the benefits of using stock prediction systems:
Using ANN systems, which utilize a classification approach as opposed to a traditional quantitative output approach, produces a better predictive reliability.
Certain kinds of data which could earlier not be collected or processed, like unstructured text data, can be used for making predictions which the help of algorithms. This unstructured text data refers to news reports or public sentiment. Use of Big Data techniques makes it possible to keep track of values, opinions and behavioral patterns of people while making predictions; this means that the predictions are not based solely on technical or numerical data.
Algorithms help in speedily processing huge amounts of data that is perishable. In the stock market, conditions are constantly and rapidly changing. This means that in order to predict future events in the market, a reliable and quick system is needed. Algorithms provide this benefit. Algorithms may use pre-processed data, reducing data storage space and speeding up the calculations.
Computer Trading Systems [http://computertradingsystems.com/] offers prediction systems for stocks, IPOs, ICOs, ETF indexes, bonds, Forex currencies as well as Cryptocurrencies. We are Harvard and MIT trained and have designed advanced algorithm programs that can predict the markets in the current conditions. We can teach you how to use our systems and websites to trade and make consistent profits in the markets.
The Big ‘Lies’ About Our Economic Prospects
In the spring of 2007 I hosted a conference for a group of insurance professionals. One of the most popular speakers was my old friend the economist Roger Martin-Fagg. He was his usual entertaining self, but took everyone by surprise by suggesting that the world economy was on the brink of a meltdown the like of which we had never seen before, and it was going to happen soon – probably within 12 months. Yes, he predicted the financial crash of 2008 a year before it actually happened.
Now in Spring 2007 the world economy was doing very nicely thank you. Following three consecutive years of good growth, averaging 3.8% it was expected to fall only slightly in 2007 to 3.6%. Meanwhile the UK was doing pretty well too. House prices had risen from an average of £150,633 in January 2005 to £184,330 in May 2007 – a rise of 22.4%, whilst wages grew by an average of over 5% per annum between 2004 and 2007. Inflation on the other hand was under control and only rose by an average of 3.25% in the same period. Furthermore, between 2003 and 2007 the FTSE All Share Index grew by 49%, so overall everyone was feeling pretty optimistic about the prospects for the future. No one, other than Roger was saying anything about a recession, never mind a full blown crash!
So, when Roger issued his dire warning, the overwhelming response was to laugh it off – in the same way that we would laugh at a soothsayer predicting the end of the world. Eccentric yes, and likely to happen eventually, just not anytime soon.
You can imagine that those of us who were there in 2007 are far less likely to write off Roger’s opinions now than we would have done previously.
I was therefore pleasantly surprised, and heartened to receive his latest Economic update, penned on 16 June. Once again he is at odds with the mainstream view, and indeed is critical of others talking world economic prospects down. He opens his piece by saying that the press is being irresponsible in the way it is reporting our economic outlook. His opening paragraph reads:
“Last weekend the Daily Telegraph had a banner headline: ‘Britain’s biggest ever collapse in GDP wipes out 18 years of growth’. This statement is completely wrong. I am concerned that individuals who are trying to make the right judgement call are being fed this nonsense. To be clear: 18 years ago our GDP was £1 trillion. It is now £2.2 trillion. The reduction in spending in April was 20% on the previous April. The monthly flow of spending averages £200bn. 20% of that is £40bn. The media, as we know, impact emotion and decision taking. That Telegraph article is therefore both economically illiterate and irresponsible.”
Wow! Hard hitting stuff. And the perpetuation of such comments is still evident a week later. In the Sunday Times on 21 June Sajid Javid is quoted as saying:
“We’ve seen a 25% fall in GDP in two months. To put that in some perspective, that is 18 years of growth wiped out in two months.”
And that’s from our erstwhile Chancellor of the Exchequer, who should be anything but economically illiterate!
In his update Roger goes on to suggest that, despite what the world and his wife are saying, we are not going to have a recession. Indeed, whilst he acknowledges that quarter 2 of 2020 will be significantly negative, he expects quarter 3 to be significantly positive, and predicts that the UK economy could grow by 8.5% in 2021, with the World economy back to 2.5% growth next year too.
His argument is that the fundamentals for a recession don’t exist in the same way as they did for previous recessions; rising prices and interest rates squeezing individuals and companies alike in 1979 and 1989, and banks stopping lending in 2008. The common factor is a shortage of money available, and that’s not the case this time around. Households have seen a reduction in income, but a larger fall in what they’ve spent, and the UK Government is spending an extra £40bn a month pumping new money into the system, so no shortage here. Roger predicts a mini boom to take off in the next few months as a result of this excess cash in the system, with the only thing that could dampen it being the media reporting company closures, an increase in the R well above 1, and stories of mass redundancies.
I don’t propose to reproduce all Roger’s arguments here – you can read the whole article at https://www.ellisbates.com/news/june-2020-economic-update/ to get the complete picture, but I would say his reasoning and logic are very persuasive. And I for one would not bet against him. I also fully endorse his condemnation of sensationalist reporting in the media. They have to take more responsibility for the message they send out as, rightly or wrongly, people do listen to them. A more even handed and less melodramatic approach to reporting would benefit us all. After all, we all know the power of ‘fake news’ by now, don’t we?
