Monday morning is upon us again! Therefore, before I start with our first topic of the week, I would like to wish all of our blog followers a productive and successful week!

This morning I rose early to speak with a client in Dubai (Time zones are the only thing that makes working in this industry tough). The client is a hardened property investor and has been with us for many years.

He had spent the weekend looking at our new products and felt drawn to the alternative investments we now offer. However, as with anything new, he had a lot of questions. With this in mind I thought I would start my first blog of the week explaining about alternative investments.

As our followers know, we like to post great advice and keep you posted on the products out there that can help you beat bank interest rates and get your money working for you in these tough economic times.

However......

It is Friday, here in our Spanish office we are looking at rainy skies. I have just spoken to our London office and they are also looking at rainy skies.... So I thought ‘Let’s brighten our day with a bit of fun for a Friday!’

First and foremost – let me say I have nothing against the USA.  It’s a great place.

I have friends and family there, whom I love to visit, and there are also some very cool things to do and neat places to visit in the USA.  What I don’t think the USA is – is a great place to invest.  Please - Let me explain.

The great news is that you can still achieve this kind on return from your savings AND the returns are guaranteed and insured!

I love Sundays. The office is shut, I get my one lie in for the week. My family rises and I take a stroll to pick up the Sunday papers (Yes, I have resisted the pull of reading the news on an I-pad.... I still like to feel paper between my fingers!).

When my young son settles down for a nap in the morning, my partner (both business and personal) and I sit and read the news and financial/business pages, it is our few hours of peaceful bliss!

I am finding the headlines irritating lately – It is quite rare that any good financial news is reported; even Apple’s shares are down.

We all know how fragile and volatile the markets are right now – the smallest of incidents sends the markets reeling globally.  When will the constant volatility end? Well that is anyone’s guess.

Not really the best option for any of us! Why..... Please read on!

I have come across this statement many times over the past 6 months. It does seem like a good idea doesn’t it? I mean banks are safe? They are reliable aren’t they? If I have enough savings, the interest rates will be good enough to earn me a little bit of money on my savings?

THE SIMPLE ANSWER IS NO!!!