Opinion

I am currently running my own betting book focused on the most difficult job in investment. My current front runner is Mark Fawcett, investment director for the PADA.

It was very kind of the Government to make the announcement a few weeks ago that it was going to allow product placement on television - not on the BBC of course, because God forbid the Beeb should not be seen as being impartial.

Interactive Financial Adviser

Eastern Europe has witnessed momentous changes since the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago.

The fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago marked the end of the crude and utopian communist experiment that divided Europe for over four decades.

A combination of ultra-easy monetary policy and quantitative easing has offered formidable support to the gilt market over Q3.

"I don't need a financial adviser because I don't have any money to invest," is apparently something the ex-footballer John Barnes said in an interview last year.

Journalists love art and collectibles as alternative investments - trees, pieces of art and funky hedge funds are much more fun to write about than boring old recovery funds or the passive vs active debate.

The oracle has spoken. Last week's BBC interview with Warren Buffett made for compelling watching, as much for finding out about the sage's living arrangements and lack of technology in his private office as for his views on how to run an investment portfolio....

What exactly constitutes an alternative investment? It is a question we are all struggling to answer in these volatile, highly correlated times, where everything seems so globalised and driven by liquidity flows.