Sources of data:
World Economic Situation and Prospects 2007 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.07.II.C.2), released in January 2007 accessed on 21 June 2020
Office of National Statistics UK House Price Index, accessed on 21 June 2020
Office of National Statistics Wages and Salaries average growth rate percentage, accessed on 21 June 2020
Office of National Statistics RPI All Items: Percentage change over 12 months, accessed on 21 June 2020
Swanlowpark.co.UK FTSE 100 and FTSE All-Share since 1985, accessed, on 21 June 2020
Ellis Bates Financial Advisers are independent financial advisers with offices across the United Kingdom. They manage over £1 billion of assets on behalf of clients, who have given them a 4.9/5.00 score with Trustist. https://www.ellisbates.com/about/reviews/
Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Grant_Ellis/2799973
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Difference Between Payday and Personal Loans in the UK
DEFINITION OF PERSONAL AND PAYDAY LOANS
Most people feel that payday loans and personal loans are one and the same thing, but this is not at all true. They may seem similar, but they have many big differences which set the two options at opposite poles. One should consider the credit and the amount one needs to borrow to know what one qualifies for before one applies for it.
Personal and payday loans are both useful when one requires an extra boost in finances, but this is the only similarity between them. The factors that vary are the term, cost and the amount among other different finances.
DIFFERENTIATING FACTORS
The loan amount also differs when it comes to a comparison between the two. Most banks in the UK do not lend less than 1000 pounds for a 12 month period in case of personal loans.
When it comes to cost comparison, personal ones are considerably cheaper with a maximum APR of 29.9% but one needs to have good and excellent credit. Payday loans can be usually more expensive, but it does not require any strict credit requirement.
When it comes to loan term, personal loans offer around 5 years maximum as the loan tenure. Payday have a shorter term of around two to maybe four weeks that can go upto 12 months.
When it comes to eligibility, personal loans which are offered by credit unions and banks have very strict criteria for eligibility. They generally require borrowers to have a good credit along with a fairly strong financial background. Payday loans seem much more flexible in comparison as lenders only require that the borrowers have a proper and regular source of income for qualifying.
Personal loan lenders are online lenders, banks, peer to peer lenders and credit unions whereas payday loans are offered by those lenders who specialize in check cashing services and short term lending.
PAYDAY OR SHORT TERM LOANS
Payday loans, auto title loans and instalment loans have high fees and rates which could trap a person in a debt cycle. The person could be forced to take a second or even third loan just because they couldn’t pay the first one in the stipulated time limit. Alternatives to short term loans like local resources such as local charities, government agencies and non-profits offer relatively free services for financial needs and also help with rent, food and utilities for those people who are in dire need of it.
One can also get payment extensions by talking with the concerned bill providers regarding an extension or a longer time frame or payment plan if one is behind on his or her payments. One can also take side jobs to catch up on the payment.
COST FOR EACH OPTION
The payment cost varies when it comes to payday loans versus personal loans. The interest rate that you will receive along with the terms is based on the individual’s credit history and if one has collateral or not along with the amount you borrow and the stipulated loan term.
Payday loans whereas have APRs of three or four digits (100%-1000%). The actual total cost depends on the state of living of the borrower. APR represents the yearly cost which is important to note.
DECIDING THE RIGHT TYPE OF LOAN
Deciding whether to opt for a payday loan or a personal loan depends on the amount of money that the individual intends to borrow and it also depends on the person’s credit. If one needs to borrow around 50 pounds to 1000 pounds, he or she can opt for a short term loan as personal loans require the person to borrow a minimum of 1000 pounds to around 2000 pounds.
One must also consider the time factor. Short term loans offer faster times for the turnaround when compared to personal loans as it involves less approval process. Nowadays, more and more personal loan providers are shifting online hence they have almost the same processing speeds similar to short term loans like payday loans.
Credit history is also an important factor. If the borrower has excellent credit scores, they are more likely to save money by obtaining a personal loan at lower interest when compared to a payday loan which will be available at higher cost.
The total cost of the loan depends on the borrower’s monthly payments and also depends on the total amount to be repaid which depends mostly on the interest rate. One should always compare and consider various different options and check on online calculators offered by the lender to see which mode of loan is best suitable for your needs and how much one will need to repay.
ALTERNATIVES AVAILABLE
There are many alternative options available to personal loans and payday loans which can be beneficial to the borrower. One can borrow a small sum or amount of money without the need for the borrower taking on a payday loan.
Another short term loan is an installment loan in which the borrower repays the amount in a single lump sum. Thus, personal loans and payday loans for bad credit can be beneficial only when one carefully examines which loan type is best suited for his or her needs.
One can carefully choose among personal loans for bad credit versus payday loans for bad credit depending on one’s financial status and the credit one possesses. The borrower must carefully examine the various options available and then decide which type of loan is best suited for his or her needs. Warning: Late repayment can cause you serious money problems. For more information, go to MONEYADVICESERVICE.ORG.UK